DeRossett earns “Top Producer” award for 2021

Local Realtor Gene DeRossett has joined the 2021 President’s Council of Excellence for being the Ann Arbor office’s Top Producer of Individual Volume and Units for Real Estate One. Photo Courtesy Gene DeRossett

For 48 years, Gene DeRossett has worked hard at what he knows best — marketing real estate and building relationships. This “delicate balance” of skills has landed him in the top 10 percent of more than 1.6 million Realtors in the nation, and special recognition from his peers at Real Estate One, Michigan’s largest Real Estate Company.

“Few Realtors across the country have attained your level of success year after year,” said Dan Elsea, president of brokerage services for The Real Estate One Family of Companies, in a letter congratulating DeRossett on his successful year in 2021. “Counseling each of your clients requires a delicate balance of marketing and relationship skill, which you have mastered; ensuring (they) have the best advocacy and service possible — which is why so many refer you to their friends and relatives.”

DeRossett says simply that it is a joy to be able to help buyers and sellers with their real estate needs … whether they are business clients, friends, or family. The level of service he has provided as a builder and realtor, and any other services that his clients may need, over the years, speaks for itself. He’s not just doing a job, he’s doing what he loves to do. And he believes strongly in the adage that when you love what you do, you never have to “work” a day in your life. It feels like a choice more than a burden, and adds value and meaning to your life.

He has, of course, worked a day or two along the way. In addition to his role as a builder, contractor, and Realtor, he has also served in the state legislature, worked for the USDA, and as Manchester Township Supervisor. In each of these “jobs,” however, he has also found joy in service to others — particularly in his work as USDA Rural Development Director, where traveled across the state getting to know members of the rural communities, and worked among many of the Native American tribes in Michigan to help improve water, infrastructure, housing development, and communication in their districts.

So, he has no real desire to retire, and since both his parents lived productively into their 90s, he looks forward to continuing his career at least into its sixth decade.

He’ll be adding a new award to his local advertising but he’ll be keeping the same photo on which he’s received so many compliments over the years — he and his beloved dog, Mia, who they lost last year.

“She definitely posed for that picture with me,” he says with a smile. “My granddaughter, Emily, took it for me, and it turned out so well that I’ve used it in my advertising ever since.”

He’s happiest, now, when he can focus his real estate business on helping his children and grandchildren find their own homes and perhaps invest his commission in helping them get some needed upgrades or additions. But he will continue to take care of all his clients, as the real estate market continues to change and evolve, and partner with them for a successful and simple transaction.

See genederossett.com for more information. 

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by Marsha Chartrand

Marsha Johnson Chartrand, a founder, writer, and copy editor with the Manchester Mirror, is a 50-year resident of Manchester. She has a long history of volunteer and community involvement.