My capex budget includes roof 25 year life span, floors 10 year life span, appliances and hot water heater 12 year life span, hvac 20 year life span, bath and kitchen remodel 20 year life span.

Although Zillow/Realtor leads are typically cold-warm, if you nurture them during this time, they could become HOT leads by late Spring/early Summer.Our market is experiencing quite a few cancelled showings and open houses which slows down our listing-to-contract conversion.

It's amazing to see what we are capable of in tough times.This is incredible insight.

Austin's hot housing market barreled through the early phase of the coronavirus pandemic unfazed in February 2020.

Thank you Chris Campeau for this incredibly detailed and insightful post. 

I know there are always good deals, but in this hot market my strategy has been to flip and build and accumulate cash and wait on the downturn.

etc.I think when people are saying that the real estate market is not affected by the virus they are meaning that downward pressure on prices and rents tend to lag behind the general market economy and so number changes would take some time to show up but you rightly point out that the buying and selling behaviour has been impacted by the social restrictions and this is very new so I agree that there is an impact albeit temporary.To respond directly to your concerns about extending - I wrote an offer yesterday and we included a hot off the press COVID-19 Addendum to the contract to mitigate the buyer's exposure if delays resulting from the disruptions caused deadlines to be missed - the traditional Purchase Contract in FL at least has a Force Majeure contingency in it but COVID-19 is not considered a Force Majeure event so you may need to consult with your agent/Attorney about how to get an extension.

My capex budget includes roof 25 year life span, floors 10 year life span, appliances and hot water heater 12 year, hvac 20 year life span, bath and kitchen remodel 20 year life span, etc.

I have around 80k to put as a down payment, so I can hopefully afford up to 360k worth of real estate, hoping for 4 doors +.I have done some research and determined the following markets to be hot, with good job growth, and possibly within budget:-Winston-Salem, NC-Pittsburgh, PA (and maybe Indiana, PA?)

Likely because of two things: 1. they're trying to curb demand a little bit as they are still overwhelmed with applications from two weeks ago when rates were crazy low; and 2. people are selling mortgage bonds like hot cakes, so the rates are going up to try to attract purchasers of those bonds.