Connecticut residential firm pushes further into Westchester with new partnership

Connecticut’s residential real estate brokerage William Raveis Real Estate has announced it is continuing its push into Westchester County by partnering with Legends Realty Group, a 19-employee firm based in Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow.

It comes two days after Prudential Douglas Elliman announced it has entered the Westchester market for the first time with the acquisition of Prudential Holmes & Kennedy, a six-office firm.

With today’s move, Raveis, which has joined with five other offices in Westchester in the last 18 months, solidifies a beachhead in an affluent area, though one that has struggled through the downturn.

Legends, on the other hand, becomes a franchisee, allowing it to tap Raveis’s well-regarded Web technology, among other resources, for a recurring fee.

Legends owner Marcene Hedayati, who will stay on with her four-year-old firm, agrees that big-name brokerages seem to be wracking their brains for ways to prosper, even if it may take more than expansions to do that.

“When the market gets choppy, people start looking for different solutions,” Hedayati said, “but there’s no magic wand anywhere.”