Nice to meet you, I’m Steve Chin. Before moving to Park City, I spent my childhood in Sacramento, California, and attended Cal Poly Pomona. I then went on to work as a CPA for Kenneth Leventhal Company, a top-ranked national real estate accounting firm.
Wanting to take a short winter ski break from tax season, my wife Val and I left Los Angeles in 1975. That “short” break turned into more than 40 years in Park City, where I initially worked as a bellman and a night auditor to fund our ski habits. Fortunately, I quickly founded and operated a successful property management company with my close friend, the late Bob Wells, former VP of Deer Valley.
This was the perfect launching pad for me to enter the world of real estate, which I did in 1980. I found the business incredibly rewarding and I am lucky to share my dedication and passion with our team of Park City and Deer Valley real estate agents. My associates and I have successfully marketed and represented over 20 developments within the area. We are honored to be highly respected among our peers and have a vast network of connections across the country.
First, excited you are considering a visit to Park City, formally a mining town, it is now a mecca for outdoor recreation. It is a wonderful and exciting place to visit, live and play….an amazing melting pot of people from “everywhere”….engaging, fun, loving the outdoors and easy to get to.
A little about myself: I grew up in Sacramento, California and attended Cal Pol Pomona. Following graduation, I went to work as a CPA for the firm Kenneth Leventhal & Company in Los Angeles, a well known national real estate accounting firm. Having an opportunity to do the tax and audit work for the Park City Ski Resort Company and experience the lifestyle of the mountains versus the city life, my wife and I decided to make the move to Park City.
With my experience at Kenneth Leventhal & Company working with real estate developers, lenders, and management companies created an excellent launching pad for me to enter the real estate business. My experience has spanned the whole gamut of involvement with developers from the planning, entitlements, site and floor planning layouts, design, pro forma projections, costing, marketing and sales. From the individual representation of Buyers and Sellers, it has been most rewarding to be on the advisory side of evaluating market trends, valuations, exit strategy, cost of ownership, creating added value, rent versus buy, tax ramifications of owning primary/vacation home, taxes (property, sales, income), availability of health care, education/schools, community engagement, traffic, safety, government and most importantly is meeting one’s family goals and having a wonderful experience in the process.
Aside from my involvement with Chin, McQuoid, Fleming Harris in real estate…. My wife Val and I raised 2 terrific boys in Park City. Our oldest son, Josh, currently lives in Seoul Korea. He previously lived in Beijing for over 15 years working as a journalist with the Wall Street Journal. He is currently the deputy bureau chief for China for WSJ. Cameron, our younger son, has been working with me in our real estate business for the past five years, lucky me, he has bought such new outstanding skills to the business for our team. Previously he was a ski coach and ultimately became an Olympic coach for the Russian women’s alpine ski team and took them to Sochi. Cameron has two wonderful boys, great having them so close to us.
Val and I have been very active in numerous community organizations in town: schools, Rotary, National Ability Center, Natural History Museum, Mtn. Trails, Nuzzles, Cystic Fibrosis. In our free time, we enjoy being co-owners of Parallel Napa Valley, a boutique winery in Napa (Parallelwines.com). We are so fortunate to have a well-known winemaker in Phillipe Melka. Fun fact: the name Parallel comes from our love of skiing and living in Park City. We even have a reserve wine named yearly after a black diamond ski runs throughout the world.
I look forward to sharing more with you about our town and what is has to offer. We are known for our winter skiing; however, we always say:
“Come for the Winter, but live for the Summer”, four wonderful season living!
