Just as quickly as the COVID-19 pandemic bolted across the country, that’s how fast the financing situation has changed for homebuyers. And whether the mortgage market will return to “normal” once the scourge subsides is anybody’s guess.

During the first 90 days of the year, the housing market was humming along at breakneck speed. Both existing and new home sales were up -- 5.5% for existing houses and 7% for new construction -- over the first quarter of 2019, and the money to finance those purchases was not only plentiful, but relatively cheap.

Since then, mortgage rates have slipped even lower. But lenders have tightened their underwriting rules to the point where only the best prospects -- those with the most cash for a down payment and the highest credit scores -- can qualify. And the new, stricter rules are likely to remain in place until the economy gets back on its feet -- months, or even years, from now.

By the end of April, the benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage had slid to 3.23%, according to Freddie Mac. That’s the lowest since the mortgage investor began tracking rates in 1971, and down almost a full percentage point from 4.14% a year ago. Better yet, Fannie Mae, another government-chartered investor in home loans, predicted the rate would fall below 3% by 2021’s second quarter and remain there the rest of the year.

Lower rates mean buyers can choose between more house or smaller monthly payments. But that hinges on whether they can qualify -- and only the best prospects can currently do that, because of the stiffened rules at some of the country’s largest lenders.

JPMorgan Chase has stopped taking anyone with a credit score under 700. And don’t apply at Chase if you don’t have at least a 20% down payment. First Horizon Bank has hiked its minimum credit score to 670, and no jumbo loans (mortgages above $510,400) are available there or at Wells Fargo, among others. Chase also has stopped making home equity loans.

Other lenders also have tightened, albeit “less publicly,” the Urban Institute reports. And the bipartisan think tank expects even more tightening in the weeks ahead. That would be on top of what the Mortgage Bankers Association says is an already dramatically constricting availability of credit.

A look at the unemployment and mortgage forbearance numbers shows why. As of May 21, some 38.6 million Americans had filed for unemployment benefits. That’s more than a quarter of the entire workforce, and the highest level since the Great Depression almost a century ago.

As of May 18, more than 8% of all mortgage borrowers -- an estimated 4.3 million homeowners -- are asking to be placed into a forbearance plan, meaning they can’t make their house payments and want some relief. That share among people with government-backed loans is even higher, at 10%. Furthermore, many states have banned foreclosures, at least for the time being.

The record layoffs are driving an unprecedented spike in missed rent and mortgage payments. Apartment List’s mid-May report found that 31% of households failed to make their full May rent or mortgage payments, up from 24% in April. Worse, of those who were able to make their full housing payment on time in April, 16% had yet to pay anything in May.

Frank Nothaft, chief economist at data analytics firm CoreLogic, thinks the situation will get worse before it gets better. Without additional policy efforts to help borrowers in financial distress, he estimates a “four-fold increase in the serious delinquency rate” by the second half of next year.

Consequently, most lenders are being extremely cautious. “Lenders are tightening their credit criteria to account for the higher likelihood of forbearance and delinquencies,” says Mark Fleming, chief economist at First American, a provider of title insurance and settlement services.

“While it is technically possible to buy a home without human contact,” agrees Keith Gumbinger of HSH Associates, a mortgage reporting company, “it’s still not possible to buy a house without income or when on unemployment.”

That doesn’t mean you won’t be able to find financing. Some lenders are still in the market. Movement Mortgage, a top-10 lender that closed more loans in April than during any month in its history, is actually lowering its rates as well as its minimum credit score.

Elsewhere, United Wholesale Mortgage, another major source of financing, is offering rates as low as 2.5% to borrowers who work with independent loan brokers -- but only for conventional mortgages at or below $510,400. And Angel Oak Mortgage Solutions, another wholesale lender, is back in the market with loans that don’t meet conventional standards -- as long as you have 20% down.

Whether the rest of the mortgage market will loosen up, either soon or once the virus is under control, remains to be seen. But when the all-clear is sounded, it’s a safe bet that any changes will happen slowly -- until unemployment subsides and people go back to work.

Next week: Line up financing now.

For all the personal and financial damage the coronavirus pandemic has caused, it has also given new impetus to what had been a slow-moving trend toward healthier homes. And it’s easy to see why.

As we stay at home to avoid contamination, we tend to worry -- not just about the dangers outside, but about how safe we are inside our dwellings, and what we can do to protect ourselves.

“We feel threatened about our own personal safety, as well as that of our close family members,” says behavioral psychologist Mary Campbell, who also is the mayor of Hermosa Beach, California. “And the best thing we can do is figure out how to get a handle on it. When we are in such a state, all we want is a lifeline.”

Healthy and sustainable living have been a slowly growing shift in homebuilding and community design in recent years, according to John Burns Real Estate Consulting in Irvine, California. Think community gardens, the farm-to-table movement, fitness on demand and so on.

Now, the Burns group believes the movement will lurch “into hyperspeed,” according to a recent press release, and the latest research from Green Builder Media seems to bear that out. In tracking web and social media content, the company’s research wing, Cognition Smart Data, found the number of discussions specific to health and wellness has skewed “exponentially” higher. At first, the discussions were negative, with concern about COVID-19. But now, people are talking about minimizing their risk and staying healthy.

“People are looking for ways to default to hope and optimism,” says Green Builder’s Sara Gutterman.

After the 2008 recession, energy conservation became top-of-mind and has remained there ever since, Gutterman points out. Now it’s health and welfare, and she expects the topic to remain a key focus going forward. “We didn’t go backward then, and we won’t go back this time, either,” she says.

The online discourse is taking many forms. People are talking about mental health, stress relief, telemedicine, smart technology, on-site energy production, food safety and resiliency. Searches for “calming quotes” have doubled; “stress quotes” searches have tripled.

But interest in indoor air quality has exploded. “IAQ is now as important as location to some homebuyers. Says Gutterman, “Indoor air quality has shifted quickly from ‘nice to have’ to a necessity. It’s the belle of the ball.”

Fortunately, IAQ is one thing homeowners and buyers can do something about, even if not easily or inexpensively. But if we’re serious about improving the quality of our indoor air, we can do so.

That’s a good thing, because we don’t take care of our houses nearly as well as we should, says Caroline Blazovsky, a healthy home expert. As CEO of My Healthy Home in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, she has investigated more than 30,000 houses nationwide for people with health issues. “Treat a home like a doctor treats a patient,” she advises.

Some remedies are as simple as leaving your shoes outside when you enter your house, keeping the water heater at the correct temperature, opening windows for ventilation, changing HVAC filters regularly and leaving toilet lids down, especially when you flush.

There are numerous more expensive technology solutions available, too. Everything from whole-house dehumidifiers -- humidity has a big impact on health, according to one study -- to touchless faucets, and from HVAC disinfectors to energy-recovery ventilation products. You can even buy automatic toilet seats.

But before you lay out any money, Blazovsky suggests having your house tested by a healthy home expert. “Test first, before you do anything,” she says.

At one home Blozavsky tested, for example, the owner wasn’t feeling well, but the cause was a mystery. Finally, she discovered that a person working inside the house was a horse owner, and was bringing horse proteins inside with her, triggering symptoms in the homeowner.

That’s just one way your indoor air quality can be impacted. We can bring all kinds of particles indoors with us: gasoline, dander, animal proteins, volatile organic compounds, formaldehydes, flame retardants and pesticides, to name a few.

“Our bodies are filled with a plethora of problems,” says Blazovsky. “Radon, mold, formaldehyde and high VOCs are just some that may not only be potential carcinogens, but also cause inflammation in the body.”

If you are building a new house, you should be careful about what products are going into your place. Unless your building company calls itself a healthy homebuilder -- and can prove it -- you’ll have to do your own research. Blazovsky’s advice: “Think about health and wellness holistically, and build as naturally as possible.”

“This is where the industry is going,” she says. “Sometimes buyers have more knowledge than their builders.”

Talk to green-building consultants, builders and architects, and start asking questions. Also, check out groups such as the Healthy Building Network and the Energy and Environmental Building Alliance, and look online for residential environmental consultants.

Title companies are pulling out all the stops to get deals closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. But they say the best way to close -- not just during the outbreak, but moving forward -- is electronically.

Specifically, title firms are backing what they call remote online notarization -- RON, for short.

Typically, closing documents are papers that must be signed in front of a notary public. Notaries ensure the signatures on documents are authentic, and that the signer knows what he or she is signing and does so voluntarily -- thus helping prevent fraud and forgeries.

Around the turn of the century, federal and state laws began authorizing the use of electronic signatures. But the states were slow to implement and approve the technology. It wasn’t until 2011 that Virginia became the first state to OK remote electronic notarization.

Two years ago, the National Association of Secretaries of State, a group of officials from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories, gave the movement a needed push by adopting nationwide standards for online notarization.

Meanwhile, at the federal level, a bipartisan federal bill to enact a consistent RON standard has been introduced, but has yet to gain any traction, according to Kobie Pruitt of the Mortgage Bankers Association. And that has implications of its own.

“The absence of a single federal law, along with state efforts to create emergency orders to permit loan closings, has created a mismatch of rules across the country for the use of remote online notarization,” says the MBA’s Rick Hill. This leaves befuddled investors like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to figure out what’s permissible on their own.

To date, according to NASS, 38 states have authorized some form of e-notarization, which they call REN, or remote e-notarization. But only 23 promote the practice, and perhaps half of those are still writing their rules and regulations.

Because of the coronavirus, though, several states have issued emergency orders temporarily permitting remote notarization. But until other states move forward, some title companies are doing all they can to make the closing as safe and easy as possible during the pandemic.

And make no mistake, title companies are busy -- though mostly with refinancings. “Business has been off the charts,” says Patrick Stone of WFG National Title. In the last 30 days, though, settlements with homebuyers have “dropped off significantly,” Stone says.

When there is an in-person closing, Stone says that WFG title agents are “making every effort to minimize personal contact.” Others are doing the same.

Those efforts include cleaning and sanitizing closing rooms, wearing gloves and masks, providing hand sanitizer, using only brand-new pens at each closing, and even putting up Plexiglas walls with holes at the bottom so papers can be pushed back and forth. They are also pursuing what Stone calls AVON, or audio-visual online notarization. But Stone would prefer to go full-bore with RON.

So would Allan Pollack of OpenClose, a loan-origination software company. “RON was never more important than today,” he says. “The old way of doing business has changed.”

Fidelity National Financial, the country’s largest title insurance company, is launching what it calls a “comprehensive digital closing experience” with a platform that brings buyers and sellers into the process prior to the actual closing. It uses digital signature technology that allows for certain documents to be signed in advance, in areas where RON is permitted.

Some closing outfits have become even more creative. Some are going to people’s residences to get the job done; others are performing curbside closings similar to the curbside pickups being offered by restaurants.

Cook & James is doing both. Prior to the crisis, the Georgia law firm was doing “at home” closings. “It doesn’t matter if it is at home, at your office or even at your favorite happy hour spot,” reads the firm’s website. “As long as we have access to a power outlet and a cell signal, we’re good to go.”

Now, it’s doing curbside settlements. Drive up to one of the firm’s two Atlanta-area offices and a masked and gloved attorney will bring the documents and a fresh pen to your car window. Clients wait in their cars while the masked agent goes back and forth from office to vehicle.

Another Georgia company uses two traffic lanes: one for buyers, the other for sellers. Others are closing deals while keeping a safe distance from clients on porches, patios and driveways.

NewDay USA, a major lender to veterans and servicemembers, now allows some documents to be signed electronically at home on the borrower’s computer. But the five most important documents are delivered to the front door by a notary. As long as you can be seen signing them, they are verified and notarized from a safe distance.

Notarize, a platform for digital notarizations -- which saw its business jump four-fold in March and has $23 billion in real estate transactions ordered for April, according to one report -- is trying to hire 1,000 notaries in Florida, Nevada, Texas and Virginia.

And in Chicago, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices is using “Zero Touch” video signing to close sales through its affiliated title company.