When Charli Inman and her sisters were young, summer vacations weren't spent parked in front of the TV.

Instead, Charli, Sam and Jamie were outside toiling in the heat. Starting when each turned 10, the girls hefted up fences and cleaned properties at homes their parents, Frank and Debbie, planned to flip.

"It definitely instilled a hard work ethic at a young age," Charli affirmed.

That explains a lot about the Coeur d'Alene family today.

In the past several years, the three daughters, now in their 30s, have joined the same Windermere Hayden office to peddle real estate alongside their mother.

It's no family tea party. Touting a mantra of independence the sisters say Debbie inspires, the clan of Inman women live and breathe real estate.

Seriously.

Family dinners are venues for spirited discussions about listings and marketing ideas. While each woman works individually, they swap daily intel about buyers and listings that could boost each others' efforts.

Sure, they enjoy camping and hiking. But it's a rare conversation where market prices don't creep in.

"It truly is our passion," said Sam, Charli's twin sister, who admitted her nights off are spent cracking open realty books. "It's not just something we work at for the day and then we're done."

It might seem unusual for a group of women to bond over residential and commercial listings.

But being aware that many clients seek them out because of their teamwork, the mother and daughters agree that it's their particular obsession with hard, time-consuming, sometimes frustrating work, that ties them together.

"(Mom) just knows all of us are very type A personalities. Organized, efficient," said Sam, who works primarily as a listing agent. "She knew it would be a good fit for us."

Debbie admits she always hoped to entice at least one of her brood to enter the real estate market.

"I kept after them, hoping one of them could join so I could teach them what I know," she said with a chuckle.

Debbie was always a little obsessed with real estate, she said. She used to read over real estate listings on her lunch breaks when she previously worked as a banker.

"It's definitely in me," said Debbie, who sells real estate in Bonner and Kootenai counties and admits she still works up to 16-hour days. "I really feel it's in my daughters, obviously, too."

It was observing their mother's perseverance starting as a realtor 16 years ago that inspired the girls, Charli said.

The three watched Debbie work nights, weekends. Sometimes they accompanied her on appointments with clients.

"She is one of the hardest working people I've ever met. We always joke she's like two people in one, as far as what she takes on," said Charli, adding that all the while their mother always urged them to go to college and achieve their dreams. "Seeing what she did with her career was super inspirational. It's the main reason we all chose real estate."

They didn't follow their mother's path immediately. Sam and Charli both have degrees in social work.

But they wanted to be near the ones they love, they agreed, to pursue something they saw their mother driving at for years. And real estate is still about helping people, Sam contended.

"It's social work in a different way," said Sam, who primarily works as a listing agent. "You're helping people financially, and also emotionally, just the ups and downs."

It was hard to avoid their mother's relentless encouragement, Charli said.

"She told us when Sam and I became realtors, 'I think you guys could take over Coeur d'Alene,'" Charli recalled. "We were like, 'Yeah right, mom.'"

She echoes her sisters' descriptions that all the women are best friends, confiding in each other and offering constant support.

That extends outside of real estate, Charli added, including taking care of her newborn son, Tucker.

"Everyone adores Tucker," she said of her kin pitching in to dote over the infant. "We're definitely a very close family."

Jamie, the youngest of the sisters, was the last to join the real estate office. She returned to Coeur d'Alene after working in California for several years, she said.

Real estate was an opportunity, she said. But she mostly missed her family.

"Just being in California the last five years, it just made me really appreciate Idaho, and it made me appreciate my family more," Jamie said. "We're all so close."

And committed to success, she admitted.

"It's been great to have our mom's knowledge and expertise to guide us," she said. "It's developed into something so big."

And it might get bigger. Charli is engaged to a realtor, while Sam is dating one.

"I can see it becoming a very big family business, as we get married and have kids," Jamie predicted. "I think it will expand more."