Brokers get creative in hunt for home buyers

Staging a voice-mail blitz from his desk, real estate agent Howe Allen furiously punched one agent's number after another into his phone.

''I'm calling to remind you about the broker's open house tonight," he said about a recent Friday event at his Dorchester listing. ''There's a $10,000 bonus, and I am giving away three $50 gift certificates to the Ashmont Grill." In one message, he teased a friend: ''What could you do with that money?"

For the past five years, homes in Massachusetts have sold briskly, close to asking price or above it. But with interest rates rising and higher energy costs hitting consumers' pocketbooks, houses now on the market are often unable to attract buyers -- or lookers. Open houses attract little, if any, traffic. As the winter approaches and home sales slow for the holidays, brokers desperate to close sales are resorting to measures not seen in these parts in a decade.

Allen, an agent in Gibson DomainDomain's new office in Dorchester, thought that courting fellow agents would widen the pool of prospective buyers for his listing in desirable Melville Park. This three-bedroom, 1,500-square-foot Victorian condominium with a private porch entrance has been on the market since July. He persuaded his client to pay a cash bonus -- in addition to the standard commission -- to the agent who produced a buyer. That didn't work, so the seller cut the asking price again, to $384,000 from $399,000. It had started at $429,000.

Massachusetts home sales in 2005 are running just 1.6 percent behind 2004's record sales pace. The problem is there are more homes on the market: On Nov. 10, there were 25,656 houses for sale in Massachusetts, 39 percent more than the 18,498 on the market a year earlier, according to the MLS Property Information Network Inc. In Dorchester, Howe counted more than 300 condos for sale, almost double the spring inventory. Most of the increase is caused by sellers who want to sell their homes at peak price and refuse to settle for less, brokers say.

''It's like someone turned off the faucet," said Maria Salomão-Schmidt of Brick House Realty in Holliston. At open houses, ''if one person shows up, you're excited."

John Dulczewski, spokesman for the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, said the group defines a ''buyers' market" as one in which it would take 8.5 months to sell the entire supply of houses on the market. The state has not reached that point yet: The current inventory is about 7.2 months, up from 5.6 months a year earlier. ''Even though the market has shifted," he said, ''we don't have a huge overabundance."

But real estate agents' lives have been turned upside down. They spend more time with sellers, calming nerves, marketing their properties, or talking them down to more realistic asking prices. They also are devising creative ways to draw attention to their homes.

Gibson DomainDomain agent Mary Kelleher and her client offered a $20,000 cash bonus to the first agent to produce a buyer for the eight-unit Ottello condominium project in Boston's Leather District.

In Dorchester, buyers have been offered free plasma televisions if they purchase units in three-deckers.

Throughout the Boston area, brokers have organized ''extreme open houses" that include food, musical entertainment, or lectures to attract people to their properties.

Increasing the competitive pressures, there also are more real estate agents in Massachusetts than at any time in the past seven years. About 7,000 people have obtained licenses to sell real estate this year, a 10 percent increase over 2004. New brokers include housewives, laid-off software programmers, Fortune 500 executives, consultants, engineers, and college graduates.

In April, Allen became a full-time agent after 18 years in the insurance industry. He was tempted by a booming market but also made the career change for a flexible schedule that allows him to fly to Tampa to care for his elderly parents.

He has experience in the business, having worked as an agent in the mid-1980s in Palm Beach County, Fla., but he lacks the extensive Boston contacts of experienced agents. To compensate, the 40-year-old keeps tabs on mortgage brokers and agents in hopes they will send potential buyers his way. He mentors a younger person in his firm, Joshua Thissell, who handles rentals. Thissell recently referred the owner of a multifamily to Allen, who persuaded the property owner to sell rather than find new renters.

Allen's foray into real estate was respectable. In March, April, and May, he sold nine listings, or $3 million worth of properties, and earned $45,000 in commissions (his share of the standard 2.5 percent sales fee his firm collects). While summers typically are slow, he sold six properties worth $1.6 million, earning $25,000 in June, July, and August.

Allen's sales since Labor Day: zero. Three of his properties are under agreement. But one of the offers is tentative, made by two owners of South Boston condos who can't close their joint deal to purchase Allen's listing until each of them sells their own place. The second sale under agreement is scheduled to close Dec. 18, and the third on Feb. 6.

''Real estate is cyclical, and you have to budget for it," Allen said.

His giveaway scheme for the Friday-night open house was a modest success. A handful of agents showed up, checked out the condo, and then gossiped around the dining-room table about a new local Chinese restaurant; who has what listings; and tactics agents are using to bring buyers to their properties, including a free Mini Cooper to the buyer of one listing.

Agents' mantra: Know the market well, said Kerry Dowlin of At Home Real Estate Group Inc. ''When you get a buyer you know what to do," she said. Her boss, Ken Osherow, said, ''The buyers have the upper hand, and they know it."

Allen treads lightly when showing houses. He gauges when to make a sales pitch to a buyer and when to ease up. On a sunny Saturday this month, Allen helped Monique Browdy, who works in Gibson DomainDomain's South End office, show her well-heeled clients, Richard Spencer and Frank November, houses in Dorchester priced at $600,000 to $1 million. The pair, who plan to move to Boston from Washington, D.C., showed little enthusiasm as they silently walked through a quirky Dorchester mansion with Arts and Crafts and Victorian features, or trudged up four flights of another house needing work.

The mood lightened when they entered a $1.1 million Victorian, with modern art and conveniences and a music balcony overlooking the living room.

''This is nice," November said, running his hand along a curved banister. Having been rebuffed when he asked this same question in an earlier showing, Allen dared ask it again. ''Would you like to see the basement?" This time Spencer responded, ''Yes."

While the pair liked the house, they, like other buyers in today's market, have options. They planned to view many more properties, downtown and in the suburbs, before buying.

Allen is philosophical about the market's ups and downs: ''I don't take it personally," he said. The son of a real estate agent, he didn't leave his full-time job until he had at least two years of savings to ride out the rough spots.

''I understood the cyclical nature, the hills and valleys," he said.

Kimberly Blanton can be reached at blanton@globe.com. Globe correspondent Kate M. Jackson contributed to this report.