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A group of Steamboat Springs Realtors are using words like “remarkable” and “extraordinary” to describe a recent string of sales and purchases here. It’s especially noteworthy given today’s real estate market and lending climate.

With one deal dependent on the other, four homes involving five homeowners were bought and sold in a three-day period at the end of September.

“When we first started this thing, I was like, ‘Yeah right,’” Colorado Group Realty broker/owner Ronald Wendler said. “I gave it a 50/50 chance of happening.”

Wendler was involved in the string of purchases along with Jon Wade, also a broker/owner at Colorado Group Realty.

“Today, it’s really difficult to get one thing to happen,” Wade said. “It’s pretty extraordinary.”

From price negotiations, home inspections, appraisals and financing, everything had to happen smoothly for the deals to close.

The housing dominoes began to fall in Cheyenne, Wyo., when Chris and Jessica Speer and their two young daughters decided to upgrade from their vacation condo in Steamboat to a permanent home. Prices had come down to the point that they thought they could afford one.

“We decided we should live in the place we like the most,” Chris Speer said.

First, however, the Speers needed to sell their home in Cheyenne.

“I think a lot of people are a lot like us in that they can’t get in the next house until the first house is paid for,” said Speer, a family physician who will continue working in Cheyenne.

The Speer family got lucky and received an offer on their home the first week it was on the market in August. This allowed them to work with Wade and make an offer on their future Steamboat home at 1021 Crawford Ave., which was listed for $650,000. The deal was contingent upon the sale of their Cheyenne home, which they sold Sept. 28. The next day, the Speers purchased the newly remodeled Crawford Avenue home from Andy Keyek and his family for $630,000, according to the Routt County Assessor’s Office online database.

This freed up the Keyeks, who worked with Realtors Amy Brown and Chris Paoli to purchase a home listed for $587,500 at 37570 Winchester Trail in the Silver Spur subdivision. They closed on the home Sept. 30 for the asking price.

The Keyeks’ purchase then allowed the Winchester Trail home’s previous owners, Kevin and Kimberly Chandler, to move forward with the purchase of a home listed for $795,000 at 1215 Ridge View Drive in the Fish Creek area.

“They didn’t know if we had a 100 percent deal until 24 hours until they were moving,” said Wendler, the Chandler’s Realtor.

The deals didn’t end there. On the same day the Chandlers sold their home, they closed on the Fish Creek home for $655,000.

“We sat around and waited six weeks to see if this was going to happen,” Wendler said. “It was pretty successful.”

The Chandlers purchased the Ridge View Drive home from John Weibel, who in October 2010 purchased a 262-acre property for $1.575 million at 25490 Routt County Road 52E in the Elk River Valley.

“They didn’t need to sell the house in order to purchase,” said Weibel’s agent, Adrienne Stroock, of Prudential Steamboat Realty.

Weibel raises grass-fed beef under the Rockin J Pastures brand and keeps dairy cows for the Moonhill Dairy.

The Weibel’s Fish Creek home was the last domino.

“These sellers and buyers all worked together to make it happen,” Stroock said. “It wasn’t luck. Everyone was priced well and made it happen.”

Wade, who represented the Speer family, said that the string of transactions was a good sign in today’s real estate market and that it created a lot of work for those involved in the sales.

“I think we will see a lot more of this in the next couple of years, which will help families attain their goal and contribute to the recovery of our real estate market by reducing supply, setting comps and allowing people to take the step into their next home,” Wade said.

— To reach Matt Stensland, call 970-871-4247 or email mstensland@SteamboatToday.com