NEW YORK CITY—Tuesday's election of Donald Trump as president took many pundits and voters by surprise. However, in the view of Ronald Dickerman, president and founder of Madison International Realty, “we have just witnessed one of the most significant misreads of the political landscape in American history.

“People thought the Republican Party was breaking apart and Hillary Clinton was the certain victor, but what they misread was the fact that Americans are so fed up with a dysfunctional government,” he continues. “These were two very flawed candidates, but America pretty decisively chose the outsider, someone who had not been in politics for 30 years and therefore was not perceived to be part of the problem.”

Dickerman says the dysfunction between the branches of government in Washington has worried him for the past two years, more so than the situation in China, the Iranian nuclear deal or the US federal deficit. “It was a race to the bottom, and it's almost as though we had to reach the bottom before we could begin the rebuilding process,” he says.

Although “nobody knows what a Trump presidency is going to look like,” Dickerman predicts that “it's going to be better than people think.” He points out that in his acceptance speech, the President-elect was “very conciliatory. He reached across the aisle, he congratulated Hillary Clinton, and I do believe him when he says he wants to rebuild the relationships with government and with foreign countries.”

In the near term, Dickerman expects commercial real estate investors, domestic as well as foreign, to take a pause. In terms of the what's driving that pause, it's similar to the hesitancy that normally results when power passes from one party to another, “but this will be times 10, because you're talking about Donald Trump.”

Foreign investors will be especially apt to step back, Dickerman says. “I can see investors from the Middle East, who are of the Muslim faith, having some issues about what America will become under Donald Trump. Certainly, he's told China he's going to be focused on them. So I can see foreign investors taking a pause and I can see bidding pools becoming thinner.”

That being said, Dickerman notes that after falling by 600 points last night, the US stock market was up by 80 points upon opening Wednesday morning. “The markets have been open for a few hours, and there's a lot more confidence in the system now than there was at 2:00 this morning.”

GlobeSt.com spoke with Dickerman—a major investor in gateway markets on both sides of the Atlantic—by phone from London, where he's been for about a week. “It's been a fascinating view on how people in Europe and the UK are seeing the US situation, not to mention the US situation itself,” he says. “There are so many shades of Brexit and the pendulum swinging” in the Trump election.

NEW YORK CITY—Tuesday's election of Donald Trump as president took many pundits and voters by surprise. However, in the view of Ronald Dickerman, president and founder of Madison International Realty, “we have just witnessed one of the most significant misreads of the political landscape in American history.

“People thought the Republican Party was breaking apart and Hillary Clinton was the certain victor, but what they misread was the fact that Americans are so fed up with a dysfunctional government,” he continues. “These were two very flawed candidates, but America pretty decisively chose the outsider, someone who had not been in politics for 30 years and therefore was not perceived to be part of the problem.”

Dickerman says the dysfunction between the branches of government in Washington has worried him for the past two years, more so than the situation in China, the Iranian nuclear deal or the US federal deficit. “It was a race to the bottom, and it's almost as though we had to reach the bottom before we could begin the rebuilding process,” he says.

Although “nobody knows what a Trump presidency is going to look like,” Dickerman predicts that “it's going to be better than people think.” He points out that in his acceptance speech, the President-elect was “very conciliatory. He reached across the aisle, he congratulated Hillary Clinton, and I do believe him when he says he wants to rebuild the relationships with government and with foreign countries.”

In the near term, Dickerman expects commercial real estate investors, domestic as well as foreign, to take a pause. In terms of the what's driving that pause, it's similar to the hesitancy that normally results when power passes from one party to another, “but this will be times 10, because you're talking about Donald Trump.”

Foreign investors will be especially apt to step back, Dickerman says. “I can see investors from the Middle East, who are of the Muslim faith, having some issues about what America will become under Donald Trump. Certainly, he's told China he's going to be focused on them. So I can see foreign investors taking a pause and I can see bidding pools becoming thinner.”

That being said, Dickerman notes that after falling by 600 points last night, the US stock market was up by 80 points upon opening Wednesday morning. “The markets have been open for a few hours, and there's a lot more confidence in the system now than there was at 2:00 this morning.”

GlobeSt.com spoke with Dickerman—a major investor in gateway markets on both sides of the Atlantic—by phone from London, where he's been for about a week. “It's been a fascinating view on how people in Europe and the UK are seeing the US situation, not to mention the US situation itself,” he says. “There are so many shades of Brexit and the pendulum swinging” in the Trump election.