Windermere Real Estate agent Peter Richmond listed a house between Fremont and Ballard for $450,000 on July 29 but put off accepting any offers for a week.

It’s a technique that was pretty common in the go-go housing market of the middle ’00s but fell out of practice as the market tipped in favor of buyers. A week later, he had two offers.

“At this point, I think you’re doing the seller a disservice to take the first offer that comes in,” Richmond said. “I think there’s too much demand.”

Three blocks away, sellers of a house listed for $349,000 accepted an offer within a week. It’s one anecdotal sign that nice homes in nice Seattle neighborhoods, priced right are selling pretty fast these days.

“Homes that are turn-key and done – manicured, staged, painted, the whole deal – those homes are selling,” Windermere Real Estate President OB Jacobi said Monday.

Glenn Kelman, president and chief executive officer of Seattle-based online real estate company Redfin, quoted agent Bryon Ziegler back in May saying: “Everything changed just in the past six weeks. In February, you were the savior if you came in with an offer. Now, the reaction is: take a number. And if you don’t come with all guns blazing, you’re usually a day late and a dollar short.”

At the time, Seattle sales were still far below totals from the early months of 2010, when a federal homebuyer tax credit boosted sales. But sales have remained pretty steady through 2011, while they tanked after the credit expired in the middle of last year. So, adding up the first seven months, 2011 pending sales are just 1 percent below last year’s, while closed sales are just over 6 percent lower, according to data from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

Redfin’s share of offers that were in multiple-offer situations rose from 23.6 percent in the second quarter to 27.4 so far in the third quarter. Looking at the hottest areas – Northeast Seattle, Capitol Hill-Montlake and Ballard-Greenlake – multiple offers have jumped from between 30 and 35 percent to 45 and 50 percent, hitting 51.4 percent in Ballard.

Many buyers aren’t ready for this situation, said David Billings, Redfin’s Seattle market manager.

“When the ideal, cute, turn-key starter home comes on market at a price that a buyer feels is a decent value, they’re shocked to find that there are lots (three, four, maybe six) of other buyers that feel just like they do,” he wrote in an email Monday. “After having patiently waited out the market and read every article about how terrible Seattle real estate is, they can’t believe they’ll need to pay full list price, let alone the possibility of paying more in order to beat out others. It takes some time for them to come to grips with this reality and get competitive with their offers, or adjust their search to a home that needs some work, or is in a slightly less prime location.”

Richmond, the Windermere agent, saw the change starting in the Fremont-Ballard area this spring, when the typical influx of homes hitting the market didn’t materialize.

The number of new house listings was down by 31 percent in the Seattle area and 35 percent in Northwest Seattle from a year earlier in March, 28 percent and 31 percent, respectively, in April and 4 percent and 7 percent in May. In July, Seattle had enough houses on the market to satisfy 3.7 months worth of demand, down from 5.4 months worth a year earlier. Generally, less than 6 months of supply is considered a seller’s market.

Nice homes listed between $400,000 and $500,000 in the greater Ballard area are particularly scarce, Richmond said. “I’ve certainly got my share of buyers and just have nothing to show them right now.”

Seattle-based online real estate company Zillow reported earlier this month that 37.7 percent of house listings in the city have cut their price, down 9.1 percent from last year, and the median price cut was 6.6 percent, down 1.4 percent. The median house sold for 97.9 percent of its list price.

But the sales price was a little closer to list price a year ago. And the median house sales price in July, $399,950, was down 9.1 percent from July 2010, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.

Despite the shortage of inventory, today’s buyers “won’t pay too much for a property,” Richmond said.

One reason for declines in median prices is that around 30 percent of listings are “distressed” homes, meaning they have been through or are under threat of foreclosure. These typically sell for about 20 percent less than comparable non-distressed homes, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Zillow’s home value index, which looks at all homes, rather than those that happen to sell in a given period, reported a median value of $377,000 in Seattle earlier this month, down 2.8 percent from a year ago and up 1.6 percent from the prior quarter.

Looking forward, Jacobi expects distressed homes to continue driving down median prices, with home sales staying about the same.

“This is kind of where we’re going to be looking forward to the next six months to a year,” he said.

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