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FOR SALE BY AMATEUR

The big sign said "For Sale By Owner" but the smaller sign attached to it said that it was sold by Windermere agent Lisa Long. An unusual-looking sign, but in a way, a sign of the times.

Not long ago, when the real-estate market was superheated, someone living in a hot neighborhood could place a small ad in the paper or drive a sign into their front yard and have their house sold by dinner. And pocket the 6 percent commission that normally is split among the agents representing the seller and buyer. (That's $15,000 on a $250,000 house).

Those stories are becoming less common in today's cooler market, agents and sellers say.

Janet Rawson and her husband have been trying to sell their almost-new (10 months old) house in the Snoqualmie Ridge development near North Bend for about two months (they are moving out of the area because of a job transfer).

The Rawsons post professional-looking fliers in front of their house, advertise in the daily paper ("Fantastic buy in new neighborhood") and a real-estate publication given out for free in local supermarkets. And they wait. And wait.

"It's become very apparent to me that if it was listed with an agent, it would be sold by now," said Janet Rawson.

But they're not ready to do that yet, she said. They sold their own house near Boston a few years ago and found it quite profitable - spending only about $1,000 on a real-estate attorney to handle the transaction on their $285,000 house.

"It definitely was worth it," she said. But the house sold in only two weeks. "It was quick and easy. It's not quite the same here."

A 1999 survey by the National Association of Realtors found that home sellers used agents 77 percent of the time, down 3 percent from 1994. But of those who went on their own, only 32 percent said they would do it again.

The survey results are no surprise to real-estate agents and brokers who work with FSBOs (pronounced fizzbos), the slang term for houses For Sale By Owner. They say there are a number of reasons why agents are still in demand. Among them:

-- Marketing mistakes. When listed with a real-estate agent, a house gets wide exposure through the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, which is available to agents and brokers across the world. FSBOs also can get that type of exposure through a discount brokerage, but that can be more risky.

The FSBO house that Long sold had been listed through a discount brokerage, which misspelled the Seattle neighborhood name as CapitalHill. Long, who works out of Windermere's Northgate office, had been searching the listings for a house in a certain price range on Capitol Hill for her client, to no avail. She had been typing in "Capitol Hill" and nothing came up. Her client found the house one day while driving through the neighborhood.

-- Pricing mistakes. FSBO houses often are priced too high and may not sell until the price is reduced, which can turn into an unnecessarily long drawn-out process, real-estate people say.

Rawson said they have dropped the price on their four-bedroom house already, from $335,000 to $329,000. But that's a slight adjustment compared to other FSBOs. One on Seattle's South Lake Washington Boulevard recently had a sign that said the price was reduced from $1.5 million to $900,000. It then sold for about that amount and through agent Endanchy Girma of Skyline Properties, who also got her 3 percent commission, although the sellers at first didn't want to give her anything. But as Girma said, the house had been on the market "forever."

-- Paperwork: Selling a house has become an increasingly complex undertaking. Long remembers that when she started in the business 21 years ago, a transaction involved filling out one piece of paper. Today, it can be more than 15 pages, which contain legal and technical jargon.

-- Agent boycott: Many real-estate agents won't even show their clients a house that's being sold by the owner if there is no chance they'll get a commission. To them, it's a waste of time. That's why the Rawsons say in their ad "Will coop with agents." The Rawsons will give the agent the full 3 percent commission. Some owners offer less and some ads say "No agents" meaning the homeowners don't want to be bothered by agents trying to list their house.

-- Showing the home: Long and other agents say they often are shocked by how badly people prepare their houses for sale. They may be dirty, full of clutter and surrounded by a messy yard. That may be OK in a hot neighborhood in a hot market. But a house can sell for more with a little work, agents say. That's why Long hires a window washer and carpet cleaner and even keeps some furniture in storage to use if the house is empty or poorly decorated.

-- Talking the talk: Real-estate agents have to take 60 hours of coursework and pass an exam to get their license and then spend 30 hours every two years getting updated on new laws and real-estate issues. (Beginning next year, they'll have to do that on an annual basis.)

"The average person would not even know what they're doing," Long said. "A little bit of knowledge can be dangerous."

Rawson, however, maintains that one can sell their own house with a little bit of homework. She suggests reading a book or two on the subject, calling a couple of real-estate lawyers and asking how much they charge to handle a sale and finding what specific services they provide.

"It's not that difficult and hopefully it will be a win-win situation for both parties," she said. "You can lower the price somewhat to make up for not paying the (commission). But plan on taking a little longer to sell."

And if it doesn't sell, you can always turn to an agent.

"The slower the market, the more they need an agent," said Brian Graves, a Bellevue real-estate broker who also puts on free workshops teaching people how to sell their own homes. Graves said the workshops are part public-service and part promotion because he knows that many people intending to sell their own homes eventually turn to an agent for help.

"I wouldn't say you can't do it," he said. "Some succeed. But there are a lot of houses (even those listed by agents) that don't sell."