Continuing with our “Saunders Stories” series, Drayton Saunders, President of Michael Saunders & Company, looks back at the growth of the brokerage over the last four decades. From Residential to MS&C Commercial, Title, Mortgage, Rental, New Homes & Condominiums, and Relocation, Drayton explains how the company has expanded to meet the evolving needs of customers.
“Well, the company certainly started with Michael and Residential. She might even say Residential and New Homes since I know that one of her first projects was Tiffany Plaza on Longboat Key. I remember living there as she was selling it out. I was sort of the tag along sales assistant if you will. But as we’ve grown as a company, we’ve grown not only in our regional presence but in what we offer in services and that was an evolution of consumers’ demand.
It started with Commercial early on when Sarasota was going through development in the 1980s and people would come down and want to know where to build. And so Michael was very forward thinking, not only in starting the Commercial Division, but back in those days, it was sexy, she had a helicopter, and she would tour – because you didn’t have Google Earth – so you had to get up in an actual vehicle and survey the landscape of where the market was going.
A brochure from MS&C Commercial circa 1988/89 courtesy Dennis Dahm.
And that was the expertise of the company; you had to be able to tell where the puck was going as well as helping people navigate the present. And so we started a commercial division in the 1980s that, by the time I joined in 2003, had really grown.
People not only wanted residential assistance in buying and selling but a lot of times that consumer coming in from a different state with different laws of how real estate is done wanted one-stop shopping. That meant Mortgage services, Title services, it meant a Relocation Division and so we’ve always grown in pace with what the consumer demanded and today we are a very diversified company. We have Residential as the centerpiece but we have a historical and very strong New Home division, the services that I mentioned, and so we always sort of grow organically but we become a very strong interrelated company of services.”
As the needs of the consumer have grown, so has the capabilities of Michael Saunders & Company. The Gallery opened in 1996 and was featured in the Sarasota Herald Tribune as “pragmatic and useful as a major library, focusing specifically on real estate, yet glows with the glint and glamour of show business. The design invites visitors to relax and browse the many and varied lifestyle choices, much like an art gallery.”
To learn more about Michael Saunders & Company and Sarasota real estate, visit MichaelSaunders.com. Watch the last two episodes of Saunders Stories for a more in depth look at the history of Michael Saunders & Company:
Introducing Saunders Stories: The Beginnings of Michael Saunders & Company
A Very Magical Spot: Growing up on Longboat Key