A report from Bankrate. "The coronavirus pandemic has blindsided the U.S. housing market, transforming the spring selling season that’s traditionally the annual peak of sales into a deep valley. 'This industry is just doing a very slow crawl,' says Leslie Appleton-Young, chief economist at the California Association of Realtors. 'I don’t think it’ll go to zero, but over the next couple months, you’re going to see some sharp declines – 50 percent, two-thirds, maybe in that range.'"

"Douglas Wagner, director of brokerage services at Bond New York Properties in Manhattan, says he has seen many would-be sellers renovate their apartments in anticipation of the spring selling season, only to decide not to list. 'They hit the brakes and said, ‘Wait, I don’t want to be a victim of predatory buyers who are looking for a 20 percent discount,' Wagner says."

"In another sign of slowing sales, real estate companies have been cutting back. In one notable example, Seattle-based Redfin furloughed 40 percent of its 1,500 agents until September. Meanwhile, iBuyers Opendoor, Offerpad, Zillow Offers and Redfin Now have suspended their buying activity. The new breed of buyers made more than 5 percent of home purchases in such Sun Belt markets as Atlanta, Charlotte and Phoenix."

From The Motley Fool. "The online real estate specialist stopped making offers to buy homes for sale through its Zillow Offers program and began canceling contracts it already had in place to purchase houses. The Zillow Offers program was always a risky proposition for the company because it opened up the potential for Zillow to be holding large amounts of housing inventory if and when the market soured. The risk for Zillow, though, was that it required a rising housing market. Finding buyers in a down market becomes difficult, and when housing collapses, as it just did, it's all but impossible to find them."

"Zillow had 2,700 houses in its inventory at the end of the last quarter, but wanted to be buying as many as 5,000 homes a month through the iBuying program. Had it been able to ramp up Zillow Offers to that level and run on it for a while before disaster struck, it would be left holding a lot of inventory that would be costly to unwind."

The Star Tribune in Minnesota. "It’s important for homeowners to realize that the forbearance plans being announced by lenders and the federal government are 'not a ‘get out of jail free’ card from paying your mortgage,' said Julie Gugin, president of the Minnesota Homeownership Center. 'Despite the relatively simplistic nature of the messages that we’re hearing from the federal government, the nuances of how these programs are implemented underlying that are far more complex.'"

"For lenders, the big question is, 'How do I follow through and make those payments that I’m obligated to make as a lender, even when I don’t have the income coming in or mortgage payments coming in from the consumers?' said Keenan Raverty, vice president of Bell Bank Mortgage. 'That’s where you see just a pleading and an appeal by the Mortgage Bankers Association to help infuse liquidity into the industry so that we can continue on with making those payments even during a crisis like that.'"

From Bloomberg. "Almost 4% of mortgage borrowers have stopped making their payments as the coronavirus pandemic has put millions of U.S. homeowners out of work. Analysts from JPMorgan Chase & Co. wrote that the use of forbearance is likely to rise along with unemployment, and 'many servicers would be unable to sustain six months of forbearance advancements on 10% to 20% of their book.'"

"Borrowers with relatively low credit scores, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, are most likely to seek relief. Over the past two years, Ginnie Mae has guaranteed $583 billion of 30-year mortgages with FICO scores below 715, according to data compiled by Bloomberg."

The Dallas Morning News. "North Texas housing starts and new home sales surged in the first quarter of the year. Dallas-Fort Worth homebuilders started 10,581 single-family homes in the first three months of 2020 — a 25% jump from the same period last year. At the end of the March, there were 17,402 houses under construction in the D-FW area, Residential Strategies found. And there were about 7,274 finished vacant houses on the market."

"With layoffs and employee furloughs, builders are worried that some buyers who previously signed contracts to buy a house may bail out of the deals. 'Builders are scrubbing their backlogs to detect potential cancellations,' said Ted Wilson, principal with Residential Strategies. 'Everybody is concerned about what later in the summer will feel like. They don’t want to have too much finished inventory on the ground.'"

From Bisnow on California. "With the city and county taking early steps to contain the coronavirus, and with plenty of investment already underway in Oakland, SPUR Oakland Director Robert Ogilvie said he still thinks the city's long-term outlook is as strong as it has ever been. There have been some reasons for concern. Last month, Kaiser Permanente bailed out of its plan to build a new $900M HQ in the city. Likewise, Blackstone Group, citing debt-market volatility, canceled a record-breaking deal — losing $20M in the process — to buy Uptown Station earlier this month."

"Residential rents stabilizing, as they did last month, and home prices dropping as a result of a slowdown, might be what keeps more companies interested in the Bay Area, including Oakland, Ogilvie said. 'House prices are one of the things that have been driving Bay Area firms to start to grow jobs elsewhere,' he said. 'If housing becomes more affordable, that could actually lead to some job growth.'"

The Journal News in New York. "According to Brokerage firm Houlihan Lawrence, the school districts of Carmel, Mahopac and Brewster saw the highest number of single-family home sales at 76, 51 and 41, respectively. Luxury market – homes over $1 million – sales in Putnam and Dutchess counties improved on a year-over-year basis from 10 to 13 in the first quarter of 2020. The median sales price for luxury homes decreased by 47.8% on a year-over-year basis to $1.2 million."

"'The drop in listing inventory across the region indicated that consumers had heightened uncertainty about the housing market which will play out in the second quarter,' said Jonathan Miller, the author of the Douglass Elliman market reports. 'We don’t anticipate seeing a 'spring market' this year; with the outbreak of the coronavirus, that can is being kicked down the road.'"

The Dominion Post in Virginia. "Stephanie Williams and her boyfriend have been looking for their first home to buy. They have been looking for almost eight months and have made two offers on the same house. But, they were turned down. Stephanie said they’re still 'cautiously” looking for a house but realize because of COVID-19, the Morgantown area residential market is stagnant. 'Before the pandemic, it seemed the market was finally coming to life,” said Stephanie, who is employed in the financial services industry and is working with a realtor."

"'It was a long winter waiting on houses to list. Most of the houses we were interested in were pretty costly, overpriced honestly,' she said. 'However, as more houses started to list, some of the places we had our eyes on started to slightly drop in price. 'Since the pandemic, it seems like the market has frozen. There are very few new listings, and little to no change in prices,' Stephanie said. 'There’s some real fear of another housing market collapse and it’s evident in the market right now.'"

From Orlando Weekly in Florida. "The findings by Attom Data Solutions shows that housing markets in ten of Florida's 67 counties are among the 50 most vulnerable nationwide to the economic impacts of COVID-19. Most are in North and Central Florida, including Osceola, lake, Flagler, Clay and Hernando. Broward was the highest-ranking South Florida county. Homeowners dependent on rental revenue from tenants to pay their mortgages could risk their houses of cards folding, as nationally the number of renters paying rent in the first five days of April has been about 12 percent lower than in the same period in March."

"Realtors are feeling the pinch as well. With home sales 'back to levels last seen during the depths of the Great Recession,' the Orlando Business Journal reports Orlando-area Realtors are losing an estimated $689,961 in commission per day from the dip."

The St. Louis Business Journal in Missouri. "A Business Journals analysis of pricing and supply data provided by Zillow Group Inc. makes clear the COVID-19 crisis has reversed what was shaping up to be a banner year for the residential real estate sector. In St. Louis, new daily listings are down 30.4%, leaving the industry continuing to confront pesky, low housing inventory that has persisted for multiple years. However, a pair of local agents said that the slim stock is helping keep prices steady amid the coronavirus pandemic."

"'We have not seen a correlated pricing decrease yet, which I think is important to note. It’s not like people are going to come in and steal homes right now. The reason is, it goes back to our inventory. There is just limited inventory,' said Mark Gellman of the Gellman Team at Coldwell Banker Premier."

"The fallout has immediate implications for the hundreds of thousands of real estate professionals who earn much of their annual compensation during the busy spring selling season. Nationally, the Business Journals estimated the drop in home listings could equate to as much as $81 million in lost sale commissions per day for real estate brokers, with major metros such as New York ($14 million per day), Los Angeles ($4.8 million) and Chicago ($3.8 million) topping the list with the most at stake. St. Louis brokers are facing $594,740 in lost sale commissions per day."

The Bend Source on Oregon. "While the real estate market is slow, all three agents I talked to for this article said prices for mid-range houses will stay high in Central Oregon for the foreseeable future. Even in the worst of times, real estate agents can be counted on for a positive spin. 'I know several people in this town who had clients who were laid off or furloughed and their mortgage loans fell through in the last few weeks,' said Christin Hunter, a top producing agent for Windermere Real Estate – Central Oregon. 'It’s such a volatile market in the lending world; the banks have to protect themselves. But when the buyers come back, once they get their job back, it’s likely they’ll be able to access a loan again, because the banks will see they didn’t lose their job due to performance.'"

"'The best way I would describe it is hitting the pause button,' Hunter said. 'It’s too soon for prices to come down. We’ll see some downward pressure on higher-end listings, but a massive downward cycle, no way.'"

"Comparing the pandemic housing market to the deflated housing bubble of the Great Recession is apples to oranges, Hunter said. 'We’ve had a scarcity of inventory for the last several years,' Hunter said. 'There’s no way you can make up for that inventory crunch in three weeks.'"

The Wall Street Journal. "Thousands of individuals who poured money into real-estate funds aimed at small investors are now trying to pull cash out during this period of economic turmoil. Many are being told they can’t have it. These individuals invested in a type of fund known as a nontraded real-estate investment trust. Since 2013, more than $70 billion has flowed into these funds, according to Robert A. Stanger & Co. Last year alone, firms raised $11.8 billion, more than twice the volume of 2018, Stanger said."

"Since these funds don’t trade publicly, they can become highly illiquid during bad economic times, which means investors may not be able to get their money out if too many requests come at the same time. That’s what is happening now. For many small investors, their inability to cash out their shares couldn’t come at a worse time, with the economy reeling and millions joining the ranks of the unemployed. Many are only realizing now that fund managers are allowed to gate redemptions if requests hit a high-enough level."

"'That’s coming as a shock to some. They feel: 'I gave you cash. Now I want it back,' said Matthew Werner, a portfolio manager of Chilton Capital Management LLC, who follows the market. 'That’s what hurts.'"

"Some financial advisers say the current crisis has revealed the fault lines in the new breed of funds, which were marketed by many firms as vehicles that paid high returns but had lower fees, less risk and more liquidity than the old nontraded REITs. 'We fool ourselves and we keep making these mistakes over and over,' said Allan Roth, founder of Wealth Logic LLC, a financial-planning firm based in Colorado Springs, Colo."