Despite higher mortgage interest rates, Denver home prices continued to rise in May.

“After three months of robust gains, home prices are again zooming toward last spring’s record highs, despite 30-year mortgage rates near the 7% mark, which isn’t too far from the highs reached last November,” reports The Denver Post.

“Rather than home prices softening in the face of higher rates as they did in the second half of last year, and which is the expected pattern, monthly price gains remained robust for the third month in a row.”

Higher mortgage rates have lowered home prices in many states across the country, but not in Denver, resulting in a market that is surprising experts.

“We thrive on predictability,” noted Libby Levinson-Katz, chair of the Denver Metro Association of Realtors’ (DMAR) Market Trends Committee, “and this current market feels uncertain.”

According to the Denver Metro Association of Realtors’ monthly report, the average price of a residential property in May rose 2.56% from April, to $697,534.

Active listings at month’s end rose 43.15% over last year, to 5,228. New listings rose 8.87% over May, to 5,180.

Despite the added inventory, buyers are being cautious. While in past years, buyers jumped on each new listing, they are now waiting “either for the perfect home or to uncover a good deal,” wrote Levinson-Katz in the monthly report. Even when locating the right house, “buyers are moving a bit more slowly…Buyers aren’t rushing to see homes as quickly and aren’t submitting offers within hours.” She attributes this, in part, to “fatigue.”

In all, the spring selling season lacks the typical energy of past years.

“While many lenders still predict that interest rates will go down at the end of the year, we can only hope we have an extended spring/summer season come fall,” noted Levinson-Katz.