A clinical social worker in her 60s had long dreamed of downsizing from her sprawling suburban Tudor to a petite, low-upkeep condo in a pristine gated community. She was convinced the summer of 2020 would be the ideal time to make this exciting transition happen.

But that was before COVID-19 and before her two daughters -- one a graduating college senior, and the other a young professional who lost her marketing job -- moved back home unexpectedly. Now her transition is on hold indefinitely.

“I hate waiting. But I’m also horrified at the thought of putting my girls out on the street,” the social worker says.

The other reason she’s postponing is that due to economic uncertainty, she worries her Tudor wouldn’t fetch as high a price as it would during a more robust economy.

For the social worker in this true story, the decision to delay her sale is more of an emotional than financial choice. But despite the recession, real estate specialists are surprisingly optimistic home prices will remain stable in many neighborhoods. The reason? A severe shortage of available properties.

“The supply of homes for sale declined even more dramatically than homebuyer demand in April,” says Taylor Marr, a lead economist at Redfin (redfin.com), the national real estate brokerage.

Indeed, Marr says many affordable housing markets are continuing to see “sizable price gains.” Moreover, owners who are postponing their sales are further worsening the housing shortage, especially in areas where a strong job base has kept up buyer demand.

Take the case of Virginia Beach, Virginia, which is located near several military bases. There employment remains stable and “houses are flying off the market,” says Renee Joseph, a real estate agent who’s worked in the area since 2007.

Joseph says that everywhere in the nation, in strong markets as well as weak ones, aspiring downsizers with “boomerang children” living at home face special challenges should they decide to sell during the pandemic. One issue is that many grown kids returning to the family nest bring with them lots of belongings, including bulky furnishings.

“All that clutter can make your house look small and sell for less money. Until your house sells, you have to put all that extra stuff in your garage or a storage unit,” she says.

When your property is shown to prospective buyers, it’s also critically important that every member of the family -- including the grown kids--leave the place until the buyers have departed. That’s a given in any market but it’s all the more vital during a time when everyone is acutely fearful of transmitting the virus.

“One great thing about the current market is the availability of virtual home tours, which are truly amazing but also expensive to do,” Joseph says.

Here are a few pointers for wannabe downsizers considering a sale despite grown offspring who’ve returned to the nest:

-- Weigh the idea of providing a temporary rent subsidy.

Given the level of difficulty confronting many young people trying to gain or regain lost ground in the current job market, it can be a jarring transition if they’re jettisoned from the family home without sufficient funds to cover their own housing costs.

Should you help them pay for the costs of renting their own place? Tom Early, an independent real estate broker, says that might be a realistic way to proceed with your home sale without fear your offspring could become homeless.

“Not everyone can afford to help their kids pay rent for their own place. But if you have ample funds, this could be the best solution for all concerned,” says Early, a past president of the National Association of Exclusive Buyer Agents (naeba.org).

-- Consider buying an investment property where your kids could live short-term.

Clearly, many parents are money-strapped as they head toward retirement, which is the reason they must liquidate a large family home.

But retiring parents who have extra funds might consider purchasing a small investment property where their offspring can live for a limited period until they’re on their feet financially, says Donna Goings, a veteran real estate broker affiliated with the Residential Real Estate Council (crs.com).

She recommends that anyone considering this plan make sure their kids know the place is for their short-term use only and will likely be converted to a rental property in a few years.

Interested in the idea? Then search for a place that should be easily rentable in the future, perhaps because it’s located near a university where student housing is always in demand.

-- Don’t feel guilty about downsizing to protect your retirement assets.

By the time parents reach their late 50s or early 60s, Goings says they need to focus much more intensely on their own finances rather than subsidizing their grown children.

“At a certain stage, people have to get on with their own lives,” she says.

If you have a grown child or two living with you yet you need to move soon for financial reasons, it might be feasible for the offspring to also move to the new place, assuming you’ll have sufficient space there. But in that case, Goings says it’s wise to charge them at least a minimal level of rent -- proportional to what they can currently afford.

“The best thing you can do for your kids is to see that they get on their own two feet so they’ll develop the skills for independence,” she says.

(To contact Ellen James Martin, email her at ellenjamesmartin@gmail.com.)

Real estate experts say when it comes to this year’s housing market, some potential sellers are in a much stronger position than others, depending in large measure on where their property is located.

“I think it’s a tale of two economies now,” says Glenn Kelman, the chief executive officer of Redfin, the Seattle-based real estate company that tracks markets all over the country.

Given the COVID-19 pandemic, Kelman says the locational preferences of homebuyers are now shifting dramatically -- a trend he expects to endure for months and perhaps years ahead. Broader acceptance of “virtualization,” which involves telecommuting from home offices, favors For Sale properties in popular suburban or small city settings.

“I’m really worried about the big cities,” says Kelman, who says online search traffic shows that relatively few buyers now aspire to live in densely populated urban areas where coronavirus cases have been numerous. Transaction data from major cities like New York and San Francisco are proving notable examples. Also hurting big city markets is their high housing prices.

The good news for wannabe sellers in favored suburban communities is that pent-up demand there is still outstripping the supply of available homes, which should prove a strong assist for owners who wish to sell later in 2020 or early next year.

Jan Brito, a Washington, D.C.-area real estate broker, says suburban sellers with homes that have large yards and are located close to solid schools are currently faring well.

Are you a homeowner considering a sale before the pandemic clears? If so, these few pointers could prove helpful:

-- Check out the supply-demand ratio for your neighborhood.

Before setting your price and timing your sale, you need to know if values are rising, falling or holding steady in your community, says Eric Tyson, a personal finance specialist and co-author of “House Selling for Dummies.”

“You need to determine if you’re living in one of those micro markets that’s holding up nicely,” Tyson says. He says news reports on real estate often understate wide neighborhood-to-neighborhood variations.

“I’ve always objected to that one-size-fits-all view of real estate. It’s very important to know what’s going on in your particular community. But don’t rely solely on anecdotal reports. Numbers can speak louder than words,” he says.

To assess the overall trend for your neighborhood, you need to look at closed sales going back at least five years.

“Track median prices for all the homes sold in your area. But don’t bother tracking average sale prices, because they can be very affected by the mix of homes sold at any given time,” Tyson says.

By noting changes in values over multiple years, you can evaluate the relative strength of your market and how aggressive you can be on pricing.

“When you’re making big decisions on when to sell and how much to ask, there’s no substitute for good trend data,” Tyson says.

-- Ask local real estate agents about recent closed sales in your area.

You may believe your neighborhood is an exceptional micro market that’s stayed strong despite economic turmoil in the country. But before putting a price on your property, Tyson recommends you solicit the views of three experienced real estate agents who’ve long worked your area.

Prior to settling on a listing agent among the three candidates, he says you should ask all three to justify their opinions on your home’s current value.

“Ask them to go over recent comparable sales in your community, telling you why your place is worth more or less than the ones that have sold,” he says.

If two of the three agents say your community is going through a lackluster period for sales, yet the third is enthusiastic about an upturn, Tyson says you should be skeptical about the optimist’s views.

“Most people are inclined to hire the agent who has the most positive position on valuations in their market. But that’s not always a good idea,” he says.

-- Price your place fairly rather than boldly.

Real estate specialists say that within every metropolitan area there are now micro markets where values are staying strong. But they caution against overconfidence at a time when many buyers are anticipating an erosion in property values.

Tyson says wishful thinking about their neighborhood can cause owners to overprice. That, in turn, can mean a home sits unsold for a lengthy period, resulting in a “stale property” that will ultimately go at a deeper discount than would otherwise have been necessary had it been priced realistically from the outset.

“Affordability remains a huge issue especially for young buyers still in the household formation stage. Even if you live in an attractive enclave, don’t fall into the trap of appearing greedy, which is a big mistake,” he says.

(To contact Ellen James Martin, email her at ellenjamesmartin@gmail.com.)

On his 70th birthday in January, a doctor who specializes in geriatrics finally retired and fulfilled his long-standing wish for waterfront living. He bought a townhouse in Annapolis, Maryland, and put his Washington, D.C., colonial up for sale the same day.

The doctor loves the new place. But given the COVID-19 outbreak that hit his area in March, he’s increasingly nervous about his unsold colonial, which has yet to attract any offers. In hindsight, he wishes he hadn’t tried to “test the market” with a high price when his home first went up for sale back in January.

Dorcas Helfant, the broker-owner of several Coldwell Banker real estate offices in Virginia, doesn’t know the doctor in this true story. But she says it’s almost never wise to seek an above-market price, especially during a time of economic upheaval like the current one.

“What you want is precision pricing from the outset that’s based on solid data and not hunches or wishful thinking. People who try to push their price at the beginning are often punished later with deflated proceeds or a delayed sale,” says Helfant, a past president of the National Association of Realtors (realtor.org).

Why does hanging too high a price tag on a property at the outset often lead to disappointment for sellers later? The reason is that the current generation of buyers do extensive online research on listings and can easily spot an overpriced listing when it first surfaces.

Danielle Hale, the chief economist at Realtor.com, a real estate listings website owned by the News Corp., says that early this year, home prices were strong until the economy took a dive due to the pandemic. But at this point, she says it's unclear how pricing will evolve in coming months.

“Just how significantly the housing market is impacted by the pandemic will depend on how effective the country is at containing the virus and how the economy responds. If all goes well, we could see buyers returning to the market aggressively this summer to make up for the spring they lost,” Hale says.

But at Seattle-based Zillow (Zillow.com), which tracks real estate markets throughout the U.S., chief economist Svenja Gudell forecasts that the nation’s economic issues have already put a damper on home prices, though only to a limited degree.

“Buyer demand and healthy housing market dynamics will prevent U.S. home prices from dropping more than 2% to 3%,” Gudell says.

Are you a homeowner who plans to sell later this year but fear making errors during a period of economic uncertainty? If so, these few pointers could prove helpful:

-- Consider hiring an experienced appraiser to help judge your home’s value.

These days, pricing is complicated, especially in communities where properties are widely varied. In all areas, an examination of recent sales of similar homes -- known as “comparables” -- helps listing agents provide accurate pricing recommendations.

In normal times, when home prices are generally stable, experienced real estate pros who regularly sell property in your area are sufficiently skilled at using comps to make sound pricing judgments. But Fred Meyer, a real estate broker who sells homes around Harvard University, says that during uncertain times, it could be worth it for sellers to consult a real estate appraiser to also assist with pricing guidance.

“Appraisers are very meticulous in using data to adjust comparable sales to come up with a realistic conclusion on value. For example, they’d know how much to knock off the value of your property if your bathrooms are dated versus another nearby house with newly renovated bathrooms,” says Meyer, who also provides appraisal services in Massachusetts.

-- Avoid taking your frustrations out on your listing agent.

Kathy Zimmerman, a longtime Wisconsin real estate agent who sells property through Re/Max, says that at times of economic uncertainty -- when homes are taking slightly longer than usual to sell -- some frustrated sellers begin to pressure their listing agents.

Zimmerman cautions sellers to “remember that it’s counterproductive to blame the agent for what are essentially market-wide conditions. It could hurt you in the end if you become a very high-maintenance client,” she says.

-- Release your anxieties with a cleaning blitz.

Zimmerman has sold homes for more than three decades, and during that time she’s observed a gradual decline in the cleanliness of properties shown for sale. All too often, she says, dual-income couples lack the time or energy to keep a home as clean as their parents’ generation did. Yet during the COVID-19 era, buyers hanker more than ever to own a spotless, well-kept place where they can get a fresh start.

Anxious homeowners who fear their property won’t sell would do well to re-channel some of their nervous energy into an old-fashioned cleaning campaign that covers every inch of their property. Showing a home in sparkling condition can give you a competitive edge over less-tidy people trying to sell in the same neighborhood.

(To contact Ellen James Martin, email her at ellenjamesmartin@gmail.com.)