The Bulletin reports from Oregon. "Joel and Julie Cohen bought their three-bedroom home in southwest Bend two years ago, thinking that, in a couple of years, they would sell and move up. Two years later is now."

"The problem is, there are more than 1,400 single-family homes for sale in Bend this month, according to the Central Oregon MLS. The market, to be generous, has gone flat."

"So the Cohens opted to try something different. They put their house up for auction last week. Using a round-robin method, they plastered the newspaper and their neighborhood with $3,500 worth of ads, held a two-day open house and collected bids."

"The open house drew 200 people and 28 bids, two of them serious. Everything worked except the most important part, the house didn't sell. No one would meet the $375,000 reserve price. The lone bidder who said he or she would pay it backed out at the last minute 'to see where the market goes from here,' Julie Cohen said."

"'It's kind of a general reflection on what the market is doing right now,' Cohen said. 'It seems like it's such a buyers' market, people are getting cold feet. To tell you the truth,' she said, 'it was kind of disappointing.'"

"The Cohens' attempt merged them with a small but growing trend, as sellers in a broad range of cities look for ways to distinguish their houses amid the rising glut of inventory. Nationwide housing inventories have risen to more than a seven-month backlog, according to David Lereah, the NAR' chief economist. The abrupt slowdown in sales prompted Lereah to openly call for price reductions this month."

"David Staley, a Bend property investor, and his wife took the least-expensive approach when they offered a northeast Bend rental house for an auction sale in August. They didn't get a great price for it, $211,000. The speed of the sale outweighed getting a price that was 'quite a bit below what I think the house was probably worth.'"

"'I'm not sure I'd use it (an auction) again,' Staley said. 'If you're trying to get the best price for your house, it probably isn't the best way to go. But we got it sold, and that's all that was important to us.'"

"The Cohens, meanwhile, are planning to fall back to 'Plan B or Plan C,' Julie Cohen said. They have already bought a bigger house in northeast Bend. But, they see little point in listing it for sale the traditional way, especially since there are five other homes in the neighborhood for sale right now."

"So, she said, they may put it up for a lease-option rental until things loosen up. They're not alone."

"George Cappony, a sales coach who worked with the Cohens, said markets have softened dramatically across the country, quickly turning last year's sellers' market into a buyer-dominated field. But most sellers have not yet faced up to that reality."

"'I think that sellers are standing like a deer in a Wisconsin road in the middle of the night, and around the corner are headlights,' Cappony said. 'Right now, I think it's a go-cart coming down the road. Tomorrow, it's gonna be a semi.'"