Award-winning Lakeland real estate firm turns 25 years old

LAKELAND – On the eve of another milestone in his career, Dean Saunders took stock of his time in commercial real estate from his corner office, furnished with a desk made from cypress wood extracted from the river.

The Lakeland-based real estate company SVN Saunders Ralston Dantzler, with Saunders as the founder and its managing partners Gary Ralston and R. Todd Dantzler, celebrated its 25th anniversary.

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With his experience in Florida politics and some of the largest real estate sales in the state and country, the Saunders-founded company has grown to include more than 60 Florida and Georgia real estate professionals and a dozen other employees.

The firm he founded in 1996 had more than $ 3.2 billion in transactions. It started as Saunders Real Estate, LLC, originally specializing in land and conservation easements.

Entering politics was also one of the career steps of the son of a citrus farmer, who grew up in Clermont and whose ancestors include fishermen and shrimp fishermen.

Prior to his bachelor’s degree in citrus management from the University of Florida, he earned a senior real estate license.

In 1983 he moved to Lakeland to initially work in agricultural product sales. Within three months, however, Charles E. Canady, a relative of the Florida Supreme Court Justice Charles T. Canady, read Saunders’ résumé and asked him to liaise with the Florida farmers for then Governor Lawton of Chile.

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His official title was Agricultural Association, Special Assistant, and Director of Foreign Affairs. Saunders, an eighth generation Floridian, said Chile is looking for someone to meet the needs of growers of citrus, timber, livestock and other commodities across the state.

“It’s a state of mind,” Saunders said of his intergenerational legacy.

Then there were several catastrophic freezes in the 1980s that killed entire groves of trees as far as the eye can see, a dystopian landscape of frozen fruits and trees, as he described the scene.

“It’s tragic,” he remembered his wife Gina. “One day that will be all the houses.”

He took a cut in his government job and dusted his real estate IDs. When the citrus growers decided not to replant their groves, the sales quickly made up the difference in his wages. Since then he has been selling the ranch and farmland.

“So I didn’t look back,” Saunders said. That was until he received another call to Chiles from an aide who had left politics years earlier in the 1980s but decided in 1990 to run for governor. Saunders was asked by the Chilean campaign to help raise funds. Chile defeated incumbent Governor Bob Martinez.

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Eventually, Saunders himself ran for office and served in the Florida House of Representatives from 1992 to 1996.

Saunders, who is a conservation easements authority, remains most proud of his work on the state’s Bert Harris Private Property Rights Protection Act of 1995, which provides remedies for landowners when a law, ordinance, or ordinance of the government is worth Would decrease private property.

Speaking of the massive development in Florida, Sauders said, “I loved this state 18 million people ago.” He stated that although development is inevitable, “I have a personal interest” in protecting the land.

Another major achievement he cited was his work on the Bright Futures Scholarship Program in 1996, aiming to keep the state’s best and brightest high school graduates in Florida with scholarships for post-secondary education.

“That was an uphill battle,” said Saunders, recalling the Florida Lottery-sponsored program.

He’s also proud of several career milestones that helped get his company to the top of the country sales charts. He remembered a sale he brokered with Pat Wilson for the Latt Maxcy Corporation in Lake Wales. The company’s namesake, Latimer Maxcy, once owned and operated the largest of several fresh fruit packing houses in Frostproof, the company’s website says. The company ran cattle ranches, a bank, and other businesses.

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“That really got me going,” Saunders said of the 27,000-acre real estate transaction that began at a social gathering in 2000, following discussions with Wilson, and which ended around 2005. The deal not only cemented Saunders as a top commercial broker in Florida, it gave him a financial boost for his burgeoning business.

In another transaction, as reported in a 2016 profile by Saunders in Florida Trend, his firm “AgReserves, the tax-paying subsidiary of Latter-day Saint Church of Jesus Christ, represented the Mormon Church when it bought 380,000 acres in northwest Florida.” . by St. Joe Co. Allegedly for more than $ 560 million, ”the magazine reported.

As a marketer, not just a seller, Saunders also seeks innovation. “I’m always looking for ways to do things better,” he said.

Aerial cameras have been one such innovation, but recently he and partner Gary Ralston are using a proprietary program to create data-driven market reports that compile economic data and real estate reports at the push of a button.

In the United States, industry publications and groups have noted its advancement, particularly in recent years.

It was recently added to Florida Trend magazine’s Florida 500 list for the third consecutive year. The list highlights the state’s most influential business leaders across all industries.

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Saunders also received the most coveted and prestigious award in the Realtors Land Institute APEX Awards program, the APEX 2020 Top National Producer. The four-year-old award was announced in March, the group’s magazine reported. The award recognizes the applicant with the highest overall qualifying transaction volume in the country. This is the second time Saunders has received the highest accolade among national land brokers. He had previously won in 2018.

For 2020 performance, he was the No. 2 consultant in the SVN franchise among 1,620 consultants. He was her # 1 consultant in Florida out of 198 consultants and was recognized with the SVN Partners Circle Award.

Saunders also received the 2020 National Association of Realtors, the National Commercial Award for service and contribution to the industry. With a two-year sales growth of 51%, SVN Saunders Ralston Dantzler ranks 210th on the Inc. 5000 Regional List.

Even the 1723 US 98 South building was recognized by the Lakeland City Commission for the June Commercial Facelift Award. When he received the award, Saunders attributed the vision to architect Marlon Lynn of removing the roof and “reverting to the old Gene Leedy look of the building from 1965”.

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Looking back, Saunders said, “If there’s a secret sauce, it’s good people; my employees and salespeople. ”

As of 2006, Saunders began an association with Coldwell Banker Commercial, the company said in a press release.

In 2011, Saunders, Ralston and Dantzler formed a brokerage company to serve clients interested in office, retail, industrial and multi-family real estate.

In 2019, the company joined SVN (Shared Value Network), a global retail real estate brand, and unified the company under the brand name SVN Saunders Ralston Dantzler Real Estate.

Paul Nutcher covers business and industry for The Ledger. He can be reached at [email protected].