Coldwell Banker Offering Discount Brokerage?
By Anthony Longo 12 06 2008
Today (through a broker peer of mine) I came across a site called BlueEdge, which claims to be a discount brokerage owned and operated by Coldwell Banker. I didnt believe it when I saw it. Does anyone else know about this?
Blue Edge offers both sell-side and buy-side real estate brokerage for 2% which is what we all know 1% less than the traditional real estate commission.
I am still in aww that Coldwell Banker is involved with this. I need more details…anyone got any?
Note: Don’t be confused with BlueRoof, a successful Prudential owned discounter in Utah.
I’ll dig into it a little bit, but the site looks quite plain, boring, manila, weak, generic (let’s see, how else can I describe it). Low budget.
Would you really go to this site and try to sell your house?
They’ve got no PR juice so how are people going to even FIND the site?
And if Coldwell Banker was tied to this, oh man…they’re in some deep…
http://realtytimes.com/rtpages/20010503_blue.htm
And this article says it was published MAY 3, 2001!!!!!!!!
This was/is a trial balloon. I believe it was implemented in the Pittsburgh area. C-B is not one to leave any franchise sales opportunity unexplored. I am unsure if they are even selling Blue Edge franchises, but it would be interesting to speculate that Realogy (C-B’s parent) could acquire a successful discounter like, oh, say Redfin, grab the technology and have it drive Blue Edge.
I think Realogy is more concerned with the launch of Better Homes and Gardens this summer. Could we see all those GMAC brokers who were formerly BH&G return to the fold?