Dale Chumbley a second-generation Realtor who works for Prudential NW Properties in Vancouver, Wash., is the voice of Clark County Real Estate Guide, a site that is chronicling "365 Things to Do" in that city, with one featured item each day.
A couple of his latest mentions: a Chinese buffet and an extreme, big-air motorcycle event.
He will be a featured participant at the all-day Agent Reboot event scheduled Wednesday, Aug. 18, in Seattle, Wash.
Chumbley will join Gist CEO T.A. McCann and Professional One Realtors CEO Michael McClure for a panel presentation, "Mastering Social Media to Expand Your Reach Online."
Inman News posed a set of questions to Chumbley:
1. What is the most important business lesson you learned in the past year?
Find your voice and what you love and do it to the best of your ability. Engage with others and care about their success and help them whenever you can. I’ve also learned I need to get helpers in the areas I’m weakest. I don’t try to carry things I shouldn’t.
2. What inspired you to pursue your current career path?
As a second-generation Realtor, I suppose I was destined to do this. As a kid I always dreamt of being an architect, but somewhere along the way that dream changed. I love seeing the smiles on the faces of new homeowners who thought the American Dream could never happen to them.
3. Share a personal experience or anecdote about buying, selling, owning or renting a home.
The first home my wife and I ever bought was the week after our honeymoon to Las Vegas. We won enough money to put a downpayment on a home. We actually wrote the offer with my mom without seeing inside first. We knew it was to be our first home.
4. What’s the coolest technology you’ve discovered this year, and how are you using it?
IPhone! Plain and simple: the iPhone. Between its photo ability and the video ability it is the one thing I couldn’t live without. I also upload everything directly to the Web from it, too.
5. What is your advice for real estate industry professionals to thrive in this market?
Be yourself — quit trying to be everyone else. Figure out what you love and enjoy and focus on that. Work hard. Actually do the work and quit looking for a magic bullet. The magic is in hard work. Care about people — they can tell when you don’t.
6. What is your favorite non-work-related hobby?
Photography. I love seeing the photo and then capturing it to share with others. It is a very peaceful and relaxing thing for me to do.
7. Who is your hero, and why?
As a cancer survivor I would have to say all the medical professionals (nurses, doctors, technicians, pharmacists, lab workers, etc.) who dedicate their lives to serving those suffering through this, and also to the unsung hero to any cancer patient: their loved one(s) and caregivers. In my case, this was my wife, Bridget.
She not only had to care for our 2-year-old son and 2-month-old daughter, she was nurse and caregiver to me for 11 very long months.
8. What do you view as the biggest problem facing the real estate industry today, and how would you fix it?
The banking and lending institutions. Until this gets fixed I don’t see us fully recovering.
10. Tell us something we don’t already know about you.
My dream car is a 1964 1/2 Ford Mustang convertible. (I’ve owned two ’65 Mustangs in my life.)
