For six months, Casey Schorr has struggled to find a home to buy in Denver, contradicting everything he has heard about it being a buyer's market.

"Everybody seems to be saying there are all these properties," Schorr said. "But if you are looking for something updated and in a decent neighborhood, the stuff that is available is going quickly."

A lack of inventory — or, more precisely, "compelling" inventory, as some agents call it — has complicated homebuying for people such as Schorr and added yet another strain on a long-stressed housing market.

Homes in the $300,000-to- $600,000 range in Denver's older neighborhoods and places such as Highlands Ranch can move surprisingly fast, said Michelle Ackerman, a broker with Redfin who is helping Schorr find a home.

"When people have it overpriced or don't have it ready to go, it doesn't go," she said.

The number of homes listed for sale in Denver is down by about half since the frenzy surrounding the April 2010 deadline for a homebuyer tax credit, Ackerman said.

The inventory of homes available for sale in metro Denver in August was down 23 percent from August 2010, and down 5 percent from July, according to statistics compiled by independent real-estate analyst Gary Bauer​.

There were 18,164 homes and condos listed for sale in metro Denver, compared with 23,615 in August 2010.

"This low inventory is surprising," said Bauer, who had expected inventory levels to hold around 24,000. "It will make the housing market that much more difficult to work in."

Ackerman said she is hopeful that tighter inventory will translate into higher prices that draw more prime properties into the market.

But so far, that doesn't appear to be happening, and Bauer doesn't expect it to, given the other pressures on the market. The median home price in metro Denver fell to $235,000 in August from $239,000 a year earlier.

The upper end of the market continues to struggle with too many homes and lengthy times on the market. But even the low end, once glutted with foreclosures and short sales, is starting to see inventory dry up.

Wes Schlapman, an associate agent with Home4You, said he has struggled to find foreclosures and bank-owned homes that will work for fix-and-flips.

He can sell the homes after he fixes them,but finding them has become the hard part.

Foreclosure filings are down sharply in Denver, and the homes that go to auction are only a fraction of that number.

That is just one of several reasons why the inventory of unsold homes is shrinking, Bauer said.

Many sellers are on strike, in that they don't have to sell and won't until prices improve. Other sellers might prefer to sell but owe more than their homes are worth and can't afford to bring money to the closing table.

Tight credit is another factor. Buyers have to put more money down to obtain a mortgage, and lenders are less likely to cover the costs of home improvements than in the past, putting turnkey properties in demand.