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Jennifer Calderazzo and her husband, Michael Warren, proved this year that you can come home to Steamboat Springs, even in difficult economic times.

Calderazzo and Warren each sold a business in Bend, Ore., in 2008. They sold their home there and returned to the Yampa Valley, where they looked at homes for nearly a year before purchasing a deed-restricted townhome in West End Village.

"Bend felt like home in a lot of ways," Calderazzo said. "I always described it as a much larger version of Steamboat. But Steamboat always has been home for us."

The geography of Bend, population about 76,000, could be described as Steamboat without aspen trees and with much bigger mountains.

The perpetually snow-capped volcanoes of the Cascade Range loom on the horizon in Central Oregon. The ski area, Mount Bachelor, is about a 40-minute drive from town. In summers, people love to float on inner tubes down the Deschutes River, which flows through the heart of the city.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Calderazzo moved here in 1998, met her husband, and rented in Stagecoach. They left to look for opportunity and quickly caught on to the real estate boom in Bend.

Jennifer started her own company, manufacturing organic bedding. Michael established a business as a siding contractor, working with regional builders in subdivisions. The couple realized they could tie up new homes at pre-construction prices in neighborhoods where Michael worked, and then resell them at a profit. At the time, the value of homes in Bend was increasing at an annual rate of 29 percent, she said.

"We bought several homes, but we weren't moving in," Calderazzo said. "We were either renting or selling them."

When Bend's real estate bubble burst in fall 2007, the landing was bumpy.

"It hit very hard in Bend. We were fortunate with the last (investment) house we sold," she said. "We knew people who got stuck" with homes they couldn't sell. "We were extremely lucky and blessed to have sold our own home (in June 2008).

Before and after the economic meltdown, there were more attainable homes in Bend than there are in Routt County. For example, at NorthWest Crossing, on the city's west side, there is the potential for 1,200 single- and multi-family dwelling units in neighborhoods laid out along the principles of new urbanism - front porches and garages on the alley, for example. There remains an abundance of undeveloped lots with prices in the $70,000 to $90,000 range. About 410 homes are complete and 592 building lots have been platted.

"When things started getting strange in Bend, everything kind of fell into the right path for us to return to Steamboat," Calderazzo said.

Construction work had dried up in Oregon, but Michael had a standing offer to return to his previous role as an asphalt foreman with Connell Resources in Steamboat.

Upon their return in 2008, they began looking in Stagecoach, because based on experience that had been the place to look for affordable single-family homes. Working with Realtor Adrienne Stroock, the couple re-adjusted to the cost of housing in the Yampa Valley.

"Adrienne was great," Calderazzo said. "I would say, if you're coming back to Steamboat, you need a Realtor who will help you" come to terms with the reality of the marketplace.

The couple wrote several offers on houses they wanted to buy. Each was declined. Their experience was that although Steamboat's market had gone flat in 2008, not all sellers felt urgency.

Calderazzo and Warren looked at the townhomes in West End Village but were initially wary. They fit into the income caps but felt insecure about whether they'd be able to sell the property in the future. Specifically, they worried that income limits would limit the number of future purchasers.

"It still has to be affordable (for the buyer)," Calderazzo said. "We looked at it for six weeks before we put an offer in on it."

- Tom Ross