Even the ever-confident Barry Sternlicht doesn’t quite know what to make of a Trump presidency coupled with a Republican-led Congress.
“It’s a good time to be cautious,” the billionaire real estate executive said in a Bloomberg Television interview Tuesday at the Robin Hood Investors Conference in Brooklyn, New York, allowing that he’s “confused” these days about where to invest.
Sternlicht said he’s waiting to see Congress’s response to President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to lower corporate taxes and dramatically increase spending on infrastructure. With an unemployment rate of 4.9 percent in October, he worries that there isn’t enough skilled labor available to handle plans for stepped-up road, bridge and tunnel construction. The jolt in investment could overheat an economy that’s “pretty good” and cause it to stall, Sternlicht said. Interest rates, which already are on track to rise, may climb too fast, he said.
“We’re definitely moving to a faster-growing economy, and it’s the pace that we question because the pace will determine interest rates,” said Sternlicht, chairman of Starwood Capital Group, which oversees about $55 billion in assets, adding he has been “bullish” on the U.S. economy regardless of the election’s outcome.
Watch more, Click Here Now: Sternlicht warns of overheating the U.S. economy
For now, Sternlicht sees upside in investing in apartments, distribution centers and secondary office markets in the U.S. The increasing cost of construction makes the value of existing real estate greater, he said. In Europe, Sternlicht likes “everything about Norway and Sweden” and is bullish on real estate in Spain, including hotels, he said. Sternlicht also is trying to anticipate where large firms leaving London after Brexit will relocate, seeing those areas as possible places for investment.
“As a real estate player, you have to figure out where the money will flow, because you want to invest in those markets,” he said.
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