A report from WGBH. "Existing home sales fell nearly 9% in March, according to the National Association of Realtors, as millions of Americans lost their jobs to the coronavirus pandemic and millions more hunkered down to avoid getting sick. April's numbers will be released next week — and are likely to be even worse. Oliver Hoare listed his Kirkland, Washington, home for just under $1 million. Hoare says the property had received thousands of hits online from prospective buyers, and then 'three to four days after it listed, that's when the shutdown really started to happen.'"

"He accepted an offer near the asking price, but the buyer pulled out the next day. 'I would be spooked,' Hoare says. 'I work for a big travel company. Uber has laid off thousands of people. … Expedia has, Airbnb has.'"

"Vivek Sah, director of the Lied Institute for Real Estate Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas says that could change suddenly when the mortgage forbearance program that Congress passed in March comes to an end. 'It’s not going to be forever,' he says. 'So what happens in July, August? Nobody is talking about the upcoming distressed assets that will flood the market, which was the financial crisis.'"

"A few weeks after Robert Gifford and his wife put an offer on a $309,000 home in Tempe, Arizona, Gifford got furloughed from his advertising job. 'It was very nerve-wracking,' he says. 'At times — even after we decided — we’d be like, 'Are we sure about this?'"

"They moved forward with the sale nonetheless. He says they felt confident they'd budgeted well enough to live off one salary — for a while. 'I felt like if we get back on track, we’re totally fine,' says Gifford, who remembers the foreclosure crisis that crushed the Phoenix area just a decade ago. 'But if this pandemic goes on for another year, it would be a lot more than just me who’d be losing their house.'"

From KQED in California. "Real estate experts around the Bay Area knew the region’s red-hot housing market was due for a cool down, but few expected the deep freeze brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. Overnight, as shelter-in-place orders were issued, the Bay Area’s roaring housing machine ground to a halt. More than 10% of renters haven’t paid rent, and the number of homes for sale has fallen in every Bay Area market."

"We spoke to 10 real estate experts, including economists, affordable- and market-rate housing developers, and rental property owners, to hear what they predict will be in store for the Bay Area’s housing market. Carol Galante, faculty director for the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley: 'You're going to see some softening of rents, particularly in the upper end of the market, because, they're just going to want to start to lease those properties as soon as things do go back to some level of normalcy. In order to do that, they're probably going to have to make adjustments in their rents to get people to move.'"

"Mike Ghielmetti, president of Signature Development Group, a residential and commercial property developer based in Oakland: 'I think there has been a lot of supply — not near as much as needed to satisfy the housing demand — but there's been, relatively speaking, a lot of supply in the Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco, San Jose markets, which is a good thing for consumers. And there ought to be some really good deals in the next year or two.'"

"Gustavo Lopez, realtor: 'It used to be that renters were moving fast to get a place, and they were also overbidding and sometimes they were coming over [saying], 'I will pay six months in advance if I get this place.' Now, it's all the opposite, and the landlords are saying, 'Hey, I’ll give you free utilities for six months or I discount $2,000 from these rentals for three months or four months.' So, it’s that level of desperation.'"

"Sid Lakireddy, president of the California Rental Housing Association: 'New development tends to taper off in a recession, and they won't be so quick to start new housing projects. But it was that pressure release valve that was needed because the cost of construction had gotten so high, that it did not make sense for a lot of projects to be built anymore. You saw a lot of projects in San Francisco not being built right before this happened. So, yes, I think you're going to see a cooling off in construction, unfortunately, as well.'"