June 2, 2015

Matthew Gardner takes new job at Windermere

Gardner

Windermere Real Estate hired Seattle economist Matthew Gardner as its chief economist.

Gardner was principal of Gardner Economics for 17 years before taking the job at Windermere. He specializes in real estate and land use, as well as regional and national financial analysis.

The move to Windermere means Gardner will no longer provide independent analysis of the local real estate market. Gardner said a lot of developers do that kind of work in-house these days, so the need for third-party analysis is shrinking.

Gardner Economics' website says it will cease operations July 1.

“Matthew has a unique ability to break down local, regional and national economic data in a way that makes it easy for our agents and their clients to understand how it impacts their personal circumstances,” OB Jacobi, president of Windermere said in a press release.

Gardner said his history with Windermere goes back to the mid 1990s when he was a research analyst in the builder services department.

Gardner told the DJC his decision to make this move goes back to conversations he had with Jacobi in 2008. The housing market had collapsed, and they were trying to figure out what they could have done to see it coming. Gardner started publishing regular market reports for Windermere and its agents.

Windermere is expanding, with more than 300 offices in 11 states, so the company decided to make Gardner full time. Gardner will study and analyze markets for the firm, and some will be new markets for him such as California, Colorado and Idaho.

Garden said what he'll miss most about his firm is the variety. “I was never sure from one day to the next whether I was going to be analyzing a 50-story office building or a 1,000-lot master planned community,” Gardner said.