The road for Denver homebuyers, who have faced tight markets and rising prices the past several years, seems ready to turn a corner. But sellers are still in the driver’s seat for now.

That’s according to Jill Schafer, the new chairwoman of Denver Metro Association of Realtor’s (DMAR) Market Trends Committee. Schafer notes that even though inventory is down, as are the number of sold homes, the market still favors sellers.

“It appears we still have a ways to go before we get to a buyer’s market. And that’s not just my opinion, that’s the story the statistics tell as well,” Schafer said.

Schafer was reacting to the DMAR’s October statistics. Among the findings: Inventory dropped 3.04% and the number of sold homes decreased 3.89% from September.

The Denver Post also noted that ‘’Agents report more sellers are dropping their asking price, more buyers are backing out of contracts and listings are taking longer to sell. New listings took 29 days to sell last month, up from a fast 19 days measured in June.”

While such factors might prompt a softening of prices overall, however, that wasn’t the case in October. Average residential sold prices rose 3.26% over September, to $471,321.

Meanwhile, rising mortgage interest rates are also impacting affordability. “Buyers face the dilemma of buying now to get ahead of future increases in mortgage rates or waiting for home prices to soften and more inventory to hit the market,” notes the Post. DMAR reports that the real estate research firm CoreLogic is predicting “a nearly 10% increase in buyers’ mortgage payments by next July due to rising interest rates.”

In other words, there are still a few curves in the road for buyers looking for the market to turn in their favor.

“You know when you go on a very long car ride and the passengers ask, ‘Are we there yet?’ over and over? That’s what I’ve been hearing this past month when talking to people about our current real estate market,” notes DMAR’s Schafer. “They mostly mention two things when asking if we’ve shifted to a buyer’s market: one, houses don’t seem to be selling in the first weekend anymore and two, we’re seeing price reductions like we haven’t seen in years. Even with those two things in mind, my answer is NO, we aren’t there yet…”