Suddenly, area's housing market favors the buyers - Cooling of sales to crimp economy

Greater Boston's once-sizzling home sales have cooled so much this fall that realtors are reverting to a description not heard in a decade: ''Buyer's market."

From the South End to the South Shore to Cape Ann, the list of unsold properties is growing, and so are reductions in asking prices. Attractive houses in good locations with seemingly appropriate pricetags are getting scant interest. Real estate agents, who six months ago played host to streams of buyers, are now presiding over open houses that draw few if any lookers.

For the last two Sundays, John Ford, of Ford Realty Inc., held open houses at a two-bedroom South End condo on a strong residential block of Columbus Avenue with parking, patio, and hardly outrageous asking price of $570,000. Not a single person showed up. In Weymouth, a four-bedroom raised-ranch with a view of the Fore River, priced at $445,000, attracted just one couple in the first hour and 15 minutes of an open house last weekend, prompting realtor Bonnie Goodstein to exult, ''O yay! Customers!"

In Jamaica Plain, even a $70,000 price cut -- to $399,000 -- hasn't generated much interest in a two-bedroom, bi-level condo in a 19th century mansion that has been on the market for about a month. Sunday, only four people, including two curious neighbors, came to an open house.