Nayarit, Mex­ico August 15, 2007 — Why would any­one want to live in Mex­ico? The answer is simple…oceanfront prop­erty. “Nayarit, Mex­ico is becom­ing one of the hottest liv­ing des­ti­na­tions for US and Canada Retirees,” says David Cren­shaw, Pres­i­dent and Founder or Fund­Val­larta Invest­ments. “One of the biggest draws to Los Ven­eros is that condo own­ers are close enough to mod­ern day ameni­ties to enjoy the coastal com­mu­nity, but it is secluded for those who like the draw of a pri­vate beach.” Now is your chance to pur­chase one of the most beau­ti­ful and scenic prop­er­ties in the region — Los Ven­eros Condominiums.

What is Los Ven­eros? Los Ven­eros is a five-star lux­ury project built on 42 acres of some of the most scenic ocean­fronts in Mex­ico. Sit­u­ated between La Cruz and Punta De Mita, Los Ven­eros is located on the north coast of the Bay of Banderas.

Who designed Los Ven­eros? Project archi­tect Jaime Bar­bra. “Future res­i­dents have the con­fi­dence of know­ing the prop­erty was designed by the most respected and acknowl­edged beach­front archi­tects in the entire region,” says David Cren­shaw. “Add that to the fact that famed Amer­i­can archi­tect George W. Girvin is design­ing the land­scape,” and every condo will have some of the most beau­ti­ful land­scap­ing in all of Mexico.

The view at Los Ven­eros
The entire prop­erty is being built on anIf tremen­dous views are the most impor­tant fac­tor in choos­ing an ocean­front prop­erty, then Los Ven­eros is the place to be. upward slope from the beach, giv­ing every condo one of the most spec­tac­u­lar views of any ocean­front prop­erty in the world.

What is avail­able at Los Veneros?

There will be 41 super con­dos located on the beach. In addi­tion to the beach­front prop­er­ties, there will be seven low rise clus­ters with 210 addi­tional units. Pent­house and ground floor units will also have sep­a­rate swim­ming pools.

Addi­tional advan­tages to Los Ven­eros liv­ing include:

• Ten dif­fer­ent floor plans from which to choose.
• Square footage for­merly unheard of in con­do­minium living.
• Under­ground parking.
• Its own beach club.
• A fully quipped spa and health club

That is not all. In addi­tion to the pre­vi­ously men­tioned fea­tures of Los Ven­eros liv­ing, res­i­dents will enjoy a gate­house for the secu­rity of the pri­vate res­i­dents, a restau­rant and a 450-slip marina for those res­i­dents who just have to go out on the water. There are many more ameni­ties and advan­tages to liv­ing at Los Veneros.

For infor­ma­tion con­cern­ing pur­chas­ing a condo at Los Ven­eros, please con­tact La Punta Realty.

For infor­ma­tion con­tact:
La Punta Realty:

www.losveneroscondos.com

www.lapuntarealty.com

Down­town office:

Within Mex­ico
Tel: 01 (322) 223‑4801
Fax: 01 (322) 223‑4801

From US/Canada
Tel: 011 52 (322) 223‑4801
Von­nage: (213) 291‑7592

North Shore office:

Within Mex­ico
Tel: 01 (329) 291‑6420
Fax: 01 (329) 291‑6421

From US/Canada
Tel: 011 52 (329) 291‑6420
Von­nage: (213) 291‑7590

Cou­ple finds superla­tives in every cat­e­gory over 10 days in fab­u­lous Puerto Vallarta

By MARIBETH MELLIN

Spe­cial to the Star-Telegram

Related Con­tent

• Coastal dream

The bells in the Basil­ica de Nues­tra Senora de Guadalupe rang every quar­ter hour night and day, oblit­er­at­ing the need for a bed­side clock. Into a drawer it went, along with my lap­top and magazines.

The cam­era stayed on the bal­cony, ready for shots of the basilica’s fil­i­greed crown against dark­en­ing skies. Binoc­u­lars sat close at hand in case a whale spouted in Ban­deras Bay. There seemed lit­tle rea­son to leave our aerie.

My hus­band and I were near­ing the end of a 10-day vaca­tion in Puerto Val­larta, one of Mexico’s loveli­est sea­side cities. We’d spent a week by the beach and were end­ing our jour­ney in the Celes­tial Suite at Hacienda San Angel, a beau­ti­ful bou­tique hotel in Val­larta Viejo, the heart of old PV (as the locals say). The temp­ta­tion to do absolutely noth­ing was nearly overwhelming.

But there was so much to do and see. The shops are irre­sistible, the art gal­leries inspi­ra­tional and the restau­rants abun­dant and superb.

Then there’s the sur­round­ing coun­try­side, with gor­geous blue coves, dense green jun­gle, and for­est and moun­tain vil­lages mired in his­tory. PV has just about every­thing a vaca­tioner could pos­si­bly need. Our jour­ney was packed with fab­u­lous expe­ri­ences I’d gladly repeat. Here are just a few of our favorites to get your fan­tasies flowing.

Into the past

Pablo could have been 90, 75 or 60. It’s hard to tell when a man’s face is creased from the harsh moun­tain sun, and even harder to know any­thing for sure when he speaks the lan­guage of the Hui­chol, the pey­ote peo­ple of the high Sierra Madres.

Despite his age and declin­ing health, Pablo wore all his fin­ery, his straw hat cov­ered with feath­ers befit­ting an elder shaman wiser than all the rest. He greeted us from a low stool in the vil­lage of San Andres Coami­hata, eagerly accept­ing an apple while eye­ing his vis­i­tors’ cig­a­rettes. He held up hands as creased as his cheeks and told an inter­preter that he works hard every day, despite his age.

“How many chil­dren do you have?” some­one asked. He barked out a laugh and swept his arm in a cir­cle embrac­ing all the rough adobe brick houses in the com­pound. Every­one in this neigh­bor­hood is related, one of our guides explained. It’s hard to tell who’s a brother, a cousin or a son.

Pablo is the elder, for sure, and all gath­ered beside his stool as if at the feet of the mas­ter. He grew silent and pen­sive as our lit­tle group moved on, then beck­oned a guest light­ing a cig­a­rette. A huge smile bright­ened his face. Soon the Amer­i­can and the Hui­chol were shar­ing a smoke, con­vers­ing with ges­tures and grins.

Sim­i­lar scenes played through­out our short visit to this tiny vil­lage far from paved roads and mod­ern con­ve­niences. We had arrived early that morn­ing on a prop plane from Puerto Val­larta, an hour’s flight to the south­west. Our guide, Mar­tin Aver, dis­trib­uted fish, fruit and a much-coveted soc­cer ball to the wel­com­ing com­mit­tee before we even stepped off the plane. Ben­ito, our Hui­chol guide, blessed us as we entered the vil­lage, where two men played a dirge on hand­crafted instru­ments sim­i­lar to violins.

For the next three hours we wan­dered, mes­mer­ized. Although it has only 120 reg­is­tered res­i­dents, San Andres is akin to a cap­i­tal city for the 16,000 Hui­chol liv­ing in sim­i­lar remote moun­tain out­posts. It has the region’s only church, estab­lished in the 18th cen­tury by Fran­cis­can mis­sion­ar­ies, and the only water pump around.

The Hui­chol are among the few indige­nous groups in Mex­ico to retain pre-Columbian tra­di­tions, and they have lit­tle inter­est in allow­ing out­siders to cor­rupt their lifestyle. Val­larta Adven­tures is the only com­pany that brings strangers to San Andres; their tours run once weekly from Decem­ber to April. Aver had to nego­ti­ate with the town lead­ers before we could pro­ceed. When he returned with a signed con­tract in hand, he prac­ti­cally beamed with relief.

Accom­pa­nied by our guides, the musi­cians and the inevitable band of semi-shy chil­dren, we checked out the worn table where shamans deter­mine future events dur­ing a peyote-enhanced trance. Inside the cir­cu­lar cer­e­mo­nial house, Ben­ito explained the pet­ro­glyphs cov­er­ing the walls. In the church, he showed us a hole in the dirt floor rep­re­sent­ing the womb of the world.

It was dif­fi­cult to absorb the cul­tural and his­tor­i­cal infor­ma­tion dis­pensed through mul­ti­ple trans­la­tions. In the long run, the peo­ple had the most intense impact. Bash­ful women in bright yel­low blouses and long blue skirts stood half-hidden behind wooden doors; many cov­ered their faces the moment they sensed a cam­era pointed their way. We were led to a gath­er­ing of artists dis­play­ing their hand­i­crafts. Were it not for the gor­geous Hui­chol beaded masks and fig­urines sold in fine gal­leries through­out the world, few out­siders would even know about this ancient tribe. The crafts we saw were sim­ple and prim­i­tive but far more desir­able than any collector-quality art in Puerto Vallarta’s pricey shops. We bought bracelets and neck­laces, beaded igua­nas climb­ing carved branches, and masks with swirling pat­terns and flow­ers rep­re­sent­ing pey­ote plants.

Trea­sures in hand, we wan­dered slowly toward our plane, reluc­tantly board­ing. Nearly the entire vil­lage gath­ered as the air­craft rum­bled along the dirt airstrip and ascended.

“The con­tact with the peo­ple is the best thing you could ever expe­ri­ence,” Aver said. Our group was quiet, even sad, sens­ing the end of a rare and pre­cious expe­ri­ence. Even Aver, who presents his tours with exhaust­ing energy and enthu­si­asm, was sub­dued as he led us toward the street and taxi­cabs of Puerto Val­larta. “We always leave with a great emo­tion,” he said.

Foodie frenzy

We gave up on diet­ing in PV. The city has so many superb restau­rants and tal­ented chefs that we could barely begin to sam­ple even the best offer­ings. I’d asked Jane Onstott, the author of Fodor’s Puerto Val­larta, to rec­om­mend the ideal meal. She men­tioned four restau­rants in one breath.

“I’d have the del­i­cate lit­tle lob­ster tacos from Daiquiri Dick’s, sashimi with the locals at Mariscos 8 Tostadas, and warm choco­late cake from Trio,” she said. “For the set­ting, I’d choose the amaz­ing ter­raced gar­den at Cafe des Artistes.”

Then there’s the shrimp posole at El Arrayan, a dar­ling din­ing room filled with Mex­i­can kitsch. We loved the cheese-filled pas­tries and yogurt with berries at La Palapa, the best spot on the beach for Sun­day brunch, and returned often to Mariscos 8 Tostadas for straight-from-the sea ceviche. For a full-on ‘50s-style night on the town, we dined on thick steaks at the retro Vista Grill, where Sina­tra crooned in the back­ground as fire­works flashed above the bay.

We didn’t need a for­tune to sam­ple PV’s fab­u­lous cui­sine (though we did splurge often). Cooks skewer fresh grilled fish on sticks at seafood shacks on the sand and sell their ten­der morsels for about $5 a stick. I quenched my thirst with a freshly peeled mango carved into a flower — also served on a stick — and glasses of freshly squeezed juice from street stands (for your health’s sake, make sure the fruit is peeled before your eyes).

We had pan­cakes at Memo’s; crab man­i­cotti at Vitea; and an aston­ish­ing pro­gres­sive feast on the rooftop, in the court­yard and at the bistro-style Wine Bar at Cafe des Artistes. The expe­ri­ence left me long­ing to attend this year’s Gourmet Fes­ti­val (run­ning Nov. 8–18). Local chefs have been invit­ing their inter­na­tional peers to cook at the fest since 1994, and from what I’ve heard, cham­pagne, wine and cheese tast­ings and gourmet meals are outstanding.

Artis­tic ambling

PV has long attracted artists, film­mak­ers and writ­ers inspired by its nat­ural beauty. The best intro­duc­tion to the thriv­ing art scene is a stroll along the male­con edg­ing the bay down­town. More than a dozen fan­ci­ful bronze sculp­tures line the walk­way. Few peo­ple can resist plop­ping into the bronze seats at the Rotunda del Mar, a clus­ter of high chairs topped by sea crea­tures. Cou­ples pose before La Nos­tal­gia, a sculp­ture of two nes­tled lovers, while kids (and grownups) jump aboard the spi­ral­ing wave at Nature as Mother. Repro­duc­tions of the artists’ pop­u­lar pieces fetch hefty prices at local galleries.

The male­con bus­tles on week­end evenings, when per­form­ing artists arrive. One night we stum­bled upon sculp­tors obliv­i­ous to ris­ing tides cre­at­ing whim­si­cal sand cas­tles between the male­con and the bay. Clowns and acro­bats per­formed at the small amphithe­ater beside Los Arcos, stone arches fram­ing sea views. A salsa band pro­vided a sen­su­ous back­beat in the main plaza, while church­go­ers­de­scended stone stair­ways from the adja­cent basil­ica. Artists at easels busily sketched car­i­ca­tures and painted water­col­ors of the ever-changing scenery.

At least two dozen fine art gal­leries line the streets of down­town PV. Sev­eral open their doors for the weekly Old Town Art Walk, Wednes­days from Octo­ber through March. Gallery own­ers offer wine, soft drinks and munchies.

All art lovers stop by Gale­ria Uno to visit own­ers Jan Laven­der and Mar­tina Gold­berg, who’ve long fueled the local art scene and know every­body and every­thing. Gale­ria Val­larta is best for lith­o­graphs and prints from famed Mex­i­can artists; Gale­ria 8 y Mas focuses on artists who reside in the state of Jalisco, where PV is located.

The offi­cial art walk sticks to gal­leries north of the Rio Cuale, in Old Vallarta’s pricier neigh­bor­hoods. But the gal­leries south of the river in the Zona Roman­tica are equally entranc­ing. Gale­ria Dante’s enor­mous space cov­ers sev­eral rooms and a sculp­ture gar­den — it’s the largest gallery in PV and an unof­fi­cial info cen­ter for all artis­tic matters.

Folk art forays

The line between fine and folk art is barely dis­cernible when you wan­der through PV’s shops.

Talav­era etc. dis­plays tiles and table­ware by Uri­arte, Mexico’s old­est Talav­era makers.

At Pey­ote Peo­ple, Beat­riz and Kevin Simp­son have cre­ated a muse­um­like shop filled with fan­tas­ti­cal masks and fig­urines made by Hui­chol artists liv­ing high in the Sier­ras. The Simp­sons gladly explain the mean­ing behind vivid yel­low, orange and blue swirls and flow­ers dec­o­rat­ing beaded bowls and woven bags. The hal­lu­ci­na­tory qual­i­ties of pey­ote are in evi­dence in the intri­cate art pieces, some with price tags in the thou­sands. Less expen­sive beaded igua­nas and deer are sold at crafts mar­kets all over town.

Our favorite shop­ping out­ing was on a sunny Sun­day morn­ing as we ate break­fast at La Palapa on Playa los Muer­tos. A parade of ven­dors passed by our table, with col­or­ful bas­kets, lacy table­cloths and cases of sil­ver jew­elry. We resisted it all until a weary seller, arms filled with wooden mer­maids, passed by. My hus­band, a wood­carver, couldn’t resist. A half-hour later we were the proud own­ers of a 2-foot tall, blue-eyed mer­man named Pedro and a painted angel called Juanita.

Wild adven­tures

The jun­gles and moun­tains sur­round­ing PV are per­fect for all sorts of adven­tures. Even the easy tour to El Eden, the jun­gle set­ting for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s The Preda­tor, offers heart-pounding thrills. While we lunched beside a rush­ing river dur­ing a bus tour, some of our fel­low sight­seers opted to try a zip line above the tree­tops on a canopy tour. The tour’s final stop at a tequila dis­tillery seemed an apt ending.

Our biggest rush came from a plane ride over the moun­tains to San Sebas­t­ian del Oeste, a 16th-century silver-mining town 80 miles north­east of PV. Beneath our plane, a skinny, sin­u­ous road climbed nearly 5,000 feet above the sea, cut­ting through rocky cliffs. Get­ting to San Sebas­t­ian is quite an adven­ture, whether you travel by car or pri­vate plane. Being there is like flash­ing to scenes from The Trea­sure of the Sierra Madre.

San Sebas­t­ian was one of Mexico’s wealth­i­est silver-mining towns in the 1700s. Today, roughly 600 peo­ple live in the area in a set­ting so pic­turesque it’s a UNESCO World Her­itage site. Vis­i­tors are sparse, though a few tour com­pa­nies bring groups up the twist­ing highway.

The Sanchez fam­ily hap­pily escorts guests through their cof­fee plan­ta­tion, where beans ripen on 100-year-old trees. At a can­tina straight out of Romanc­ing the Stone, the bar­tender sets up shots of racilla (the local moonshine).

Men in cow­boy boots slouch out­side the can­tina, horses clomp along rocky streets, and roses blos­som in the cool moun­tain air. Bril­liant bougainvil­lea tum­bles over fences and adobe walls. The desire to find a room for the night grows as shad­ows deepen in the moun­tains. But our guide made sure we got into the plane and back to the bustling city.

With all these thrills packed into a lit­tle more than a week, we didn’t have time for fish­ing, scuba div­ing or kayak­ing. Oh, yeah, did I men­tion the beach? Miles and miles of coast­line stretch north and south of Ban­deras Bay. Maybe we’ll hang out in a ham­mock by the sea next time we’re in PV — as long as we leave time for shopping.

If you go

Stay­ing

Hacienda San Angel: Stun­ning views of rooftop gar­dens, tiled stair­ways and the land­mark crown atop PV’s basil­ica enter­tain guests at this col­lec­tion of restored vil­las art­fully dec­o­rated with foun­tains, gar­dens and antiques. The hacienda is a mem­ber of Mex­ico Bou­tique Hotels (MBH), which rep­re­sents sev­eral extra­or­di­nary prop­er­ties in the area, includ­ing secluded beach hide­aways. Rates start at $235. 800–728-9098, www.mexicoboutiquehotels.com

Adven­tures

Val­larta Adven­tures offers air and land tours to San Andres, San Sebas­t­ian and other moun­tain vil­lages and Hui­chol com­mu­ni­ties closer to PV. They also have canopy tours and nearly every other activ­ity you might desire.

Val­larta Adven­tures. www.vallarta-adventures.com

Galleries/Shops

Gal­le­ria Dante

www.galeriadante.com

Galerie des Artistes

www.galeriedesartistes.com.mx

Pey­ote People

www.peyotepeople.com

Talav­era etc.

www.talaveraetc.com

Eat­ing

El Arrayan

Allende 344

Cafe des Artistes

Guadalupe Sanchez 740

Daiquiri Dick’s

Olas Altas 314

Trio–Restaurant–Bar–Cafe

Guer­rero 264

trio@triopv.com

Vista Grill

Pul­pito 377

Gourmet Fes­ti­val

www.festivalgourmet.com

Com­pe­ti­tion Among Top Firms

Heats Up In Still Solid Sec­tor For High-End Real Estate

By BEN CASSELMAN
August 3, 2007; Page W8

There’s a new piece of ammu­ni­tion in one of lux­ury real estate’s fiercest bat­tles: a $34,000 trailer in Goleta, Calif.

The home is for sale through Sotheby’s Inter­na­tional Realty, a bro­ker­age bet­ter known for ocean­front estates and coun­try manors. The com­pany has greatly expanded since it was sold off by its auc­tion house par­ent three years ago. New Sotheby’s Realty fran­chises in places like North Car­olina and Col­orado are mar­ket­ing dozens of big-ticket prop­er­ties, but they’re also tak­ing on many less lux­u­ri­ous ones. One new fran­chise in north­ern Idaho, for exam­ple, is list­ing a small three-bedroom house for $139,500 and a double-wide man­u­fac­tured home for $38,000. (The list­ing boasts of “newer” appliances.)

GOING TO EXTREMES

• See an a chart and pho­tographs of the fea­tured properties.

The company’s ven­ture into the land of car­ports and dou­blewides has been the source of much delight among agents at its chief com­peti­tor, Christie’s Great Estates, some of whom email each other, espe­cially about down­scale Sotheby’s prop­er­ties. Nor­man “Pete” Call­away, a for­mer Sotheby’s bro­ker who is now with Christie’s, keeps a photo of a rival list­ing — a hot dog stand — in his desk drawer. “They’ve lost that high-end cred­i­bil­ity,” he says.

Exec­u­tives at Sotheby’s Realty — which retains an affil­i­a­tion with Sotheby’s auc­tion house — say the com­pany is still a lux­ury bro­ker­age, and point to its more than 800 U.S. prop­er­ties listed for $5 mil­lion or more. But they also say they are cast­ing a wider net — tar­get­ing cus­tomers who can afford a $10 mil­lion man­sion as well as their chil­dren, their friends, and those who aspire to buy such prop­er­ties in the future.

Sotheby’s Inter­na­tional Realty has expanded its offer­ings: A trailer home in Goleta, Calif., is listed for $34,000

The changes at Sotheby’s Realty come amid increased com­pe­ti­tion at real estate’s high end, which has gen­er­ally weath­ered the down­turn bet­ter than the mid-range and low-end, where credit is dry­ing up. The wealthy can still bor­row with rel­a­tive ease, or pay cash. In Con­necti­cut, for exam­ple, sales over $500,000 rose 4.5% in the first quar­ter of the year com­pared to the same period last year, even as over­all vol­ume fell 1.4%, accord­ing to the Con­necti­cut Asso­ci­a­tion of Realtors.

With busi­ness still good, small bou­tique firms are now vying for top list­ings with national play­ers such as Cold­well Banker and Re/Max, as well as Lux­ury Port­fo­lio, a net­work of inde­pen­dent firms. The five U.S. prop­er­ties on the mar­ket for $100 mil­lion or more are being bro­kered by six dif­fer­ent companies.

Most lux­ury list­ings don’t have such eye-popping price tags, of course. The aver­age ask­ing price of a Christie’s prop­erty is $5.4 mil­lion, accord­ing to the com­pany, and nearly all its list­ings are for $1 mil­lion or more. The aver­age ask­ing price for a Sotheby’s Realty prop­erty is $1.6 mil­lion, and about 60% of its prop­er­ties are listed for under $1 million.

Sotheby’s auc­tion house sold its real estate divi­sion to Cen­dant Corp. in 2004 for $100 mil­lion. The new own­ers got the 17 exist­ing realty offices and, more impor­tantly, the right to use the Sotheby’s name and brand­ing for as much as a cen­tury. (The auc­tion house earns a nom­i­nal licens­ing fee based on sales made under its name; last year, those roy­al­ties totaled $2.6 mil­lion, accord­ing to secu­ri­ties fil­ings.) Cen­dant later spun off its real estate group as Real­ogy, which was itself bought by private-equity firm Apollo Man­age­ment late last year for $6.7 bil­lion. The new own­ers aban­doned the old affil­i­ate sys­tem and adopted a fran­chise model, under which all offices use the cor­po­rate logo on all of their listings.

The new model has brought a wider range of list­ings. Of the more than 17,000 U.S. prop­er­ties listed for sale on Sotheby’s Web site recently, more than a thou­sand were less than $250,000. Some were unde­vel­oped land or pre­con­struc­tion offers, but oth­ers weren’t: a $74,900 boarded-up house in Chicago; a three-bedroom Florida condo in pre-foreclosure for $139,000; a $137,000 stu­dio condo in Malden, Mass., billed as a “great chance to own instead of rent.”

“We like to mar­ket the best prop­er­ties in every price range,” says Kathryn Korte, a Sotheby’s Realty’s chief executive.

Own­ers of tony estates, how­ever, don’t always want to be lumped in with stu­dios and starter homes. Last fall, when Kailas Rao wanted to sell his $11.9 mil­lion man­sion in Mil­wau­kee, he says he looked for a com­pany that focused on the high-end and didn’t give out “mixed sig­nals.” He chose Christie’s. “You have to under­stand who the cus­tomer is,” he says. (Sotheby’s Realty exec­u­tives say they con­sis­tently tar­get con­nois­seurs of the good life, regard­less of their means.)

A Sotheby’s offer­ing in Santa Bar­bara, Calif., for $39,500,000.

High-end real-estate is a sin­gu­lar niche. Bro­kers often become celebri­ties in their own right. Stephen Shapiro and Kurt Rap­pa­port, the agents behind the $165 mil­lion Bev­erly Hills man­sion that is cur­rently the country’s prici­est list­ing, briefly starred in their own real­ity series on VH1. New York bro­ker Dolly Lenz, whose deals include a $45 mil­lion sale in the Hamp­tons, posed for a mag­a­zine spread lying atop a piano and dressed in a black dress and a fur stole.

The big-tent strat­egy by Sotheby’s Realty angered many of the company’s long­time affil­i­ates, who feared the brand would be watered-down. “The joke amongst our­selves was, ‘Gee, this is sort of like Wal-Mart buy­ing Tiffany,’” says Jack Turpin, whose New Jer­sey bro­ker­age had been part of the net­work since 1978. Mr. Turpin’s firm was one of many to leave Sotheby’s after the sale; about two dozen later signed on with Christie’s. Sotheby’s Realty exec­u­tives say some for­mer affil­i­ates found the “par­a­digm shift” difficult.

Christie’s stays at the high end: an East­ville, Va. prop­erty is listed for $41,750,000.

Christie’s list­ings show the company’s dif­fer­ent approach. While it has far fewer list­ings than its rival — about 4,000 on its Web site — 95% of them are for $1 mil­lion or more. Christie’s affil­i­ates some­times have low-end prop­er­ties, too, but they don’t get tagged with the auc­tion house’s name, as is the case with Sotheby’s fran­chisees, because Christie’s lim­its which list­ings can be adver­tised under the Great Estates ban­ner. Chief exec­u­tive Kay Cough­lin says the com­pany makes sure its rules are fol­lowed. “We do catch things that we don’t approve of and advise the bro­ker that this is not appro­pri­ate,” she says.

Real estate devel­oper Richard Kurtz says he had no hes­i­ta­tion about using Sotheby’s when he was look­ing for some­one to sell more than $100 mil­lion worth of prop­erty in Alpine, N.J. “It has a panache to it.” But other sell­ers have become wary. When finan­cial man­ager Tony Toner was pick­ing a bro­ker to sell a client’s 130-acre Vir­ginia Beach prop­erty, he gave the nearly $42 mil­lion list­ing to Christie’s, in large part because of its exclu­sive focus on top-end prop­er­ties. “In the $2 [mil­lion] to $10 mil­lion range, I would have had no trou­ble going with Sotheby’s,” Mr. Toner says. But in more expen­sive prop­er­ties, “Christie’s had them beat.”

William Ruprecht, chief exec­u­tive of Sotheby’s auc­tion house, says he knows that Sotheby’s Realty is list­ing prop­er­ties that aren’t “the per­fect expres­sion of the Sotheby’s brand,” but says he is com­fort­able with the way Real­ogy is using his company’s name. “We have one of the pre­mier brands in the world and we are very pro­tec­tive of it,” Mr. Ruprecht says.