SEATTLE - Selling a home in the Seattle area has become trickier.  What used to sell in one week can now take months. Home sellers are going to more and more extremes, offering enticing incentives to hook a buyer. 

Those boom days when homes in Seattle could be sold in a matter of hours are for the most part over.  Residential homes can languish on the market for months, so sellers are relying on incentives to try and seal the deal. 

When Tavis Gaudet put up his "for sale" sign on his home in West Seattle, he wasn't alone.  Two houses, one across the street and another up the block, also had signs up as well.

Competition is stiff in his neighborhood.  Just a couple of blocks away, three houses in a row are on the market.  Just a year ago, buyers would get into bidding wars, giving up stipulations such as inspections. But it's the buyers' turn now.  Now sellers are making the deals and doing whatever they have to do to sell their home. 

"You're always looking for some kind of edge that's going to take you beyond what your competition is going to be," said Reba Haas, realtor.  

According to real estate statistics, Seattle had 50 percent more homes on the market during the month of September than last fall.  At the same time, pending sales dropped by more than 25 percent. 

The market trend is now for sellers to give incentives like paying for home warranties, closing costs and lowering their asking price, but real estate agents say they don't expect housing prices to soften much more. 

"There's too many people coming here for us not to have it continue to be strong," said Haas. 

For sellers, one of the most important things they can do is to be realistic about the worth of their home.  Real estate agents say some of these lower prices are simply because sellers were asking for too much in the first place.