As the housing market slows in some parts of the country, the better realtors are digging into their bag of tricks. Instead of just throwing an open house and sitting around waiting for people to show up, the high end realtor is bringing out her bag of tricks.

Things such as A-List chefs and invitations to the open houses are starting to be used for high end homes to entice people to come out and look and get the word of mouth going on these harder to sell properties. Other tools such as dedicated web sites and podcasts are replacing the generic listings at Realtor.com .

To attract buyers, developers of this massive planned community in Plymouth — the town where the pilgrims landed, about 40 miles south of Boston — called in A-list chefs to cook in their model homes at an open house.

They can’t afford not to. High-end houses are becoming harder to sell in some of the nation’s hottest real estate markets, which are being flooded with listings as baby boomers downsize. Rising interest rates and energy costs may be scaring off some buyers.

“It’s turned from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market,” said Greg Spier, who builds large custom homes in suburban Boston. “The marketplace has become astute. There’s more inventory. People are becoming pickier. Maybe there’s eight to 10 homes to look at. A year ago maybe there were one to three.”

The changing landscape means real estate agents are going to great lengths to attract choosy buyers of these multimillion-dollar homes.

In Miami Beach, agent Zahara Mossman said she uses podcasts to provide online audio descriptions of her listings. She said it’s something that sets her apart from competitors and is critical to her success. Potential buyers can go to her Web site and click into an audio description before deciding on whether to see it in person.

“The competition is fierce,” she said. “I have an edge.” via the AP

In many markets, there was such a shortage of homes available, that anyone could be a real estate agent. Now, as some markets tighten, the true professionals will come to the fore, and the weaker agents will leave the field.

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