TORRINGTON – A long-established local realty business has moved into new offices on the south end of Torrington’s downtown area.
“The move down here was a visibility thing, getting in front of people, moving in that direction, being a primary source for residential real estate as well as agriculture and commercial,” said Curtis Birkley, broker/owner of Windmill Realty.
“And being a support here for the community, helping educate people on the process” he said. “A lot of people don’t know how the process (of buying and selling property) works and need to be educated on how it’s done – and how it’s done appropriately.”
The business is now open at the intersection of Main Street and U.S. Hwy. 26/85 in Torrington. The move comes after more than three decades in rural Goshen County, north of Torrington on the Van Tassell Road. That’s where Windmill Realty was established in the mid-1980s, in a guest house converted to offices on property owned by founder, Dick Vandel.
Vandel got his real estate license in 1975, working for Century 21 Realty in Torrington. Before that, he’d spent 10 years as an ag lending officer at First National Bank in Torrington before being recruited away to become branch manager for the Farm Credit Service office in Scottsbluff, Neb.
Vandel decided to get out of the ag lending business near the height of the 1980s farm crisis. He reactivated his real estate license which he’d let sit idle for about 10 years and struck out on his own.
“The agriculture world was in a real problem at that time, starting about 1983, 1984 – interest rates were so high and things were pretty bleak,” Vandel said. “Our accountant recommended we form a corporation separate from our farm and livestock operations and that’s where Windmill Realty started.”
In those early days, a lot of Vandel’s business centered around managing properties whose owners had succumbed to the economic challenges of the times – farms and ranches that were in foreclosure or some other type of credit difficulty, he said. His role was to get financing, find tenants to operate the production side and find markets for what they produced.
Finally, after a few years, the money issues on the properties he managed were covered and they could be listed and sold, Vandel said. Most of the sales in those early years for Windmill Realty were in agriculture land.
“That was my background, working with farm and ranch people as an ag loan officer – I knew pretty much all of the farm and ranch people,” Vandel said. “Then, I started selling those properties – which moved us from farm and ranch management into farm and ranch sales.”
Vandel’s wife Jeanine and a host of other agents worked with the office over the years as the focus slowly changed to more residential and commercial property.
“Then, more people would list some houses with us,” Vandel said. “More agents joined the corporation and that brought the business more into residential property. It just kept growing and moving into different areas.”
Eventually, Birkley married the Vandel’s daughter, Courtney. Also a native of Torrington with a degree in exercise science and wellness management form Black Hills State University, Birkley was working as an educational assistant at St. Joseph’s Children’s Home in Torrington when he approached Vandel about a career in real estate.
“He came to me one day and said, ‘Dad, do you think I could do any good with real estate?’” Vandel said. “I said, ‘I don’t know, but I’m more than happy to have you come in and see if we can make it work.’”
Birkley earned his real estate license and went to work. He spent several years in an arrangement similar to an apprenticeship under Vandel before getting his broker’s license and, eventually, registering as the lead broker for Windmill Realty.
“It’s kind of been slow growth as (Birkley) took on more responsibility,” Vandel said. “His growth is more in commercial and residential property, which precipitated the idea of having more of a residential presence in downtown, rather than three miles outside of town.”
Today, about 80 percent of Windmill Realty inventory is residential property, Birkley said. But they haven’t completely moved away from their roots in the agriculture community.
“I think it goes with the market going back and forth,” Birkley said. “It just truly depends on where ag real estate is, if people are wanting to buy or sell.
“We’re actually at the lowest amount of inventory we’ve been in for the past four or five years, as far as residential properties and small acreages,” he said. “We still have quite a few buyers coming into the market.”
Birkley and Vandel, who’s officially retired now, believe the real estate market in Goshen County will remain strong. People right now are realizing they don’t have to live and work in areas with vastly greater populations, for example, they said. And the eastern Wyoming area has much more to offer.
“Goshen County, our rural life out here, is a very attractive life,” Vandel said. “I think people are starting to realize taking 45 minutes to get to work in traffic, morning and night, isn’t that much fun.”
