ABSTRACT
The transition from a communist to a post-communist society ushered in major changes in the housing system in Estonia. Processes and reforms connected with the decentralization of power, housing, and land privatization appeared in all Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries but each country (group of countries) has had its own specific features throughout the reform process and its own specific outcomes determined by the path dependence of specific policies and cultural patterns (Hegedüs and Tosics 1998; Pichler-Milanovich 2001). The communist system treated housing as a public asset that is not part of the market and to which every citizen should have access (Hegedüs and Tosics 1996; Kornai 1992). The principles of the system aimed at ensuring egalitarian living standards for all (Smith 1996). The extensive nationalization of private housing was launched in Estonia in 1941 soon after its incorporation into the Soviet Union. At the end of the socialist period, two-thirds of the housing stock belonged to the state. The communist system did not use term social housing because state-owned dwellings were in principle accessible to all.
