Media One, the parent company of the Salt Lake Tribune, the Deseret News, and Hometown Values Magazine has announced it is now a Real Estate Brokerage!
This should be an interesting and likely unfortunate excursion for the media company into a field which is dominated by seasoned specialists.
The business model they espouse has been tried before: List homes for cheap and list them for volume. We might remember the now-defunct Real Estate Mint who advertised heavily in 2006 and 2007. They followed this same model.
So far the Media One brokerage boasts three agents. That level of manpower will certainly irk sellers who want more communication and service from their brokerage. Nevermind working with buyers.
Lets watch and see how they pull this together. My bet is Media One will be out of the business in 14 months.
Most companies that grow tangentially experience great frustration because they leave behind their niche/expertise and enter the horizontal business as a neophyte. Some do succeed (see how Wal-Mart has successfully delved into various industries), but many don't. When I saw mortgage lenders try to be everything to everyone (IndyMac was a PRIME example!) I knew they'd struggle. Indeed they did!
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