Metro Denver’s tight home-resale market showed no signs of letting up in May, with the inventory of homes available for sale dropping to a record low for the month and home prices marching to new highs, according to a report Friday from the Denver Metro Association of Realtors.

The median price of a single-family home sold in May reached $398,000, a 3.6 percent increase from April and a 10.7 percent jump from a year earlier. The median price of a condo sold in May was $245,000, up 2.1 percent from April and 13.7 percent from a year ago.

Talk of new records set in metro Denver’s tight housing market is getting to sound like a broken record. But strong home-price gains month after month are intensifying pressure on buyers to make a deal or risk getting priced out, said Anthony Rael, chairman of the DMAR market trends committee and a Denver real estate agent.

“That is why so many people are chomping at the bit to get in,” he said.

A shortage of listings continues to put downward pressure on sales volumes and upward pressure on prices. There were 5,463 homes available for sale at the end of the month, down 3.4 percent from the previous record low May inventory a year earlier.

That represents slim pickings, given that over the past 30 years, the inventory of active listings in May has averaged 16,981. In May 2006, area buyers had as many as 30,457 listings to choose from.

Buyers closed on 4,861 homes during the month, which represents a 7.6 percent decline from a year earlier and a 7.4 percent increase from April.

New listings are spending 30 days on the market on average. That contrasts with the historical May average of 69 days on market. For homes that cost under $299,999, the days on market is averaging under two weeks.

Rael said builders are pulling more permits, but they are contributing very little new supply in the lower price ranges, keeping intense pressure on the affordable end of the market. And the higher-priced homes they are focused on are lifting the overall price of homes sold in the market.