A report from Macleans in Canada. "An unprecedented one million Canadians applied for unemployment insurance in just one week in March. Officials are bracing for four million applicants. We have moved with alarming speed past the question of whether Canada will endure a recession, and must instead now ask: How bad will it be, how long it will last and, perhaps most importantly, what comes afterwards? 'For a long time we’ve talked about what could pop a housing bubble,' says Frances Donald, chief economist with Manulife Investment Management.. 'You could pull back on the amount of people who want to buy a home, you could pull back on the amount of people who are able to buy a home, or you could see job losses. What we’re seeing now is that almost every element that could pop a housing bubble is now in place in Canada.'"

"'The economy is a big beast and it will take at least six months to a year to get everything back onto some basic footing, whatever that normal will look like now,' says Scott Terrio, manager of consumer insolvency at Hoyes Michalos. 'But for people’s personal budgets, financial time is still the same—everything is monthly or bi-weekly, or your truck payment is weekly. That doesn’t stop.'"

"At the insolvency firm where Terrio works, the vast majority of clients who come seeking debt relief during normal times are people who rent their homes, typically accounting for 93 per cent of filers. That’s dramatically shifted. Now half of those reaching out to the company are homeowners. It’s an extension of a trend Terrio began to see towards the end of last year, as the number of insolvency filings jumped 13 per cent annually, the fastest pace since the end of the Great Recession."

"'For many years Canadians have been binging on debt, and rising insolvency numbers were showing that was caving in on people,' says Terrio. '[COVID-19] has just poured kerosene on it and compressed everything that was going to happen over the next two years into a sudden crisis.'"

"'Think of all the people who bought a condo in the last two years at sky-high prices with five per cent down,' says Terrio. 'There’s going to be a lot of people going underwater, because they were so maxed out. They don’t have to sell their house just because it’s underwater, but it’s going to freak a lot of people out because their mindset was all about the free equity generated by rising prices.'"

"Before most Canadians had even heard of Wuhan or the emergence of a new coronavirus, Canada’s economy was flashing warning signs. Households were buckling under their debt loads, exports were weakening and businesses were retrenching—in the fourth quarter of 2019, the last before the novel coronavirus began to spread, Canada’s economy eked out growth of just 0.3 per cent. 'Canada’s economy was running at stall speed even before this,' says economist David Rosenberg of Rosenberg Research in Toronto, who adds the recent collapse in oil prices alone would have tipped Canada into a mini-recession."

"That is going to put Canada’s eventual recovery even more at risk, and it raises a spectre that’s loomed over Canada’s economy for years—an end to the wealth-creation machine known as the Canadian housing market."

From Domain News in Australia. "Landlords are slashing rents by hundreds of dollars a week and some are even temporarily cutting asking prices in half, in a bid to get tenants through the door as demand slows amid the coronavirus pandemic. Offers for two weeks’ free rent, seen during the market downturn, are marking a rapid return in Sydney – not only in areas with lots of new apartments, but citywide. Other properties are being advertised with significantly reduced rents for periods ranging from one to six months."

"'No one wants to [reduce rents], but it’s better to get something coming in,' said property manager Rebecca Kleiner of LJ Hooker Bondi Junction. 'A vacancy is your biggest expense at the moment.'"

"While some landlords had decided to ride out the current pull-back in renter demand, Ms Kleiner said, most were willing to reduce prices to meet the market – which was expected to feel more downward price pressure as investors put Airbnbs up for longer leases, and rentals were vacated by those who’d lost income and could return to the family home. 'A lot of our properties are a bit reduced at the moment,' she said. 'You just have to meet the market otherwise it will sit there.'"

"'It’s very, very tough to rent property at the moment,' said Sally Gillman of Shields Gillman, who has reduced the price of a two-bedroom Chatswood unit by $170 a week – for the length of the fixed term agreement which was up for negotiation. It’s still available. 'If I had [the rent] at $580 12 months ago, I would have had 15 applications and people banging down my door,' said Ms Gillman. 'As soon as I dropped [the price] I had five inquiries, but we’ve still had it for 10 days at that price and no one has taken it.'"

The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia. "The real estate industry has warned the coronavirus situation facing tenants, landlords and agents is 'a mess' as cash-strapped residents struggle to pay rent and owners face mounting costs. Real Estate Institute of Australia president Adrian Kelly said the residential industry was hoping for a rent assistance package after billions of dollars in subsidies were delivered to tourism and other coronavirus-hit sectors."

"'There's nothing specifically for real estate industries,' he said. 'The easiest way to fix this problem from our point of view is to keep rents flowing. It's a mess and it's yet to play out.'"

"The residential situation has left tenants, agents and landlords exasperated as residents attempt to negotiate their rent while owners wait for government direction before granting any concessions. Mr Kelly warned real estate agents could also be on the brink as commissions taken from rental payments dry up and property managers are let go. 'The problem is we have eight million tenants in three million rental properties. This is not going to be a small problem.'"