Home is where the heart is, and whether you’re looking for a place to raise your family, a vacation home to enjoy during hard-earned time off, or an investment, transacting in real estate is always one of life’s biggest decisions.

Just as important as it is to have confidence in good, trusted partners when venturing into the backcountry, the real estate agent entrusted with this milestone has to be the right fit. To David NeVille and Shawn Asbell of NeVille Asbell Real Estate, relationships are the No. 1 priority. Clients become friends, friends of friends become clients, and their success relies highly upon referrals to gain new business — a testament to the relationships they’ve built.

“A lot of our clients, we’ve developed relationships to the point that we spend time with them socially,” Shawn says. “We enjoy recreating with our friends — fishing, hiking, skiing, hunting, snowmobiling, being out in the backcountry, along with being involved with philanthropic endeavors for our community and causes around the world.”

“We have been able to be involved in some clients’ real estate ventures for multiple generations,” David adds. “We just began working with a longtime friend that we have assisted with three generations in real estate, and we were having conversations while the granddaughter was holding the fourth generation. All four generations in one room — that is rewarding.”

While the NeVille Asbell website showcases plenty of the coveted multi-million dollar Jackson Hole homes, David says they don’t specialize in any price tag or type of property, “we focus on the relationship.”

“It doesn’t matter if we are selling the cheapest property within a 100-mile radius of Jackson Hole, or the most expensive,” he says. “We are more interested in succeeding in our relationships with clients than we are with anything else. The only way to become successful with someone as a client is to succeed in their goals. We want to make our clients’ lives easier.”

And that doesn’t end outside of Jackson Hole, or even the United States. With a business tagline of “Globally connected, locally respected,” they have helped clients manage purchases in other parts of the world.

David and Shawn have around 45 years of combined experience in the business, and have been working together for the last 18 years. A relationship that began as kids, David and Shawn’s fathers were good friends, and the two grew up together in Casper, Wyoming. Unintentionally, they both ended up moving to Jackson Hole the same year, pursuing separate business endeavors before ending up as long-term business partners.

NeVille Asbell Real Estate recently transitioned into an affiliation with Keller Williams, allowing the company to be locally owned and operated. David says they felt the move was in the best interest of their clients.

“The strongest key factors for us in those decisions are, ‘What are the tools that we can offer to our clients, are they better anywhere else?’ The culture of the people that come with the local team at Keller Williams, they are the best culture that exists, and the bag of tools and systems KW offers is the best for our team and clients locally,” he adds.

While David and Shawn have seen their beloved home of Jackson Hole change dramatically over the years, neither longs for the past, and instead focus on the positives of progress. “We live and enjoy business in the best place in the world,” David says.

Shawn points out the benefits that progress has brought to the area, including top-notch restaurants, world-class skiing, championship golf courses, blue-ribbon fishing, unsurpassed art galleries, and state-of-art hospitals and medical care.

“Thinking through the pros and cons, you just have to ask yourself, ‘is this the best place for me today,’” David says. “My answer, Shawn’s answer is yes, we love it here."