Latter & Blum Acquires Gardner Realtors

Latter & Blum, one of the largest independently-owned real estate companies in the Gulf South, has acquired New Orleans-based Gardner Realtors.

“For 77 years, we’ve banged heads on listings, sales and whatever else was in the market," mused Bob Merrick, chairman of Latter & Blum. "And the nicest thing about this is, after banging heads for 77 years, Gardner thought enough of us to come to us about a merger.”

Gardner has 800 agents in 24 offices in South Louisiana and South Mississippi. The company will now operate under the Latter & Blum name, but Gardner President and CEO Glenn Gardner said the important thing is that the company is, at heart, still an independent family-owned company.

“We realized that in order to keep up with the latest and greatest technology and marketing tools, it’s better to be a bigger company than either one of us were separate,” he said.

This is the latest in a string of acquisitions for Latter & Blum, which was founded 104 years ago. Gardner is the 18th company they've acquired since 2009.

After this deal, Latter & Blum will have a network of more than 3,700 associates and will rank 20th in the nation in sales volume.

In 2019, Latter & Blum did $4.6 billion in sales while Gardner had $1.2 billion.

Latter & Blum has offices in Lafayette. According to their website, they had 199 sold listings, 203 new listings with a total of 869 homes on the market in November 2020.