OUR STORY | OUR 'WHY'

The Julie Matthews Group is a boutique real estate team based in Winter Haven, built on 39 years of deep Polk County roots and a standard of service this industry rarely sees anymore. Julie Matthews spent nearly four decades earning a reputation that speaks before she walks into a room. Kennedy Matthews is her firstborn daughter, same fire, same standards, same refusal to do anything halfway. Together they operate as a true family partnership, combining Julie's lifetime of local expertise with Kennedy's command of modern marketing and technology that the industry is only beginning to catch up to.

 

Most teams operating at this level have assistants, transaction coordinators, and people you will meet once and never hear from again. The Julie Matthews Group is not that. Every client works directly with Julie and Kennedy from the first conversation to the closing table. The person who answers your call is the person negotiating your contract. It is a two-person team that operates with the attention and precision of something far larger, because every single detail of every transaction is personally handled by the two of them. That is not a pitch. That is just how they work, and it always has been.

MEET JULIE

Real estate has been a part of Julie Matthews’ life since the very beginning of her career. At just 17 years old, she began working as a secretary in a real estate office in Winter Haven. The moment she was eligible to take the state exam, she did. Julie became a licensed Realtor at 18 and has been helping buyers and sellers navigate the market ever since.


After decades of building relationships and consistently producing results, Julie founded the Julie Matthews Group in 2010. Her reputation in the Polk County and Central Florida markets is built on experience, work ethic, and an unwavering commitment to the people she represents. Over the years she has successfully helped hundreds of families buy and sell homes throughout Winter Haven and the surrounding Polk County region.

 

Clients quickly notice Julie’s hands-on approach. She believes real estate should feel personal, not transactional. Every client works directly with Julie throughout the process, benefiting from her deep market knowledge, negotiation experience, and attention to detail.

 

A few things people may not know about Julie: she is fluent in Danish, and on one memorable day she successfully closed 14 homes in a single day. That kind of productivity reflects the dedication she brings to every transaction.

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MEET KENNEDY

Kennedy Matthews is Julie's firstborn daughter, and if you put them in the same room, you already know everything you need to know. Same personality, same fire, same inability to do anything at less than full speed. One of them just happens to be a half foot taller.


Growing up, Kennedy was never a perfectionist about everything. She was a perfectionist about the things she loved, and the things she loved, she mastered completely. She played competitive soccer and spent years devoted to classical piano, building a level of discipline and intuition that followed her into every room she walked into after. Her father, Dr. Michael Matthews, was a veterinarian, and Kennedy grew up inside that clinic surrounded by a pace that most adults couldn't handle. The patients ranged from rats to tigers. You learned to stay sharp or you got out of the way. Kennedy stayed sharp.


After graduating from Lake Wales High School, she went to Florida State University, led recruitment for her sorority Delta Gamma, and earned a Bachelor's degree in International Affairs with a dual concentration in Public Administration and Economics and two minors in business. Her obsession with global geopolitics has always been serious and specific. She has a real, documented track record of reading what is happening in the world and correctly predicting how it will hit the local real estate market. That is not something you can teach someone. Either you see it or you don't.


Out of college she went into SaaS sales and became a top producer at every company she worked for. She cold-called her way to the front of every room and will tell you herself that she can make friends with a brick wall. But Julie was watching, and what Julie saw was someone winning on paper and running on empty underneath it. Kennedy was sharp, effective, and had no heart in the game.


She joked that she was getting told off for a living. Julie didn't find it funny. She recognized that her daughter had every single thing the real estate industry needed, grit, empathy, intelligence, personality, and a negotiation instinct that cannot be manufactured, and she was spending it on software. Kennedy wasn't just qualified to join the Julie Matthews Group. She was always meant to.

THE ARCHIVES