About Us

The History of the Ragetté Realtors begins at the shores of the New York harbor in the late 1800's when millions of immigrants arrived from Europe. One of those immigrants was 23-year-old Anton Ragetté who came to the United States from France in 1879 and settled in the Bronx. There he earned a living doing a variety of jobs, including selling coal, wood and steamship tickets from an office he opened on Third Avenue. He also began selling real estate. Six years later he began building apartments in the Bronx.

The business was later passed on to Rudolph Ragetté, one of seven children in the Ragetté family. Rudolph, who began his career as a newspaper reporter and later, advertising manager for The North Side News, took over as president of Ragetté Realty in 1918 and moved the office to Mount Vernon. Two years later, Ralph E. Ragetté was born in Mount Vernon.      

In 1938, Ralph, then 18-years-old, received his real estate licensed and joined his father's firm. He sold real estate during the day and took business courses at night at New York University. After his father's death in 1941, Ralph and his sister Madeline took over the business. Ralph left the company to serve in the Army during the war, by then was married, moved the business to larger quarters in the company's present office in Eastchester and served as President of the firm.      

In the late 1960's, the firm realized the need for change with the trends in the real estate business and created the opportunity for in-house training program for sales associates and expanded its business in insurance, corporate relocation and commercial real estate. In the late 1970's, the fourth generation of the Ragetté family joined the firm: Ralph R. Ragetté as treasurer of the real estate company and Mark F. Ragetté at the helm of the insurance company.      

Ralph R. Ragetté is the current President of the company where he is proudly leading the organization into their 123^rd year of business.