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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.
Global Real Estate Project
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Israel: Real Estate and ImmigrationAs the peace process is important for the political future of Israel as a democratic country, the immigration plays some role in the real estate market development of the country. Although the housing prices in the country don't reflect exactly the level of influx of new immigrants or the outflow of existing population, they partly determine the general framework within which the market trends are3 developing. In this respect the 1990's were foolish years on the market following the more than 500,000 new arrivals from the republics of the former Soviet Union. On the other hand, the market drop in late 2002 and most of 2003 reflected the decreased number of new immigrants since the turn of the century and the noticeable reverse trend of emigration toward better places. These days the Israel PM Sharon made again headlines in the local press with his idea to bring in Israel about 1 million new immigrants from different countries. This isn't the first time he makes such proposals. He has promised some time ago the same numbers of new immigrants without paying attention to the fact that the actual trends on the immigration front are quite opposite. The major problem for all these projects with little touch with reality is that during the second half of 20th century Israel immigration policy has been distinguished by its emphasis on the so-called "distress immigrants". This means that the majority of the new arrivals came from countries where they were previously subjected to repeated persecution; in some European countries they were close to complete extermination. For them going to Israel was a matter of personal security, although it's doubtful whether they are now more secure in Israel than if they have stayed in Europe. The last big wave of immigration, from the former Soviet Union some 10-15 years ago, was example of such trend of "distressed immigrants", for quite long time denied even dreaming about visiting their relatives in Israel. In general, the Jews from the rich countries, for whom the immigration could have been a matter of choice, not of life-or-death dilemma, didn't respond in mass to the appeal to move to Israel. Only an estimated 100,000 U.S. Jews have moved to Israel after 1948 and reportedly 30-50% of them have returned to the United States. Even with the ethnic tensions now growing in France, the local Jews with some emigration mood consider the United States as their first option. With the EU becoming reality they can choose to settle in other European countries with less anti-Semitic popular sentiments instead of migrating overseas. The Latin American Jewish emigration potential from Argentina and Brazil is conditioned on the economic development of these two countries. The same goes to Russia and Ukraine, where we can see a process of returning of some Jews who have moved to Israel in the early 1990's. Thus the immigration to and emigration from Israel, which play role on the real estate market, appear to be result not only of the Israel domestic policy, both economic and political, but also of the situation in many different countries, which don't follow one pattern. Save some new growth of the Russian and Ukrainian anti-Semitism we can assume that the flow to and from these countries to Israel has so far been stabilized. Which means that Sharon's plan to increase the country's population is not very realistic, to say the least, and with this such scenario for heating the domestic housing market is also unrealistic. There are although other ways to push up the housing market and some of them already begin to be felt, which is reflected in the higher prices since the beginning of this year. One is purely political and it has something to do with the eventual withdrawal of some Israel settlements from the occupied territories. For example there are some 20,000 Jewish settlers on Golan Heights, some 5,000 in Gaza Strip, and some 10,000 in the West Bank, not mentioning 177,000 in East Jerusalem. All of them without perhaps those living in East Jerusalem will have to return to Israel proper as part of peace deals with Palestinians and Syria. Almost all of these settlers are fervent Jewish nationalists and they will hardly choose to move outside Israel. The most probable scenario is that they will push up the demand for existing housing facilities in Israel, pushing up the rents and prices. So far, especially after the Hamas' leader assassination, such peace agreement seems more distant than ever, but some partial withdrawals in the next 1-2 year couldn't be excluded, especially from Gaza. Just to remind that the political agreement of 1993 was also reached after intensive period of violence and Palestinian uprising. --------
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See also the directory of companies providing real estate services in, and general real estate information of Israel.
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