Scott Van Voorhis

Short-term, the Brits and their boneheaded and oh-so-Trumpian vote to give the finger to the European Union could give a surprise boost Greater Boston’s booming real estate market.

Stock market returns are looking volatile at best in the wake of Brexit. And the Boston area’s soaring values – from home prices to land to towers – is shaping up as a haven for investors seeking a relatively safe and profitable alternative.

But look ahead several months or a year or two, and the crystal ball starts to get cloudy, with the political and economic turmoil unleashed by Brexit bad news for a world economy already stalled. The increasingly uncertain economic outlook, in turn, is bad news for the Hub’s epic boom, especially for developers pushing mega projects that are not even close to kicking off construction.

Boston’s ambitious plans to replace the crumbling Winthrop Square garage with a skyscraper could very well wind up the chief victim of the ill economic winds unleashed by the U.K.’s monumental Brexit folly. Other big projects still on the runway are also looking more vulnerable today than they did a couple weeks ago, including Texas developer Hines’ plans to build a tower over South Station and Don Chiofaro’s proposal to put up twin towers where the old Aquarium garage now stands.

First, the good news. While world markets took a beating in the first two days post Brexit, stocks in U.S. real estate giants like Boston Properties weathered the storm well.

Lower borrowing rates combined with soaring office rents will only further pad profit margins at the big real estate investment trusts. Moreover, intensifying global economic uncertainty is likely to further a fuel the “flight to quality” that is pumping billions into real estate across the U.S.

For Chinese and Middle Eastern investors, the bevy of office and luxury residential towers taking shape in Boston and across the country represent a lucrative safe haven in which to park their cash in uncertain times.

But look beyond this short-term adrenaline rush and the picture gets a lot less rosy, especially if your project is moving its way ever so slowly through Boston City Hall’s cumbersome review process.

Storm Clouds Loom

For starters, bankers were already getting skittish about the tower boom – especially the profusion of luxury rental high-rises – as early as last summer. No one wants to be holding the loan on of these new, gold-plated towers once the economy turns and the real estate market cools.

Brexit probably hasn’t helped reassure all those hand-wringing lenders, who are only likely to get more cautious if the economic growth numbers, already slowing, start to cool further in the next few months.

So far Brexit’s biggest blow has been psychological, with the shock of the U.K.’s vote sending global markets initially plunging, with a longer period of uncertainty looming ahead as the Brits start the long process of breaking away from Europe.

However, that uncertainty could very well cause businesses and consumers alike in the U.K. to put a hold on spending – making a recession there a self-fulfilling prophecy. That will only add to the Chinese slowdown and the mounting global economic woes that have been buffeting the U.S.

Of course, we have our own version of Brexit looming with the presidential race and the possibility that a manipulative, ignorant and spectacularly ill-qualified narcissist could actually get elected to our nation’s highest office.

Business spending and investment already typically slows in the months before a presidential election and Trump, as he blabbers about unleashing a global trade war, will only intensify those trends.

Simply put, the longer-term economic forecast is shrouded with uncertainty, and that can’t be good news for projects like Winthrop Square that won’t be ready to break ground for at least another year, if not longer.

Six different developers are vying for the chance to build what could easily be a billion-dollar-plus tower, offering anywhere from $50 million to more than $150 million for the decrepit city garage and the valuable lot underneath. One developer even threw in a school.

The Boston Redevelopment Authority plans to pick a winner this summer, but that’s hardly the end of the story. The winning bidder will then have to slog through the city approval process, which could easily take us into next summer. That’s a long way off, especially given the crazy times we live in and other, unexpected economic shocks that may be looming in the months ahead.

Maybe it’s all happy talk and roses ahead for mega projects like Winthrop Square. But more likely Brexit is just one of a growing number of signs that the current real estate and economic cycle is starting to turn.

And if that’s the case, we will have to look to the 2020s now before anything gets at Winthrop Square, and probably at a number of big project sites across Boston.