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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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According to many public surveys people in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) feel deep suspicions regarding the foreigners that settle down in these new EU members and EU candidates. More than that, locals express their unwillingness to sell properties, notably those including some land parcels to foreigners, if they would have equivalent and sufficient demand among the local population. Some say they will never sell any property to foreigners even if there isn't any alternative. Is this an exact picture of the real estate market situation in the CEE, or can we assume that this expression of xenophobia is nothing more than paying service to the dominant public sentiments without any significant consequences for the real estate transactions in this vast region?

Reminding some important facts, for many new and future EU members there are transition periods of up to 7 years in which they may impose certain additional national regulations and/or restrictions on the real estate transactions when the buyer is foreigner. After these transition periods end, all EU citizens will have the same rights to buy as the local citizens of these new EU countries. Many new and future EU citizens, when asked in different surveys, say they will never sell their properties to foreigners. Some may change their minds only if there is no alternative demand by locals. Others won't sell to foreigners at any price and under no circumstance.

We won't discuss whether such feelings may lead to cutting all foreigners completely off the real estate market in the CEE because this obviously won't happen. Even now they have almost all rights to buy almost everything that locals can buy on condition that the buyers is registered as local company, even if the real owner is foreign individual or company. In this case selling the property will look like selling to some local company, and as far as the law allows such transactions, it isn't in the seller's business to ask for any personal information regarding the buyer's nationality.

But can we say that the 'backdoor' transaction is the only practical way of buying property even after all administrative restrictions are lifted? The answer is no. The situation actually looks much rosier and will become even so. The same surveys that show increasing xenophobia show no difference between different regions in the people's sentiments toward selling properties to foreigners. We know however that there are whole regions where foreigners are considered as high value customers, especially when it comes to residential villas. As a matter of fact foreigners buy wherever they like. If there are no foreign owners in one particular region this is due to lack of foreign interest, not to any particular increase of nationalist backlash. If people tell the truth, there would have been no such transactions, at least not in such big numbers.

There are two possible solutions to this paradox. The first is that people tell one thing in the polls and do other things in the real life in order to satisfy both the dominant xenophobic public opinion and make transactions that will affect positively their private welfare. The second is that people are manipulated by small financial elites against the foreigners in order to sell their properties to locals, which later are selling the same properties to foreigners with substantial commission. Once such reselling tactics are revealed, people start to sell directly to foreigners.

Whatever the right answer is, people in CEE are selling and will sell properties to foreigners whenever they have interests to. Their current opinions won't significantly affect their behaviors as they haven't affected them in the recent years.

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