DENVER (KDVR) — The Denver-area housing market is rapidly turning course from its recent white-hot pandemic-era buying frenzy.

What was once a booming seller’s market has turned course as buyers beset by historic interest rates are waiting longer and paying less, according to the latest market update from the Colorado Association of Realtors. As a result, there are more available homes than there have been in two years.

Most of the Denver metro’s housing market measurements have cooled back to levels not seen since before the pandemic or in its early months. It is among the cities in the nation where the market is cooling the fastest.

Denver’s home prices have inflated to some of the country’s highest, and spiking mortgage rates push more and more would-be buyers out of the market. At 6.92%, rates for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, the highest since 2002, monthly payments for a home can be a thousand dollars more than the same home this time last year.

Spooked by the rates, buyers are paying less of the asking price than they have since January 2020.

Denver metro single-family homebuyers paid an average of 98.6% of the asking price in September, unseen since January. From August 2020 through this July, they had been paying at least 100% of the asking price and as high as 106.4%.

With more buyers scared off, inventory is expanding and homes sitting longer.

There were 8,432 active listings in September. For the last three months, inventory levels have been their highest since late 2019. The Denver metro had two months of supply in each of the last three months – roughly the low end of what experts said is a healthy market level.

Homes are selling at a pre-pandemic pace. A Denver metro home sat for an average of 29 days in September, the most since March 2020.