As summer rental deposits come due this spring, the 2020 season is a landscape of question marks for Martha’s Vineyard vacationers and homeowners alike.

“We are seeing lots of questions and concerns from our tenants and our owners,” said Anne Mayhew of Sandpiper Rentals in Edgartown, which handled close to 1,000 seasonal leases on the Island last year.

“We’ve even had a couple of owners who have concerns about people in their house,” she said.

Tenants want to know what will happen with the Vineyard’s beaches, restaurants and transportation, Ms. Mayhew and other rental agents told the Gazette this week. None of these questions can be readily answered until state and local officials issue further guidance and rules on pandemic control measures in public places.

“Right now, we are saying it’s a little early yet. We need to wait and see what’s going to happen,” Ms. Mayhew said.

Joan and Jeff Talmadge, co-owners of Wellesley-based WeNeedAVacation.com, said after a strong start earlier this year, both inquiries and bookings are down significantly for the Cape and Islands homes they represent, including about 460 properties on the Vineyard.

“Going into this [pandemic], things were doing pretty well. We were up,” Mr. Talmadge said.

“It looked like hey, another good summer, until all hell broke loose.”

From March 14 to April 28, he said, overall Cape and Islands bookings were down 69 per cent over the same period last year and Vineyard bookings were down 77 per cent.

“The Vineyard and Nantucket are both doing more poorly than the Cape,” he said. “I suspect that has to do with the added complexity of the ferries.”

Homeowners also are worried, Ms. Talmadge said.

“We’re seeing and hearing from a lot of anxious homeowners who aren’t sure what the summer is going to be like,” she said. “I think everybody is starting to realize that it’s not going to be a normal summer.”

Elizabeth Weeden, who represents the company on Martha’s Vineyard, said some homeowners already were dropping out of the rental market after the short-term rental tax went into effect last year on stays shorter than 31 days.

“It’s kind of a tough one-two punch between the lodging tax last year and . . . this year,” she said.

Julie Flanders, owner of Flanders Real Estate in Chilmark, said out of about 280 rentals her office arranges yearly, five cancellations have come in over the past few weeks.

Some of the canceling tenants are seniors concerned about infection, Ms. Flanders said, while another lease was for staff housing for a company that is scaling back.

“All the homeowners have been very amiable so far,” she said. “Everybody’s either refunded the deposit or turned it over to the 2021 rental season.”

Ms. Talmadge said the owners she works with have been similarly accommodating when it comes to rental deposits, the balances of which are usually due 30 to 60 days before the tenancy begins.

“There are a lot of homeowners who are understanding and they are advising their renters — we call them guests — to hold off on sending the balance until we know a little bit more,” she said.

“I think that there’s a great deal of compassion that’s required here on the part of homeowners,” Ms. Talmadge added.

“There could be elderly people in their party who were advised not to travel. They could be out of a job. Some vacationers have been furloughed from their job, and when they get it back they’ve been told not to take a vacation this summer,” she said.

But Ms. Talmadge and other rental agents are holding out hope for a rebound — not to the usual jam-packed Martha’s Vineyard season, but an Island summer nonetheless.

“I think it might be more like a summer in the late 1970s,” said Ms. Flanders, a third-generation real estate broker who has known some of her clients all her life.

“They’ve been coming for 50 years,” she said. “I believe they will follow the rules.”

While Sandpiper has seen some tenants push their rentals to 2021, Ms. Mayhew said bookings are still coming in and the Massachusetts Association of Realtors has drafted a Covid-19 cancellation addendum for leases.

“It gives the tenant confidence [they will] get their money back if they’re not able to travel,” she said.

None of the area rental agencies or Airbnb, which has about 150 listings for longer-term rentals on the Vineyard, has issued any mandatory requirements for cleaning and sanitizing rental homes, but Ms. Mayhew said the owners she works with are receiving a cleaning checklist developed in consultation with the Vacation Rental Managers Association.

“It’s a templated checklist they can get started with and tailored to their house, asking the cleaner to complete it and leave a signed copy in the rental,” Ms. Mayhew said.

“That’s what we’re requesting.”

Ms. Mayhew also recommends homeowners streamline the contents of their rental homes, given that everything has to be cleaned.

“You really want to consolidate and think about what’s going to be needed,” she said, adding that kitchens will need to be well-equipped because more people will likely be cooking at home.

But homeowners may not have to conduct the deep cleaning too frequently this season: More than one agent said she is seeing an uptick in requests for longer-term stays.

“A lot of people just don’t think that a week is going to be enough,” Ms. Talmadge said.

“If their kids are out of school and if camps are canceled and they want to get outside of their four walls, they want to go away for longer.

“We’re thinking that’s not a bad thing.”