'Pac-Man' Buyers 'Gobbling Up' Metro Denver Real Estate: Agents

Colorado house hunters have been dubbed "Pac-Man" buyers by the Colorado Association of Realtors after "gobbling up" a record number of homes, the organization said.

Buyers have been "frantically maneuvering through the residential market maze – all while trying to beat the competition chasing the same real estate prize," the association said.

The continued strong demand and dwindling supply has pushed the inventory of active listings down more than 54 percent — to 9,804 homes statewide —compared to a year ago, according to the latest monthly housing data.

In the seven-county Denver metro area, active listings for single-family homes are down nearly 60 percent to 4,656 homes from September 2019, the data shows. Both the state number and Denver-metro number reflect new record lows since the Colorado Association of Realtors began tracking the figure a decade ago.

The median sales price in metro Denver is up more than 13 percent from a year prior and now sits at a record high of $493,500, the association said.

Denver-area Realtor Matthew Leprino said supply has come nowhere close to catching up with demand.

“The pause we all felt during the early COVID months could be the culprit with demand lingering well-past cooling months or, the lifestyle-type shift resulting from COVID could be the driving force behind our Indian summer," Leprino said.

"Whatever the factor or factors may be, Denver, and indeed the entire Metro, have still never been more desired places to be.”

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Colorado real estate agents saw the strongest September in the past five years for new listings —12,630, and a record 13,039 for sold listings; however, the median sales price only went up around 12 percent statewide to $450,000 from a year prior, the association said.