Are domains real estate of internet?

[Keral_Patel]

:hi: I have heard everywhere that domains are real estate of internet is it true?

And how? Thanks in advance for your comments.

 

[Leyen]

I think it is... like buying a house, here, you're purchasing a cyber address...

Of course real estate involves the quality of the house... so together with the domain name, you'll have to throw in a design to make it real estate on the internet :p

 

[user-7256]

Yes. Period :D

 

[Kate]

The real estate analogy is quite appropriate IMHO.
If you don't pay the renewal fees (mortgage) you can lose your property :hehe:
But domaining is a form of investment that can reap good profits while being much more affordable than "real" real estate :p

 

[scrsteven]

Yes, exactly that.

 

[TT]

yes and i have had a little success so far convincing my bank manager of this, i personally think that after a few more large $$$ sales of my portfolio I will be able to have more ammunition to get even more money from him.

 

[SanchoPanza]

Domain names like real estate, depends on 'location'. Having a good one word .com is like having a house on Rodeo Drive. You can have a really crappy website, but if the term is good enough you'll still get a gratuitous appraisal. Likewise, if you own prime land on Rodeo Drive but operate a rundown gas station, you'll get still get an outrageous appraisal. You can also make the relation to....Las Vegas Blvd., Wall St., etc. The old adage 'location, location, location' is as relevant in domain names as it is in real estate.

Also, domain names can be appropriated just like real estate. 'Cyber-squatting' and the subsequent appropriation by huge corporations can be likened to 'imminent domain' in the US.

 

[CrazyTech]

The real estate analogy is what I use all the time to describe the domain industry. I think many of the reasons have already been outlined above. Domains, just like real estate, have the value to appreciate over time, even more so if you develop them. A domain is like buying a lot of land and developing it is like adding a house to the land.

 

[dongan]

The quire answer is YES.

We buy/sell domain without developed like buy/sell lands without buildings.

 

[Keral_Patel]

Means 1 letter .com is the center of the city. Then comes the less developed area that is 2 letters then 3 letters and after all of them comes 4 letters. 5 letters is just jungle with lots of trees.

 

[WuLabsWuTecH]

I've read through the comments and kinda agree with the yes answer but my original answer would have been "NO" outright Here's why:

owning abc.com doesn't really give you any space. YOu can have an address at 123 main street but no land and it does you no good. I think of the domain as your address and your hosting as the land with your site as the house

 

[AdoptableDomains]

For the most part yes on the analogy, but not necessarily in the legal sense. Just as the internet is virtual space, domains are virtual real estate. A domain is vacant lot, the website content is the building that houses what draws visitors, search engines and type-ins are the highways bringing traffic.

...Legally, it's probably more like a perpetual apartment Lease, unless you go condo by registering as a TM.

However, real estate is currently a fixed commodity (until we can get to other planets). Namespace can be added much like new lands were discovered in history

There seems to be a lot more swampland and desert in the virutal world though, so make sure your virtual land is tillable (domain parking?) or developable to be worth buying. :D

 

[Nerz]

I think the good thing about domains, and to a further extent developing them is the startup cost is so incredibly small. Literally you can put up a few pages every now and again, pay $6 a year to keep the domain, pay $20 a month for hosting an unlimited number of domains, and providing your site makes a couple dollars a month in adsense and the odd affiliate sale your already in front...for really very little work. If your clever enough too use the many labour saving options there are, the story gets even better.

Multiply that dozens of times over the course of a few years and its a lot of money. What excites me is the opportunity it presents for people to work in locations they would normally never have dreamed about in 99.9% of 9-5 jobs.

All i need is a computer and a connection and i can work literally anywhere in the world where they have a decent network, 56k if necessary.

Here in Australia, i think your going to see a lot of freelancers working online moving out to the bush to work, because housing is so much cheaper, the lifestyle generally that much healthier, hopefully resulting in a lot of small country towns being reinvigorated by people actually moving in for a change, rather than moving away.

While i hope to travel in the longterm, what im personally working towards in the medium term is buying some land outright, probably in Tassie. That will bring one step closer to a personal freedom that i couldnt hope to achieve doing most 9-5 jobs working in the city if i didnt want to carry a $300,000 mortgage for the next 30 years.