The number of homeowners seeking mortgage forbearance fell for at least eight straight weeks this summer. But that decline masks a couple of other important trends.

One is a big uptick in the number of borrowers asking for an extension of plans that allowed them to defer their regular payments. The other is the number of folks who left their plans and are now seeking to move back into forbearance mode.

Further increases in these two key metrics would indicate that more owners are at financial risk of losing their homes than seem otherwise indicated.

One person who is following these trends is Julian Hebron, the founder of The Basis Point, a sales and marketing consulting firm. Hebron pointed to Mortgage Bankers Association statistics showing that from May 31 to July 19, relief extensions jumped from 3.97% to a staggering 50.23%.

The MBA also has reported a new data point: 0.41% of borrowers who ended their original forbearance plan are asking for another one.

Meanwhile, the Black Knight advisory firm reports that more that two-thirds of loans still in active forbearance have had their plans extended, mostly for three additional months, creating an “echo wave” of forbearance expirations.

These figures may or may not signal another mortgage Armageddon down the road, but they need to be observed carefully.

“It’s critical to watch forbearance reentry from this point forward,” says Hebron.

He suggests one reason for these numbers is borrowers’ inability to refinance their mortgages at the current record low rates. To refi, he notes, most lenders require applicants to either be caught up on their payments or be on time with at least three payments after exiting forbearance.

Meanwhile, the Urban Institute reports that 735,000 borrowers have gone delinquent despite the forbearance options available to them. The two most common reasons: fear of having to make a lump-sum payment at the end of the forbearance period (which is not always the case) and not realizing lenders are willing to give them a breather on their payments.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, the group also reports that more than 1 million folks are making their full payments on time even though they are in an active forbearance plan.

In another sign that bidding wars are taking hold in inventory-starved housing markets, Redfin reports that 20% of the successful offers submitted in June by the chain’s agents waived the inspection contingency. That’s up from 13% in June 2019.

Winning bids waived the appraisal contingency at a 21% rate -- an all-time high, up from 17% a year earlier, the brokerage firm said.

Redfin agents report that incidences of buyers battling one another for the same property have been on the rise in recent months. Trying to take advantage of record low loan rates but facing a shortage of houses for sale, more than half of all buyers faced competition in June.

How strong is the competition? That depends on the market. But Lindsay Katz, a Redfin agent in Los Angeles, recently booked 42 showings for a house she put into the local multiple listing service only 24 hours earlier. And she sold a house to someone who had to beat out 11 other bidders to win the day.

Incidentally, that house sold for $770,000 -- $85,000 over its asking price. “We could’ve gotten another $30,000 for the house, but we opted to take the safe bet over the highest offer because there was so much uncertainty due to the pandemic,” Katz says.

How safe? The buyer passed on the appraisal and inspection contingencies and agreed to obtain financing in 10 days. The standard in California is 21 days.

There’s no question that selling your home is a stressful experience, especially if you’re buying another one at the same time. But it’s also expensive. And we’re not talking just about the commission you have to pay your agent and the money it takes to move.

Sellers also spend thousands fixing up their places before they list them.

According to a recent study by LendingTree, sellers expect to spend more than $10,000 on average for repairs and upgrades to make their places stand out. Millennial sellers anticipate spending $13,727 on average, the highest amount of all age groups.

After removing decorations and decluttering, the top three repairs and upgrades seller have made are painting interiors, 48%; upgrading bathrooms, 45%, and replacing older appliances, 45%. A good number also improved their landscaping, threw on a fresh coat of exterior paint or changed out flooring.

Should you pull the trigger to take advantage of rates below 3%, or should you wait for them to fall lower? Matthew Graham, chief operating officer at Mortgage News Daily and a regular contributor to the industry newsletter, says his tea leaves indicate to “go for it now.”

Of course, no one can say with any certainty that rates will continue to fall. But there are some who believe they can still slip by 75 basis points or so. (A basis point is 1% of 1 percentage point.)

If you refi now and rates subsequently fall, says Graham, you can always refinance again. But if rates go the other way, you’ll be ahead of the game.

“It’s as close to a win-win as we typically see in a game that can only truly be won with clairvoyance,” he says.

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.