When I originally started at eppraisal a couple years ago I discussed the idea of creating a service that would allow someone to sell and buy a house online. It would be an end-to-end transaction with all of the documents and tie-ins to vendors that might be needed to make that work. I quickly realized what a challenge that might be.

The Real Estate Journal is reporting on a new real estate web product called RealUmbrella that positions itself as the one-stop-shop for FSBO transactions. My first inclination was to think, “is this a Redfin clone?” It isn’t, it’s much more like that idea I was chomping on back in 2005.

Their basic offering is this: for $349 – $949 you can utilize their services, which will give you a bunch of tools to market your property and will give you all the legal documents to transact a real estate sale online with a buyer in real time – no agent necessary.

Most real estate agents will think this is ludicrous, and many home buyers and sellers will tend to steer clear of this type of a service. That doesn’t matter though. As long as there is a significant enough percentage of people willing to use RealUmbrella, they will do well. It’s a large industry and there is room enough for multiple business types.

Will this disintermediation of real estate agents matter? No more than the general FSBO market already does. The other 98% of the real estate industry can continue doing their own thing, and will continue to do well/not well depending up on their own actions.

Of course their claims use all the normal anti-establishment rhetoric used to garner attention. Understandable and expected. What I want to see is if they can pull it off and if they truly can create a paradigm shift in buyer/seller behavior.

I’m interested in hearing from someone who uses their service, so let me know if you have plans on being a guinea pig for the rest of us!

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