We had 9/11 and a pandemic and a Great Financial Crisis but none of those even came remotely close to the Spanish Flu or the Great Depression.

some more valuable data :several suburbs and smaller cities have seen significant population growth in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly those located in the South and West regions of the United States.

We had up to 13 units before the pandemic when we lost them all.

We expect a still-sizable gap between 2024 housing inventory and the pre-pandemic housing market to persist as it closes only gradually.

Inventory is now very substantially above the extreme lows seen in recent years, when inventory in the Austin area fell below 1 month (very extreme imbalance between demand and supply) for a sustained period.Here are the full stats for Austin and the greater metro:Here’s a chart showing the median sales price of a single family home in the City of Austin over the past two years:The median price for a single-family home in May 2024 was down roughly 10% from May 2022, which was the most recent pricing peak in the Austin market.For some context, here’s a chart of the median sales price of a single-family home in Austin over the past 10 years:As you can see, pricing Austin is still substantially above pre-pandemic levels.

Those numbers were something that many of us were able to pull off pre-pandemic, but it is much harder to do so now.Also, keep in mind that the “cheap houses” in the beginning can end up wiping out your cash flow with a major Cap Ex or maintenance expense.

I stopped buying in March 2020 as we didn't know how the pandemic would play out.

Tisch Center of Hospitality, has released a series of CapEx studies showing hotel capital expenditure spending has been half of pre-pandemic amounts in period 2020-2023.The impending debt crunch faced by commercial real estate over the next 18 months has also been widely reported. 

This clause is called force majeure clause (also known now as a Coronavirus clause) which accounts for what happens to the parties’ contractual obligations in the event of unforeseen events such as strike, war, or a pandemic such as the Coronavirus.

Here's the scenario -- we lived in our first home (3/1) for 15 years and during the pandemic cash-out refinanced at 2.7% 30-year fixed (have 28 years left), knowing we'd need to spend a lot to either rennovate or use as down payment if we moved.