DENVER (KDVR) — The Denver metro is looking normal again, but only for buyers with $200,000 more to spend on a home, according to the Colorado Association of REALTORS July market report.

The COVID pandemic sent the national housing market into overdrive. Across the U.S., wealthy remote workers moved away from their coastal urban enclaves and into cheaper areas to outbid locals, cranking the national home sales price into uncharted highs in the process.

Colorado’s housing market was particularly hard-hit by this trend, as a destination for workers fleeing California, as well as New York, Illinois and the D.C. metro area. Median sale prices for a Denver-area home went into the stratosphere as demand increased, home inventory shriveled, sellers commanded their own prices and homes sold within days.

Tightening interest rates have helped cool the market, though prices are hovering near their records.

Inventory has recovered to levels unseen since the COVID pandemic began.

There were 8,125 active listings in the seven-county Denver metro in July. The metro hasn’t had that many active listings since May 2020. This means the market has 1.9 months of single-family housing inventory on hand, the most since May 2020 though still short of the 2-4 months a healthy market would have.

Home sellers are not able to command the bidding wars they could in the last two years. Buyers paid an average of 100.5% of the asking price in July, the lowest since late 2020. Between then and now, buyers paid up to 106.4% of the asking price even as prices spiraled upward.

Still, prices remain stubbornly high.

The median sales price for a Denver metro single-family home was $635,000 in July, down $11,000 from the month before and matching the median price from March.