A report from CBC in Canada. "When the pandemic hit Ontario, Kristina Barybina's income as a real estate agent dried up and she knew the writing was on the wall — she'd have to sell her own house. She also knew there'd be a penalty for getting out of her five-year mortgage with TD Bank early — she just wasn't expecting it to be almost $30,000. 'I thought my eyes were going to pop out,' said Barybina. 'It's insane.'"

"Barybina says she had considered selling her home before. She put it on the market in November, then took it off when no buyers expressed interest. But by mid-March, she says, selling her house became a necessity, not a choice. Almost overnight, the real estate agent based in East Gwillimbury — 50 kilometres north of Toronto — lost all her clients. 'People are not listing,' she said. 'And nobody knows when the end of it is coming.'"

"Compounding her problems, two tenants who had been renting rooms in her house moved home to be with their families. Income from a mortgage-helper Airbnb suite also dried up. Scrambling to look after her elderly mother, who lives with her, and a 12-year-old son, the single mother says she started taking medication for anxiety. 'They're perfectly within their rights under the agreement, but we're in a pandemic,' she said. 'I'm not selling this house because I love to move.'"

The Huffington Post on Canada. "While new home sales in Toronto took a tumble last month, recently finished investor-owned condos in the city’s rental market have also been seeing negative numbers as a result of COVID-19. Authored by TorontoRentals.com and Bullpen Research & Consulting, the report explained that units in several freshly finished condo buildings have seen between $200 to $600 in monthly negative cash flow, based on local listing data."

"'This pandemic could have a real impact on the supply of new housing in the GTA in the long term, as missed payments by tenants and lower rents could have many investors rethinking future pre-construction condo purchases,' explained Ben Myers, president of Bullpen Research & Consulting."

The Times of London in the UK. "Fiona Chow is down more than £3,000 in rent. The tenants of her three-bedroom cottage in Hertfordshire moved out in mid-March and lockdown has left Fiona, 41, struggling to find new ones. The mother of one, who lives in Cheshire and works in PR, has a buy-to-let mortgage on the house, and while she has been able to use her savings to meet the £1,000 monthly repayments, she admits that it has been a struggle."

"She thought about applying for a mortgage holiday, but decided against it because she would still incur interest. Fiona is also worried that her insurance premium will increase if the property has been vacant for 90 days. 'There’s no movement in the market — it makes you feel very powerless,' she said."

"Many buy-to-let landlords are in a similar situation. If the market continues in a similar vein, with supply outweighing demand, landlords will be forced to reduce their rent."

The Daily Mail. "Australians are being urged to avoid buying property in suburbs where the majority of residents are renters - and have also been warned about off-the-plan purchases. It ranges from the demographics of an area to avoiding off-the-plan apartments, with data showing sharp prices falls in pockets of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. At Bowen Hills, in Brisbane's inner north, 80 per cent of residents are renters, going by Census data. Median unit prices there plunged 13 per cent in five years, falling from $504,666 in 2014 to $438,482 in 2019, CoreLogic data showed."

"Bowen Hills has a glut of off-the-plan apartments. So does Sydney Olympic Park, the home of the cracking, two-year-old Opal Tower, where 66 per cent of residents are renters. In this pocket of western Sydney, median unit prices went backwards, falling from $721,192 in 2014 to $719,516 last year."

"In Melbourne's city centre, mid-point unit prices at Docklands have fallen by 6.1 per cent, from $624,115 in 2014 to $585,925 last year, in an area with a glut of off-the-plan apartments. Michael Yardney, the director of Metropole Property Strategists said off-the-plan apartment investments were particularly risky. 'More investors in off the plan high rise apartments have lost money than have made money,' he said. 'Of course there are all those investors sitting on the apartments which are continuing to fall in value, but they haven't crystallised their loss yet.'"

From ABC News in Australia. "Peter Giutronich decided it was time to sell his family home of three decades in Sydney's eastern suburbs and downsize. 'The biggest driver for us now is we have plans for the future,' he said. 'We sell this, then we can get on with them. We don't sell this, then those plans are put off.'"

"The day Mr Giutronich's house was meant to go to auction was supposed to be the busiest Saturday ever for Sydney's property market. More than 1,200 auctions were set to go under the hammer in the city on April 4, but Mr Giutronich and hundreds of other vendors pulled the pin. More than half of the properties scheduled for auction in April were withdrawn."

"It was a response to the Government banning of onsite auctions. It was also a hint of what was to come: months of uncertainty for homeowners across Australia's property market. Although he has now put the property back on the market, Mr Giutronich knows there has been a big shift in the power dynamic."

"'When I put it on the market, I thought I was, as a seller, in the box seat, and now really the buyer's got most of the power in that relationship,' he said."

"Mr Giutronich and his wife bought in Bronte 33 years ago and slowly renovated the home while raising three kids. Now empty-nesters, the pair had hoped to downsize to a smaller property and use the capital to fund their retirement and prop up their super balances. 'What I get for this house has a significant impact on those calculations,' Mr Giutronich said."

"After listing the home in March, two weeks into the campaign, auctions were banned. The couple took the property off the market and postponed the sale for six weeks. They have since relisted the home as a private sale. They plan to wait another month to see where the market is heading, but say their expectations have fallen from what they were in March by about 5-7 per cent."