A new player has entered the FSBO (For Sale By Owner) fray with limited-service offerings in an attempt to upsell FSBO buyers into becoming mortgage, escrow and title clients. RealUmbrella does not belong to any MLS services, nor does it intend to. They offer "marketing" services to put homes on their website and will provide postings to sites such as Trulia, Google and Zillow as well... for an additional fee, of course. The key to the RealUmbrella service is upsell, upsell, upsell... They'll give you a listing on their website for cheap, but then they'll make every effort to upsell buyers into their loan programs (RealUmbrella Financial Services) as well as into their affiliated escrow, title and other services. Outside of RealUmbrella's current service area? Not to worry... they'll gladly sell your info to someone else for a referral fee. Great marketing ploy, right? Lure them in with cheap FSBO offerings, and reel in the line by marketing higher-priced services to you and your buyers on the back end. And if your home is not selling, RealUmbrella will gladly upsell you again by offering more "marketing" services (sans the MLS and Realtor.com, of course). Hey, it's a pretty good marketing scheme for their lending services, so they at least earn some points for creativity. Unhappy with their FSBO listing service? RealUmbrella offers a no-money-back guarantee, or per their website, "RealUmbrella does not offer refunds and or credits to customers who have purchased a listing package". How's that for customer service? So what do you get for your RealUmbrella fee? A standard FSBO-type listing on an as-yet-unknown website, standard forms from U.S. Legal Forms for buyers to use in preparing offers ($39.95 value), a link to DocuSign to sign forms electronically online ($19.95 value or free for 7 days), and a "loan prequalification process" that simply allows prospective buyers to either apply for a loan with their in-house mortgage company (the true purpose of this program) or to upload their prequal letters from other lenders into the system. As for service on the real estate side, make that "nada", "zero", "zilch", or whichever equivalent you're most comfortable with. Per their website, "RealUmbrella does not engage in real estate broker services." But... they will "provide certain details on an anonymous or non-anonymous basis depending on the RealUmbrella service to third parties," or in plain English, they will sell your personal information to third-party vendors so you'll start getting loads of sales calls. Save your pennies, folks... if you really want to go FSBO in this crazy market where virtually nothing is selling, you can do it better (and cheaper) on your own than with services like RealUmbrella. All it takes is time and some know-how, as well as a lucky rabbit's foot or two if you want to sell without having your home listed on the MLS or on popular home search sites like Realtor.com and Homes.com. Just be sure to keep your nights and weekends open for home showings, open houses and the like, as well as an attorney on hand in case your deal goes sour. And be sure to read our Safety First article before letting strangers into your home. Oh... and be prepared to compete against the other 2,526 homes available for sale in the Santa Clarita area. | 
