| Windermere Real Estate recently announced that it had expanded into Northern California with the affiliation of 3 offices with a beginning group of 105 agents. The offices are located in Los Gatos, Saratoga and San Jose and will be headed by Mark Ewing.
Those offices represent the Seattle-based regional chain’s first entry into California. Windermere Real Estate currently operates 207 offices in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and British Columbia with more than 5,000 agents, including five offices in Kitsap and two each in neighboring Mason, Jefferson and Clallam counties.
Ewing and his partners were released from their Fred Sands franchise late last year when Sands sold his company to Cendent Corporation, a national conglomerate which owns the Coldwell Banker, ERA and Century 21 real estate brands. Ewing was looking to maintain his company’s identity in the marketplace, and merging his 3 independent offices with Cendent was not the direction he wanted to take the company.
“Windermere is thrilled to find a group of agents and owners who are so closely aligned with our vision of professionalism, integrity and community involvement,” said Geoff Wood, president of Windermere Real Estate.
“Our growth strategy is very organic in that we look for markets and partners who mesh well with our approach to real estate. Our growth strategy is not based on gathering the most; it’s to find the right partner to serve the local market in a manner befitting the Windermere brand — Mark Ewing and his group fit this criteria perfectly,” Wood added.
The May 2000 issue of Real Trends, a national real estate trade publication, listed Windermere as the country’s largest regional residential real estate brand. Also, The Realty Alliance ranked Windermere as first in the country in closed transactions, sales volume and number of transactions. | 
