More and more buyers are placing offers on houses they’ve never visited in person -- the most on record, according to a new report. And the trend is likely to continue as people try to work around the pandemic, and a worsening shortage of houses for sale, while still trying to take advantage of super-low mortgage rates.

It’s still rare that the entire sales process is completed without the buyer actually ever setting foot in the house. But technology is such that it can be done if you are so inclined.

However, buying sight-unseen doesn’t mean you have to go into the transaction blindfolded. There are several ways you can protect yourself against the possibility the house you’re after isn’t what you thought it was -- even if you’ve taken several virtual tours of the place.

One surefire step is to make certain your offer contains a contingency that allows you to have a professional home inspector of your choice go over the house before closing. Many buyers are waiving this, and other key protections, in an effort to beat out competitors vying for the same house. But when you make an offer before seeing the place, an inspection clause is even more important.

Los Angeles buyer Gladys Sanchez, who is planning to go to closing without seeing her choice firsthand, was able to get out of one contract when the inspection turned up a faulty electrical panel. Sanchez considered the problem a deal-breaker, and the inspection contingency allowed her to call off the transaction.

Still, Sanchez -- buying online because she lives with a sister who is immunocompromised -- hasn’t given up on the process. “I never would have chosen to buy a house this way,” she told pollsters from Redfin. “But I’d rather take a risk with my home purchase than take a risk with my family’s health.”

New Yorker Brian Olasov also put in an offer on a house he had never viewed in person. He put a lot of faith in his wife, who had seen the place firsthand, as well as his local real estate agent and a trusted friend who took him on a Facetime tour. But in the end, he relied most heavily on his inspector.

“I’m very, very prudent and conservative. The notion of buying a home sight-unseen is an anathema to me,” he said in a phone interview, adding that he hired the pickiest inspector he could find. “And because he was extremely busy, I paid twice his normal fee. But that’s still a very small cost when you’re looking at such a big purchase.”

As it was, Olasov received a 50-page report from his inspector, including a 1 1/2-page punch list of things needing attention. The seller agreed to repair every item.

Still, some sellers don’t like the idea of taking their homes off the market for a buyer who has never seen their places.

“If buyers are peeing their pants so badly that they have to sign a contract sight-unseen, they should shoulder the risk,” says Virginia broker David Rathgeber. “Why should the seller take his home off the market for a month or so when a buyer can suddenly decide, ‘Oh, I want to see it,’ goes to see it and cancels the contract?”

To counteract that argument, agree to visit and inspect the house within a short period -- say, seven to 10 days. On the flip side, sellers should insist on such a clause if the buyer wants to visit and inspect the place before closing.

It’s also a good idea for buyers to check out the house’s neighborhood. You may not be able to go inside the house, but you can drive around the community to get a feel for where you hope to reside.

“I always, always, always show (clients) around the neighborhood,” says Redfin’s Lindsay Katz, who is Sanchez’s agent. She even goes so far as turning off any lights in her vehicle so they can see the house in the natural light, and opening the car windows to hear any street noise.

“If there are issues with the inside of a house, they can get those fixed, but they can’t fix a neighborhood,” Katz warns.

If you are moving from outside the area and cannot visit in person, use your local agent as your eyes, advises California agent Tracy McLaughlin, who has sold a number of homes sight-unseen over the years.

To get a sense of the neighborhood, the agent should begin her camera tour “blocks down the street from the house, so there is a sense of the whole,” McLaughlin says. And once inside, the agent should be sure the camera angles include the scale of ceiling heights and how much light there is in the house.

During the tour, says Danielle Parent, a Redfin agent in Cleveland, the agent should be pointing out things the camera misses, such as foundation cracks and the condition and age of the roof and windows. And the agent should advise you of the condition of surrounding houses so you will know if your neighbors take pride in ownership.

Orlando Redfin agent Juan Castro says he hasn’t seen many sight-unseen offers fall apart. But when they do, he said, it’s “usually because of the community or the location of the house.” For example, the place backs up to a highway or a shopping center.

In that regard, Parent says you can do a lot of homework from afar: Look at maps of the area, check out the local school system, locate grocery stores and other key amenities, order an environmental report to make sure there are no issues such as airplane noise, and study the history of appreciation for the house you want to buy, as well as similar nearby properties.

With mortgage rates falling below 3% for the first time in five decades, would-be homebuyers are chomping at the bit to get out there and find new places. But when they finally do jump off the sidelines, they’re likely to find slim pickings.

At the current sales pace, for example, Austin, Texas, had less than two months’ worth of houses on the market at the end of May, according to Texas A&M’s Real Estate Center. And despite a slight pickup in new listings in Northern Virginia in June, active listings were still down nearly 33% from the same month a year ago.

Nationally, according to the National Association of Realtors, inventory was off almost 19% in May. But the Redfin brokerage chain said active listings are down 27% from a year ago in the markets its agents work. And as of mid-July, Realtor.com, NAR’s official listing site, showed inventory down 32% from the same time in 2019.

“Homebuyers are frustrated because they’re just not seeing a lot they want to buy,” says Irma Jalifi, a Redfin agent in Houston, who recently had two clients throw up their hands in disgust and stop looking.

Chris Ann Cleland with Long and Foster has found the same. “The level of frustration” for buyers in her Virginia market is “through the roof,” she reports.

The natural result from all this? Bidding wars, where buyers compete for the few house that are left for sale. “So many buyers for every listing that comes up on the market means that there are often five or more buyers knocking each other out to win the home,” says Cleland.

Clever Real Estate, a buyer-agent matching service, says that since the pandemic began, 43% of all buyers have had competition. Of those, 18% had lost out on at least one house before finding another.

Last week, this column discussed how sellers lucky enough to see more than one offer should handle the situation. We also covered what would-be buyers should do about financing. Now, here are some more tips for buyers looking for a competitive advantage:

-- No strings attached. If cleanliness is next to godliness, then a “clean” offer is godlike in the eyes of sellers. So remove every contingency you can possibly live without. Conditioning the deal on the sale of your current house, for example, is the kiss of death.

If you feel confident enough, you can even waive the appraisal contingency. But realize that without that protection, if the valuation comes in low, you’ll have to make up the difference in cash between the agreed-upon selling price and the appraised value.

Agents have differing opinions on waiving the inspection clause. Some think it’s OK, but others say it’s too dangerous. It’s your choice. But if you want an inspection, line up your inspector in advance and offer to get it done fast -- say, in five days instead of the usual 10 -- so the house isn’t off the market too long.

Another possibility: Agree that only major problems -- roof issues, for example, or faulty HVAC syetems -- would be deal-breakers. This eliminates raising the red flag over minor issues such as sticky sliding glass doors.

-- You’ll take it. Offer to take the place “as-is.” You can still stipulate that you want the place inspected, and cancel the deal if the exam uncovers something major you find unacceptable. But other than that, once the inspection period expires, you’re all-in.

-- Speed is of the essence. Some sellers want out as soon as humanly possible, so offer to close quickly, perhaps within 24 hours. Of course, that’s not possible; it takes several days to prepare the closing papers. But the offer to settle the next day tells the seller you’re ready to go.

A quick close is “worth money and peace of mind” to many sellers, says Linda Walters of Sage Realty in Pennsylvania.

“Lengthy contract periods tend to make sellers nervous, since their period of risk is longer,” says Ed Corbett of Keller Williams Realty in Atlanta.

-- Go long. Other sellers might have a much longer time frame in mind. So instead of a quick deal, offer to hold off the closing for 90 days instead of the usual 30 or 45.

-- Add a personal touch. Write a heartfelt letter telling the seller who you are, why you love the property and how you will cherish it as your own. Write it by hand, and include a photo of your family. Corny? You bet. But sometimes it works.

-- Think big. A typical earnest money deposit is 1% of the purchase price, so offer more. This gets the sellers’ attention, shows them you have the financial wherewithal to follow through and demonstrates that you are serious. Or make the deposit nonrefundable -- but applicable to the purchase price -- after the inspection period expires.

-- Back at ya. To make their move less stressful, offer to allow the sellers to stay on after the closing. You can charge them rent, perhaps based on a percentage of your house payment. If you are really feeling magnanimous, let them stay for free to clean up loose ends for 30 days or so.

-- Pay to play. Offer to pay some of the seller’s moving expenses. If it’s a vacation house, offer to allow the sellers to come back and use their former vacation property at predetermined times every year.

-- Hang tough. If your contract isn’t accepted, ask to remain as a backup in case the other deal falls through. More than 1 in 4 contracts fail to close, so yours could be next in line.

Would-be buyers who venture forth over the next several months are likely to find the number of houses for sale so sparse that they’ll end up bidding against each other for the best properties.

Bidding wars are great for sellers, because they often drive prices far higher. But they’re tough on buyers, who must decide between offering more than they want to spend -- or can realistically afford -- or losing the place to someone else. Not only that, but they have to make up their minds fast.

Bidding wars occur when the inventory of houses is low and demand is high. And because of the pandemic, owners have been reluctant to put their homes on the market. According to realtor.com, the number of houses for sale in late June was down 30% from the same time a year ago.

But sales activity is starting to pick up. Buoyed by mortgage rates at their lowest levels in five decades, buyers are snapping up houses almost as fast as they are put on the market.

The result can especially be seen in places like Boston, Salt Lake City and San Diego, according to Redfin agents in those markets. In June, more than half of all Redfin listings nationwide drew more than one bid. But in Boston, nearly 3 out of 4 buyers faced competition; in Salt Lake City and San Diego, about 2 of 3 buyers are bidding against each other.

Consequently, sellers need to be prepared for the possibility of receiving multiple offers, and buyers need to put forth their best from the get-go. Now is not the time to start low and try to negotiate.

Here’s a look at some bidding war strategies, from both the seller’s and the buyer’s points of view.

-- Sellers. Don’t entertain offers piecemeal, one at a time. After a reasonable amount of showing time, your agent should set a deadline for accepting any and all bids. Then, you and your agent can go over them and decide which, if any, you will accept. The agent should also specify that he or she is expecting multiple offers, so buyers will put forth their best bids right out of the box.

State laws differ, but for the most part, you can consider as many offers as you like. You can accept, reject or counter any offer, or do nothing and wait for others.

You don’t have to accept the highest offer; you could take a lower offer based on other terms or conditions. You may allow one buyer the chance to submit another bid, or you can tell a few -- or even all -- to try again. Bear in mind, though, that if you disclose the fact that you have received multiple offers to one potential buyer, you have to disclose it to all of them.

“It’s either all or none,” says Austin, Texas, agent Donna Harris.

In New York (and most other states), there is no obligation on the seller’s part until there is a fully executed contract, says Mitchell Hall of Compass in Manhattan. And sellers should not entertain anything other than a written offer. One anonymous agent told me that a verbal offer “is not worth the paper it’s not written on.”

-- Buyers. If you can make an all-cash offer, you are ahead of the game. All-cash bids are golden because they come with no financing strings attached. Even though the sellers will get all their money at closing whether you pay cash or take out a mortgage, there’s always the possibility that the buyer’s financing will fall through. So green is, indeed, gold.

If you have to rob your retirement plan to make a cash offer, realize there are loan programs that allow you to refinance the property within about six months of purchasing it, so you can get the lion’s share of your cash back to replenish your old-age account. But make sure you qualify and understand the rules first before you go this route.

If you must finance the purchase, secure a lender’s approval in advance. It’s free and shouldn’t take long -- certainly not more than 24 hours, if you have at hand all the documentation you’ll need, says Rob Spinosa of Guaranteed Rate in Marin County, California. Among other things, you’ll need proof of income, employment and assets.

The process could take longer if your situation is complex, so start early. In addition to the above, a lender will want to see proof of self-employment, perhaps a profit and loss statement, two years’ worth of tax returns and current leases on all rental properties you own.

These days, you can do most of the legwork online at no cost. But depending on your situation, it might be better to seek a no-cost consultation with a loan officer or mortgage broker.

No matter what price range you are searching in, it’s best to max-out your preapproval to the largest amount you qualify for, suggests Dixie Sanders with Homebridge Financial Services in Sugar Land, Texas. That way, she says, “you won’t need to circle back later” if you find a place that exceeds your original search criteria. You may not need to actually borrow that much, but you’ll be ready if the need arises.

NEXT WEEK: More bidding war tactics for buyers.