Why hide your light under a bushel?
I'm told that certain Sotheby's agents deny they're any part of Realogy Corp, wholly owned subsidiary of Apollo Management. While I can understand that no proper Greenwich agent would willingly admit association with the polyester, mustard-garbed horde at Century 21,the fact is, they're peas in the same corporate pod , as this press release states:

Sotheby's International Realty, Inc. (www.siroffices.com) is part of NRT Incorporated, the nation's largest residential real estate brokerage company. NRT, a subsidiary of Realogy Corporation (NYSE: H), operates Realogy's company-owned real estate brokerage offices.

That's a little snobbish, isn't it? And what about Sotheby's other sibling, Coldwell-Banker? Do Coldwell agents also get the cold shoulder? Harsh bud, dude.

Update: This article says that we can expect still more market consolidation as the real estate market tanks. GMAC Home Services, one of the largest brokerage firms in the U.S. was just taken over by a Canadian company and the deal lost one potential player:"Realogy was mentioned among the possible buyers of GMAC, but it has been saddled with debt in [its own] heavily leveraged buyout deal."

Sotheby's is doing just fine; if its Greenwich agents are lucky, maybe Realogy will sell off Century 21 and the Sotheby's folks can ditch their shame.