The coronavirus has now affected all aspects of daily life, raising fears both of economic instability and of the outside world in general. It was a particularly difficult and uncertain time for real estate, with the current pandemic reshaping high-level market forces as well as the ground-level process for buying and selling properties.

Some open days have been canceled, others have new rules and some New Yorkers are heading to the suburbs to flee the city.

Brokers, buyers and sellers find it difficult to do business when things are not right. Open days are being abolished, or at least circumscribed; brokers make FaceTime apartment tours for clients who fear they will be absent. And, in the suburbs, they scramble to find short-term rentals for customers who feel the walls and everything else closing in on the city.

Given that the magnitude of the pandemic and the nature of government responses to it appear to change almost hour by hour, it will be difficult to predict exactly where things are in the housing market. However, the only thing you can count on at a time like this is to expect the unexpected.

What the real estate industry fears most is a repeat of the 2008 recession, when house prices fell 35% in Los Angeles and thousands of real estate agents were forced to leave the business. At this point, it is too early to speculate on the long-term ramifications of the pandemic or to predict which neighborhoods would be most affected if the panic continued to boil the housing market.

"What's so unfortunate about the coronavirus, besides the obvious, is the time," said Josh Flagg, a Beverly Hills real estate agent and member of the Bravo Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles series. “Generally, during the election years, the markets soften due to the uncertainty of who will take office. But take that and add four to five months of shutting down the world - well, the situation is changing."

Paul Czako, a Los Angeles residential real estate veteran, echoes these feelings. He says agents must be vigilant to protect themselves and their customers from the virus. "All open days, from brokers only [Tuesday] to public visits on Sunday, should be canceled until the virus is completely contained," he said. "But if we can't show these houses to our customers in person, we could use smartphones and FaceTime to do it."

Hohnen points out that even in a crisis like this, people still have to buy and sell homes. Even if she maintains personal contact to a minimum, she continues her work while respecting the suggested precautions. "We will all succeed together," she said with a sigh. "The market may take a break but it will come back as it always does."