And now we have an election here where candidates rail against Wall St and people like you. While I believe the Republicans will win easily as Hilary becomes closer to being indicted not just for her criminal acts with email, but also for taking bribes through the Canadian foundation, and the Democrats are left to scramble for a viable candidate. Trump is an ego maniac with a long record of bankruptcies and defaults, and screwing people. He has a string of failed ventures like the west side railyards and the casinos, and he really makes his money by royalties and not paying those he owes. He will not get the nomination. But who will is still not clear.

So wherever you look nothing is clear. Anything could happen and some bad things will happen until Obama is out of office. When I talk to my rich investor friends, and wealth managers, the one word I hear is everyone is risk off in a major way. Finding risk capital for new projects will be much harder. Getting higher leverage for deals will be much harder. Real estate values are already too high and values now will start to level or decline. The stock market will be highly volatile all year and there will be much less capital available for CRE. Investors will sit on cash.

Hotels will start to see a decline in revpar and NOI this year. The rosy forecasts of the hotel industry pundits at the recent investor conference were all pie in the sky hype. Hotel values have risen to bubble territory and the level is not sustainable. In several markets Airbnb is now causing real downward pressure on rates.

All in all, 2016 is a year to be a seller and wait for the next downturn to be a buyer again.

Everywhere I go virtually everyone says they have no idea where the economy goes from here, nor where real estate values go from here. On the positive side banks are in excellent shape, at least the big banks who have bulked up their capital and worked through their bad loan portfolios. Underwriting for everything is tougher so the chance there will be another rash of bad loans is low for the moment. Corporations are mostly sitting on a lot of cash, and profits are still good. Consumers are mostly reducing debt or banking their energy savings. Their balance sheets are stronger than they have been maybe for a couple of decades. There is enormous amounts of cash on the sidelines. Overall, the US is in good shape vs the rest of the world.

However, capital markets are very negative, nobody is sure what the Fed may do, but the dollar is already too high and another raise now would push it up further. There are several countries which are on the verge of default on their US dollar denominated debt, and serious economic collapse as a result of the rise of the dollar, and the falloff the price of oil. There is a real chance of serious economic dislocation in many areas of the world if the dollar were to rise more. China will continue to experience serious economic dislocation and slowdown. Many small and midsized companies there are in default to their lenders and there is little that is going to improve that situation for a long time. The yuan is overvalued, but the government is not going to let it fall if it can prevent it. While they have $3 trillion of reserves, that can get dissipated quickly if they have to defend the yuan and try to rebuild the economy all at the same time. China also has a major demographic problem of aging people, and no adequate social support system for the 400 million old people. China has a long way to go and it will take years. That means it will be a long road to see oil prices rise substantially, commodity prices will remain weak, and the chanced of sovereign defaults for countries living off supplying China will rise, especially if the dollar rises.

Russia, Brazil, Venezuela and other nations are is virtual economic collapse. Latin America cannot tolerate much more economic pressure from these large countries. It will be years and a major revolution in regimes, before Latin America revives. Civil war in Venezuela and Brazil is not out of the realm of possible. How Putin reacts to the economic collapse of Russia is unknown and it is very possible he may step up foreign military interventions to deflect from the domestic problems. His involvement in Syria is increasing, and it is looking like he may step up military threats in Europe.

Then we have the middle east where Obama has completely abandoned our allies and ignored all the advice of the generals and the CIA as to what is required to defeat the terrorists. His and Hilary's disastrous policies in the region and Libya have created the refugee crisis in Europe which will have negative impacts for years to come on the European economy and social fabric. You cannot dump 1 million Muslims into Europe over night and think they will simply be assimilated and absorbed. There will be cultural and economic fallout and many more terror threats making Europe more risky as a place to invest in long term assets. Europe has many years to go before it has a true economic recovery.

And now we have an election here where candidates rail against Wall St and people like you. While I believe the Republicans will win easily as Hilary becomes closer to being indicted not just for her criminal acts with email, but also for taking bribes through the Canadian foundation, and the Democrats are left to scramble for a viable candidate. Trump is an ego maniac with a long record of bankruptcies and defaults, and screwing people. He has a string of failed ventures like the west side railyards and the casinos, and he really makes his money by royalties and not paying those he owes. He will not get the nomination. But who will is still not clear.

So wherever you look nothing is clear. Anything could happen and some bad things will happen until Obama is out of office. When I talk to my rich investor friends, and wealth managers, the one word I hear is everyone is risk off in a major way. Finding risk capital for new projects will be much harder. Getting higher leverage for deals will be much harder. Real estate values are already too high and values now will start to level or decline. The stock market will be highly volatile all year and there will be much less capital available for CRE. Investors will sit on cash.

Hotels will start to see a decline in revpar and NOI this year. The rosy forecasts of the hotel industry pundits at the recent investor conference were all pie in the sky hype. Hotel values have risen to bubble territory and the level is not sustainable. In several markets Airbnb is now causing real downward pressure on rates.

All in all, 2016 is a year to be a seller and wait for the next downturn to be a buyer again.