Realtor of the Year

Realty Builder

Dean Miller, Century 21

by Michele Newbern Gillis

Staff Writer

Being an all-around good guy is what made Dean Miller of Century 21 John T. Ferreira and & Son stand out and be recognized as Realtor of Year of the Amelia Island/Nassau County Association.

“All I’ve been told is that Realtor of the Year has to be a top producer, someone who is giving back to their community and to their association,” said Miller. “To me, that means a well-rounded Realtor and that makes it a big honor to me.”

Miller volunteers as assistant coach of his daughter’s softball team, teaches Sunday school at Celebration Baptist Church, volunteers for every Ramp It Up! Build, was on the association’s board of directors and was the co-chair of the Education Committee. He’s also a top producer in his company.

“When Jackie Darby started reading the list of things the person had volunteered for in the community and the association, I thought ‘Oh, gee, I have a lot more in common with this person than I thought,” said Miller. “When she said volunteering at the Yulee Ballpark, I thought, ‘There aren’t any other Realtors that volunteer up there’. That’s when I was like ‘Who is it?’ When she said Sunday School teacher, I realized it was me. I was just shocked and pleasantly surprised.”

Last year was Miller’s first year on the board and as co-chair of the Education Committee. This year he is chair of the Education Committee and he also signed on to be secretary/treasurer of the board, which puts him on the path to be president.

Though it’s always hard to choose one person to win the award, said Jackie Darby, the past president of the association who chose Miller to be the winner. She said he was a relatively easy choice.

“It’s never easy for the president to choose one person for an award out of 400-plus Realtors - however, as I began thinking back through the year, there were only a few that I knew would be deserving of the award and Dean Miller really stood out above the rest,” said Darby. “Dean exemplified what I consider to be an outstanding Realtor. He was very involved in his community, his company and in his association.”

Darby said Dean was eager to be a part of the decision-making of the association by agreeing to serve on the association’s board in 2007 as well as becoming secretary/treasurer for 2008.

“Dean has always been part of a committee of some sort,” said Darby. “He is intent on educating himself to the best of his ability. He is striving toward earning his Graduate Real Estate Institute and Certified Residential Specialist designation.”

Miller feels this is the time for the younger generation of the board to take the reins of the board and take advantage of the knowledge bestowed on them from the past chairs and more experienced Realtors to move the board along into the future.

“We want to experience their knowledge and learn from them,” he said. “I think education is huge in our association just because of the legal aspects. I think there are a lot of people who got into the business who maybe didn’t get receive the knowledge that they should have when they got started.

“You can never be too educated in real estate. When you take the 60-hour pre-licensing course, they mainly teach you how to stay out of trouble. They don’t teach you how to work with difficult customers or how to negotiate deals. It more or less teaches you the math and the laws of what you can or cannot do.”

His goal on the Education Committee is to have classes that help Realtors learn technology and how to better use the tools the association has implemented to help Realtors do their jobs better.

If you are wondering what you can do to win Realtor of the Year next year, Darby said it isn’t what you do it’s how you do it.

“I would say that the Realtor of the Year award isn’t about what the Realtor can do to earn it,” she said. “But more about how a Realtor would stand out to others during their day to day activities - real estate related and otherwise.”

Miller feels that being a participant in the association is a vital part in being a successful real estate agent.

“I believe that we really need the association and that it has helped us and is bettering our career,” he said. “The more involved we get, the better it’s going to be.”

Miller has been in real estate for four years. He started his career with Century 21 John T. Ferreira & Son and has loved it ever since. He moved to the area from New York in 1993 and was a heavy equipment operator at a paper mill.

“I have an uncle in New York who had been in real estate for 30 years and I was at a point where my daughter was in school and I was able to go up and see her at lunchtime,” he said. “My son was getting ready to go into school and I knew that I didn’t want to work shift work and be in that type of environment for the rest of my life, so I decided to get into real estate.”

His wife, Tina, is a benefits coordinator for the human resources department at Rayonier Corporation.

He said it was a good time to get in the real estate business, even though it was crazy busy.

“I think it was good to get in it and see that there was some money to be made in this business,” said the father of two. “But, then in turn now after experiencing that high volume, I feel that I’m more weathered to be able to move forward. Everyone said that last year was the worst year that real estate ever had and it was my best volume year.”

He said it’s all about perspective.

“Yes, the number of units of houses that are selling is less,” he said. “But, I feel that we were in a seller’s market at that time and buyers were pretty much upset at how fast prices were going up and it’s just reversed.

“I’ve always been a listing agent so I’ve always worked with sellers, which made my job real easy back then. Now, it’s more service-oriented. Even if their house isn’t selling, they want to know that you are doing your job marketing their house and staying in communication with them.

“There is volume out there. There are fewer agents out there and less competition. I feel like I am living a dream and unfortunately there are some who’ve had to give up that dream.”

Past winners

The previous Realtor of the Year winners for the Amelia Island-Nassau County Association of Realtors:

• 1981 — Curtiss Lasserre

• 1982 — Bo Taber

• 1983 — Bobby Ferreira

• 1984 — Ruth Watkins

• 1985 — Renia Bayer

• 1986 — Mike Hickox

• 1987 — David Truluck

• 1988 — Jim Burns

• 1989 — Sherry Klein-Slais

• 1990 — John Pulice