If you look at the headlines, you will see article after article written about the state of the real estate market amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Headlines will declare the spring homebuying season DOA, incite panic among commercial real estate owners who won’t see rent paid, and cause the Average Joe to worry that 2020 will see a throwback to the 2008 Great Recession.

Throughout much of the COVID-19 discussion, we’ve emphasized just how uncharted this territory is. In so many ways, we just don’t know where things will go from here and how deeply and truly the pandemic will affect not just real estate investing, but all areas of life, work, and recreation.

Rarely do we encounter an event that has such far-reaching, worldwide effects. In so many cases, these large events — be they political or economical — impact us in abstract ways more than personal ones. With COVID-19 taking its toll on our communities in very personal, visible ways, it’s easy to slip into panic and fear.

As we approach the end of the first quarter of 2020, it’s time to evaluate the performance of the U.S. real estate market thus far. Not only do we need to review what has happened, but we need to take a look at the factors that may impact the market moving forward. Though as passive investors we subscribe to the buy-and-hold strategy, we can’t make the mistake of ignoring the state of the market.

We’re now several weeks into 2020, and with so many predictions about a real estate crash over the holidays and in the new year, we’re left wondering: is a crash coming at all? We know that there’s only limited stock one can put in real estate market predictions. The facts point to a few things:

Real estate experts far and wide seem yet to have come to a real consensus about what we can expect from the real estate market as we start a new decade in 2020. It’s true, there are several conflicting factors that could see the real estate market go either way. It’s a mixed bag on whether we’ll see a boom or a bust, if 2020 will be more of the same or if we’ll see some radical shifts in the market.