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NEW YORK CITY-Several days after the election I spent a week abroad meeting with foreigners, who are either real estate investors in the US or wish to be. In 26 meetings in a week, I was constantly asked the same question: how bad was the damage from Sandy?  

To foreign investors, the barrage of news reports about the devastation to the northeast from Sandy was the most important item that anyone wanted to discuss rather than the affect of the presidential election that occurred more recently than Sandy.  From these discussions, two things became very apparent: there is a tremendous appetite for investments in the northeast, especially in and around New York City, Washington and Boston, and news reports from the US are examined in incredible detail for any sign of what may happen.  

Interestingly, the focus was not on the presidential election, the affect of continued political standoff in Washington or the fiscal cliff, but rather whether Sandy permanently damaged the infrastructure or office buildings, hospitality properties, retail and multifamily properties in the northeast.

Going abroad to meet with real estate investors, I had expected the discussion to center around cap rates, interest rates, Fed monetary policy, the strength of the dollar versus other currencies or, perhaps the likelihood that the US would follow Europe back into a recession, but it was not.

The discussion was about the affect of a storm; true, a super storm, but a storm nevertheless.  When I asked about the view of the US abroad, during a lengthy meeting with the head of a major investment bank in the Mideast, I was advised quite matter of factly, that they continued to invest in US real estate even after Lehman crashed because they assumed that even if the US went into the recession first, the US would be the first one out of the recession and the resilience of the US economy would cause it to ultimately come out stronger. He, too, wanted to know about the situation in New York City, Washington DC, Boston and Chicago (not really part of the northeast).  

It appears that, notwithstanding, our perception of the problems in the US, to the investors with whom I met, the US in general, and the northeast in particular, is a safe haven in times of global, economic uncertainty, so the concern is over the weather.

I also inquired about the relatively low cap rates we are presently seeing and was advised that the general consensus is that QE-2 and QE-3 and extremely low interest rates mixed with reduced construction since 2008, will result in prices continuing to increase.  

In the two weeks after my return, these investors have contacted me about a number of deals that they want to do, some of them to close before year end, so the sellers can obtain the benefit of the current US tax law. It certainly appears that it will be a Merry Christmas and a Happy Chanukah for property owners in the northeast. 

Stuart Saft is a partner at Holland & Knight in New York City. He can be reached at [email protected]. The views expressed here are the authors' own.