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As expected, the November election was a showdown. The pollsters predicted that Hillary Clinton had a 90 percent chance of winning the election, and somehow, surprising all of the pollsters, Donald Trump emerged as the winner.

While Oregon didn’t follow the voting trend, we are still wondering what this means for commercial real estate? Well, we’ve probably never had a President who has as much personal investment in commercial real estate doing well as Donald Trump does. He owns a lot of commercial property, and if the market goes south, he’s going to take a big hit with his personal wealth.

 

But how much control will Donald Trump really have over what happens in commercial real estate? Whenever we have a presidential election, the media can make it sound as if the president will be in control of everything including the economy after they’re elected, but in reality this just isn’t true. There are so many other factors involved, including Congress, the state of the economy, the lending market, the actions of The Federal Reserve, and people’s expectations about what the future will bring that will all be coming into play here, too. So while people may sometimes want the president to have more control over the economy, and the president may want this, too, there are simply too many factors involved for the president to be completely in control.

 

But with Donald Trump now having been elected, his Republican Party now has control of both houses of Congress also, and this will likely make things easier for him.

 

So what then determines how well our commercial real estate market will be doing? The supply and demand for commercial properties, how businesses are doing locally, the state of the local economy, and the availability of good financing along with good interest rates are all factors that will help to determine all of this. So in keeping this in mind, how much will Donald Trump be able to impact all of these arenas? His election as our president is getting many people to believe that better times are ahead for business and commercial real estate, but in reality, there is just not a lot that he can impact directly.

 

If he exudes both confidence and a take-charge attitude in making things happen in both business and in commercial real estate, this can help to stimulate the market toward even higher levels. As an example, Ronald Reagan exuded great confidence with where he would guide us to as a nation in coming out of tough economic times, and this helped him to stimulate us in moving toward living within a better economy. But this positive, take-charge attitude can’t do it all alone, and we need other positive economic factors to be moving in the right direction, too.

 

So while Donald Trump may exude the right kind of attitude toward stimulating both business and commercial real estate, his ability to work along with Congress to create the positive changes that will stimulate our economy, along with having the additional economic factors just mentioned all moving in the right direction, will ultimately determine how well our commercial real estate market will be performing.

On a personal note, thanks to everyone who at supported Tiffany Jones’ family and our staff through this loss.