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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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Usually it's to the younger generations that people confer their hopes for the future. They are supposed to be those that bring new ideas, adapt faster to new technologies, and reach new frontiers of knowledge. But that isn't always the case. Sometimes older generations can too change the way we think and act. They may too as in the real estate market in Canada be driving force of the future that everyone should pay attention to.

This generation has been a special interest to the social researchers even before this generation knew something about the life. The baby boomers' generation changed everything around by the sheer fact that they outnumbered any other generation that lived before and most probably would outnumber the generations that would come next. More kindergartens, more schools, more spaces in the colleges, more spaces in the universities, and more jobs, they need all this. Now when they approach their retirement, and some have already entered their golden years, they will need more special assistance and more special housing. For the politicians this new social expenditures may sound like nightmare, but for some businesspersons this may open bright new opportunities.

Some not so developed countries still measure the living space in square meters, wrongly assuming that the housing needs are equally satisfied no matter what kind of structure people live in. In fact not only the urban researchers and realtors, but the ordinary persons too have noticed that different generations and different family situation groups tend to look for different kind of properties even if the differences in their budgets tend to be minimal. Expressions like "This area isn't for kids", "Here I feel like in the middle of nowhere", "Good for work but miserable for small pleasures", or "Too much traffic" just reflect the priorities among some of the typical customers.

Suburban kind of civilization, this interesting and modern symbiosis between urban occupations and rural lifestyle, has developed in North America after the WWII and in Western Europe one generation later. Since then for the middle class the norm became to be born in a quiet suburban area, to have their college and university years in former working or low middle class urban areas near the campuses turned in the meantime into student housings, to raise children in similarly quiet suburban area and to dream about the day after the retirement.

The first big wave of retirement has already begun. What we have experienced in the recent years although is a modest first sign of the trends that may influence our lives for many years ahead. The real estate market in Canada goes up and down, but the numbers hide the fact that the baby boomers are increasingly becoming major player on the market. After months of relative stagnation in giving new building permits the market is again on the rise. This time the building permits aren't predominantly given for houses but for multiple residential projects. And, not a big surprise, many of these new condominiums are marketed exclusively for active people after retirement. This market segment has nothing to worry about the rising bank interest rates. The only thing to do is to exchange their old houses for new luxury apartments. Or at least they think it's easy to do so.

That although may become tricky to accomplish given the fact that to buy they have first to sell their old properties. The new house buyers will have to look for mortgage loans and this is the precise moment when the rising interest rates may block the market. Higher rates, less demand for loans, less sales of houses, less demands for luxury condominiums, all these transactions are interconnected. It isn't surprising that the new condo projects are often built in near proximity to old suburban communities. It isn't surprising too that the prices the developers ask are quite similar to the prices the old house owners are expected to ask in their turn in order to make exchange without asking for additional loans.

There are so many suburban residential areas in most cities in North America built in the last 50 years that the new youngsters will have a hard time to absorb all these properties. Some cities with fast growing and younger population won't have this problem, but many with less favorable demographic structure will have. Depending on how well the cities solve this problem we may expect that some of them will have 30-50 years of bright economic future and some will fall into a relative economic decline.

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