The world is still coming to terms with America’s new President elect, but what a lot of Australians want to know is what, if any, effect will Trump have at home.
At this point in time, there’s a lot of uncertainty about what Trump will do when he officially comes into office in January 2017, and this is causing trepidation when it comes to US investments.
Sure, Trump could be a successful president and he might end up having an overall positive impact on US markets, but we still don’t really know what he is capable of and foreign investors are likely to wait and see what happens before jumping into any major new ventures.
This is what happened after the Brexit was announced in the UK, however the markets there have largely recovered after initial trepidation. Though it should be noted that the Brexit hasn’t officially taken place yet.
The instability of both the UK and now the US could benefit the Australian property market because we are seen as a safe and stable economy in comparison.
In fact, even Americans themselves seem to be concerned about a Trump presidency and have already shown signs of wanting to leave the country, with the online interest in Australia properties skyrocketing after the news of a Trump victory spread.
News.com.au reported that American property website Realtor.com’s International site saw traffic hit a high of 7000 pages views the day that Trump was announced as the next President. This is up more than 500 per cent from the same time just a week before.
In the 3 days leading up the election, Realestate.com.au also saw a 21 per cent surge in property searches from US IP addresses.
According to news.com.au, Sydney was the most searched for city, followed by Adelaide and Melbourne.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, most searches came from California and New York, which are both Clinton strongholds.
Overall, while property interest might turn away from the US and benefit Australia somewhat in the short term, the long-term effects of a Trump presidency are still unknown and there could be further implications to the domestic economy that could impact the local property.
But we will have to wait and see…
