A report from the Chicago Tribune in Illinois. "'We definitely had a slowdown,' said Megan McCleary, a real estate broker with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices in Hinsdale. 'Normally, I would have five buyers at this time,' said Debi Myslicki, a real estate broker who owns Myslicki Real Estate in La Grange. 'Currently, I have only two buyers who are actively looking.'"

"But the current decline doesn’t compare to what it was like during the recession in 2008. 'Sellers aren’t giving away their homes now,' said Lina Shah, a real estate broker for Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage Oak Brook. Inventory is low. 'Fewer people are putting their homes on the market at the moment and they’re not taking any offer they get.'"

"'Where it’s really down now is for houses over $800,000,' said Laura Marquardt of Coldwell Banker Realty in Clarendon Hills."

From WFAA in Texas. "This is usually the season when houses flood the real estate market. But many potential sellers may be holding off on listing their homes because of their own financial uncertainties, their concerns that the market may be too disrupted to fetch a good price. We spoke with realtor and broker Joe Atkins, of Joe Atkins Realty, who has held leadership positions with MetroTex. With unemployment soaring and wage losses commonplace in the era of COVID-19, lenders may be more concerned than ever about your finances as you go through the loan application process. Many are now requiring things like 20% down, a credit score of at least 700 and that you have six months worth of mortgage payments saved up in reserves."

"'What if you have issues with people and their employment going forward and they can't make their payments? Banks are in the business of lending. They are not in the business of holding homes. So, they are making their guidelines stricter,' Atkins said."

The Orange County Register in California. "A routine report released Tuesday, April 28, paints a picture of a housing market that might have been, but thanks to the coronavirus outbreak, is no more. 'We started with an absolute bang, absolute gangbusters. All my listings sold with multiple offers,' said Holly Danna, an agent with Douglas Elliman in Manhattan Beach. 'Then with the pandemic, it kind of changed everything. It stopped everyone dead in their tracks.'"

"Agent Noe Blanco described a series of obstacles that surfaced in the past month mainly due to increased mortgage finance standards. Non-traditional mortgages have vanished, minimum FICO scores have gone up and lender appraisals appear to be lower than in past months, he said. 'Deals are closing, but it’s taking longer,' said Blanco, an agent who handles transactions in L.A. County and the Inland Empire. Blanco, who works from home to avoid the virus because his wife is eight-months pregnant, has yet to sell a home since the lockdown began."

"Danna said she is advising her clients not to drop their prices. 'Sellers have to dig their heels in and hold on because there are many opportunistic buyers who are going to price gouge,' she said."

From NBC 10 Boston in Massachusetts. "If you can't afford to pay your rent right now in Massachusetts, you don't have to worry about getting kicked out of your apartment during the ongoing state emergency. That's because state lawmakers hit the pause button on evictions for non-payment during the coronavirus pandemic. But property owners, especially smaller landlords, tell NBC10 Boston the law is putting them in financial limbo. 'I'm feeling a lot of uncertainty,' said Jocelyn Topolski, who owns a rental condo on the Cape. 'I have to say the anxiety factor is big.'"

"Topolski told NBC10 Boston her tenant did not send a check for April's rent. And she doesn't know how long she'll be without that cash flow. 'Landlords still have to pay taxes, property insurance, an HOA, and perhaps a mortgage. All those expenses go on,' she said."

"Doug Quattrochi is executive director of MassLandlords, a nonprofit trade association with about 1,800 members across the state. He described the legislation as 'one-sided.' The organization recently put out a survey to members and said 22% responded they don't know how they will pay their bills. Some said they plan to exit the housing business."

The Miami Herald in Florida. "Statistics show that the majority of the 55,000 South Florida renters who were already living paycheck to paycheck when the coronavirus outbreak took their jobs managed to pay at least a portion of their April rent. But as the next due date of May 1 approaches, and the state’s overloaded unemployment system struggles to keep up with snowballing demand for help, renters and their landlords are bracing for another round of financial scrambling."

"'Getting by the first month was easy, because people will do whatever they can to keep a roof over their heads,' said Enrique Teran, co-founder of Avanti Way Realty and CEO of Propfolio Management, which manages two million square feet of residential properties around South Florida for private landlords. 'But unemployment has increased dramatically. I’m expecting a decrease of 10-15 percent of payments, bringing us down to a 78 percent collection rate. This is like being in the middle of the longest hurricane we’ve ever experienced in Miami. We don’t know how this rental market is going to recover.'"

"Christopher Zoller, a broker associate with Berkshire Hathaway EWM Realty, also moonlights as a landlord, renting out 12 properties around Miami-Dade County. All of his tenants were able to pay their rent on April 1, and only one asked for a discount. 'My advice to landlords is to be kind and sympathetic, but make sure you are taking care of your business. We rely on these rent payments to pay our mortgages. The worst thing that can happen is you have a vacant property sitting on the market with no income at all. So what’s the better option: collecting 40 or 50 percent of the rent now, or collecting nothing at all?'"

From National Public Radio. "Airbnb has lost considerable appeal as the pandemic courses its way through the world, paralyzing travel. Josep Navas Masip, 44, took some time off his job as a college Spanish professor to pursue a master's degree, leaning on his Airbnb rentals in South Philadelphia to pay the bills. He even purchased a neighbor's home with the goal of doubling his $2,000-per-month Airbnb income. That was just before the pandemic struck."

"'In the middle of the renovation, the coronavirus crisis hit,' he said. 'I had to cancel my renovations, and I had to tell the contractor to stop working.'"

"Navas Masip now wonders whether he should rent out the house he just bought, or even put it up for sale.Airbnb has set aside $250 million to help hosts. But the money covers about 25% of their cancellation fees, which is a fraction of what they used to make. Airbnb also offers $5,000 grants to high-volume hosts but, under the rules, a host needs to have used the platform for at least a year. Navas Masip's time on Airbnb is just shy of that, so he does not qualify."

"'I have, now, two mortgages. I don't have any income,' Navas Masip said. 'And I don't know when I'm going to be able to start doing Airbnb again. So I'm thinking about maybe taking a loan from a family member or start talking to a bank.'"

"Janice Honeycut, 57, said she and her husband thought they'd 'recession-proofed' their retirement before the pandemic came along. They have 100 acres of land nestled right along the Appalachian Trail in eastern Tennessee. In addition to her Airbnb, she and her husband run an organic farm, a camp ground and a massage-therapy business."

"Like more than half of Airbnb hosts, the money she made from her listings was a primary source of income. No longer. 'Every single one of them, we now realize, was dependent on hospitality,' she said."

The Real Deal on New York. "Short-term rentals in a luxury high-rise — what could go wrong? Try 'nightmarish living conditions' ranging from armed robbery to harassment, according to a lawsuit by two tenants at 20 Broad Street in the Financial District. In a 54-page complaint filed Monday in New York, the disgruntled tenants at Metroloft Management’s office-to-residential conversion detailed a myriad of grievances that they largely pinned on Sonder, a hospitality startup that occupies the first eight floors."

"'Sonder is the worst kind of nightmare neighbor one could imagine,' the complaint said. 'It showed up unexpected and uninvited, trashed the place and the neighborhood, and now refuses to leave.'"

"In the complaint, the tenants claimed neither Metroloft nor a leasing agent from Bold New York told them Sonder operated in the building. Upon moving in, the complaint said, they found 'unfinished' conditions including no gas or hot water in the kitchen. But they alleged the bigger issue was the security threat posed by guests of Sonder, which is valued at more than $1 billion after raising more than $400 million from investors."

"'While Sonder is venture-capital backed and has raised several hundred million dollars to date, its business model betrays a total lack of accountability to, or concern for, the communities in which it operates,' the complaint states. 'Sonder’s guests cause a disproportionate number of issues, including but not limited to drug use, drug dealing, theft, harassment, armed robbery, and assault, all of which have occurred in the building in just under a year.'"

"In November, the complaint said, six armed men walked in the front door, rode the elevator to the ninth floor, crashed a Sonder party and 'viciously beat one of the attendees' with a gun before leaving the same way they came."

"The incident stoked fear among residents given that building staff with a special key fob can enter any residence. According to the complaint, building representatives occasionally used their fobs without permission and in some cases entered apartments 'when residents were engaged in extremely private and sensitive moments without clothes.'"

The Bend Bulletin in Oregon. "With thousands of vacation rentals and second houses in Central Oregon sitting vacant during the COVID-19 pandemic, Sunriver Police Chief Cory Darling has his officers on alert for squatters and burglars. 'We have a lot of empty homes here in Sunriver, which makes us a prime target for people coming in and wanting to do burglaries, or to live the life in Sunriver and stay in a nice home for a while,' he said."

"On April 1, the Deschutes County Commission approved an order prohibiting short-term rental stays to help slow the spread of COVID-19. The order, which ends May 15, applies to Sunriver and Black Butte Ranch, though not the cities of Bend, Redmond, Sisters and La Pine. Darling thinks people these days are more interested in squatting than stealing, but often, people who break into houses are also willing to steal from them."

"Police believe this is the case for Shawn Michael Schmaltz, who was caught after allegedly breaking into two Sunriver condos April 18. And for Deanne Claire Young and David Manzenko, who were arrested Thursday by Sunriver Police after allegedly squatting briefly in a home on Whistling Swan Lane. Schmaltz, 32, of Vancouver, Washington, was charged with two counts of first-degree burglary and one count of second-degree theft. Young, 30, of Hawaii, and Manzenko, 28, of Sacramento, California, were charged with first-degree burglary."

"Randy Parmele, who was checking on the Whistling Swan Lane home for its owner, said Young and Manzenko didn’t trash the house, but when he discovered them there, they seemed quite comfortable. 'They were cooking a meal and partying, playing music real loud,' Parmele said. 'They had just made themselves at home.'"