Last week I talked about the importance of innovative thinking. Recently I had the opportunity to speak with a real innovator right here in our community! If you travel in the New Martinsville downtown area and shop at Reisbeck’s, you can’t help but notice the building with two lovely ladies on the door! Carla Morris, our Membership Chair and I had the opportunity to have a sit-down with owner, Tylor Chichick. We were so impressed by her vision that I knew that I had to share it with all of you.
What inspired you to open your own rental agency?
I feel this is kind of a two-part question for me.
Through both our real estate sales division and our property management division, my true inspiration is to serve people in a capacity of trust. It is our privilege to help people on their pathway whether they are renting, buying, selling, or entrusting us with their investment properties. By providing factual
information, we guide clients through processes to help them make informed decisions, which is truly a significant factor for me.
Throughout my life, I have been driven and thrive on setting goals and really pushing through barriers to accomplish them. As a goal-seeker, I always set short-term, long-term, stretch goals, and five-year plans for myself. Even though I knew I would launch a Real Estate brokerage from scratch within my five-year plan at some point, there was no specific date to achieve it by initially. We were incredibly blessed to be given the opportunity to purchase the property management division at Wetzel Valley Agencies in December of 2022. It was an incredible accomplishment to go from concept of Pathway Realty Group to opening day within a period of about 65 days.
Wetzel Valley Agencies truly has a tremendous special place in my heart, and I am so thankful for the opportunity to build and continue growing on the foundation they built with their property management division and dedication to serve our community. With the purchase, we are striving to streamline and modernize processes through technology-based programs. Our new system has just been implemented in its first phase, and we are looking forward to launching tenant and owner portals in this next phase, which will facilitate online payment processing for rent, work requests, and
document sharing all within one platform.
Are there trends that you are seeing in property rentals that your agency is addressing?
Right now, I feel like the biggest trend or even challenge is not enough modern and updated affordable housing options available in our area. With interest rates up and rental pricing increasing, we have a section of working class they don’t always qualify for additional assistance through programs available in our area which can be tough for our local renters to pay pricing ranging from 800-1200+ a month.
We are working with some of our property owners to address this through revitalizing some of the multi-unit properties to create updated affordable housing. It’s exciting to be working with some our local and out of state property owners that have entrusted us to manage their properties and really
share this same vision and want to invest into our communities.
What sets you apart from other agencies?
When assessing the offerings of local brokerages, it becomes evident that we all share a common objective of supporting our communities and being a trusted resource in real estate. What distinguishes Pathway from others is our unwavering commitment to continually raise the standard as we expand. We
have been diligent in navigating the modern digital landscape, establishing a strong online presence through brand development, strategic social media marketing, and innovative real estate presentation and marketing techniques. We eagerly anticipate aligning our goals to surpass current achievements.
Exciting times lie ahead as we embrace the upcoming stages of our business growth, where learning, development, and progress remain at the forefront.
What inspired your very modern decorating style? Your office is so different from the previous space, what are some of the changes that you have made?
I have a passion for transforming spaces alongside my husband, David, and together, we make a great construction and design team. Also, my brother-in-law Josh was instrumental part in helping us accomplish this so quickly.
Our approach revolves around creating timeless designs that blend minimalism with functionality that truly matched our vision for our Brand for Pathway. When you step into our office space, you immediately notice the embodiment of our design concept.
While in the past we primarily focus on residential transformations, this project presented a unique opportunity to delve into commercial redesign. It came with its own set of challenges, but we were fortunate to have a blank canvas to work with.
Our vision for the space was to incorporate a modern storefront style, which was quite a departure from its original state tucked away in the back of an older building. We decided to craft the desired aesthetic ourselves by building some of the furniture as well accent walls. The resulting office space stands as one of our most cherished transformations to date. Its unexpected transformation considering the building's age and it truly reflects our imaginative vision for revitalizing older properties and homes. It was a really exciting to be able to create that for our office space.
Pathway Realty Group, LLC
339 Martin Ave.
New Martinsville, WV 26155
304-249-8112
So, there you have it folks. This is what reimagining old spaces with new technology, vision, commitment, integrity, compassion and the desire to see a rural community really grow. This is the next generation of young entrepreneurs. Thank you, Tylor. We wish you many years of success!
