Springtime in the United States looks a whole lot different this year. No kids playing on playgrounds or filing into classrooms. No groups of friends sitting at sidewalk cafes to enjoy the warmer weather. Beaches and public parks? Roped off.

But few areas are more altered than the process of home buying and selling. In some places, real estate agents can’t even visit a client’s house until stay-at-home orders are lifted.

Since it became apparent that COVID-19 was spreading across the United States, many of the usual spring sellers have opted to hold off listing their properties—whether real estate has been deemed an essential business in their state or not.

“There’s a noticeable change in inventory and market behavior in general,” says Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers & Consulting.

Although news of the deadly pandemic spreading across Asia had been coming in for weeks, for many Americans the threat didn’t become real until many states closed schools and businesses and instituted stay-at-home rules in early to mid-March. Today, the inventory of homes for sale is down all across the United States, from Portland, ME, to Portland, OR.