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[quote=Anonymous]Even setting aside what might happen with government employment / budgets / draining the swamp rhetoric, the Trump election has to be fairly bad for the DC housing market (my comments are for DC proper and not the burbs).

DC has benefited tremendously from the steady stream of young people moving to the city - a trend that really started after Obama's election in 2008. Recent college grads started moving to DC in bigger numbers to reverse the net domestic outmigration of the decades prior - many were young idealist who were moved by the hopey/changey things that Obama promised and wanted to answer the call for public service through direct federal environment or working for some other idealistic half brained idea/NGO/eco system that was supported by federal or do gooder priorities. These are the people who wanted to live in U Street/Columbia Heights/14th st logan circle. Cool people attract other cool people and their friends which started a virtual circle of population growth in DC. Immigration also  played part at both the high end (tech/finance/International orgs) and low end.

Again without even assuming anything around budgets or federal employment, Trump's election changes the attractiveness of the city for both young people and immigrants. I'm not really a Democrat but honestly how many 22 year olds are dying to work for Lets Make America Great Again causes/jobs (and the minority who do want to hardly have the cool factor to be a draw). Heck he can't even fill the top jobs in his own administration at the senior level much less draw throngs from across the country who want to start their professional lives in DC. Add to that he is rounding up immigrants and making it harder to obtain legal visas in tech...and you can see how migration in DC might significantly slow down.

As many have pointed out that population growth (i.e. in-migration in the case of DC) is a key driver of real estate. My guess is  the next few years young people will look to other parts of the country once they graduate college. People who have already laid down roots in DC will probably stay but the net migration trends will reverse...and by proxy property market will get softer by probably not a major correction.

For a major correction you have to add to the above scenario: real budget/agency cuts, gutting regulation (yes - additional regulations supports more bureaucracy, lawyers, paperwork that keeps the local economy humming) and simplifying the tax code (where every obscure provision supports several lobbying jobs)  - combine all this and things start to get ugly. My guess is that the recently gentrified areas get the worse of it and the more established neighborhoods in NW see a smallish negative impact.

Before anyone chews me out for creating false correlations between Obama and DC population gorwth....take a look for yourself. Slide 5 shows how clearly the 2008 was the inflection point in DC population inflows and slide 3 shows the neighborhoods that have benefitted as a result of these people moving:

https://dme.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dme/publication/attachments/Office%20of%20Planning%20Presentation%20for%20CSCTF%204%2026%2016.pdf

My advice for someone looking to buy in the district would be to wait a year or two if you can till some of these trends play out....

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