advice Does one extra letter make domain less valuable?

[DomainJava]

I just want a little advice as I put a name with a domain broker that I thought they would be interested in and was let down to realize they didn’t grab on to it. I own renthouses.com and am wondering if just having that “s” on end makes domain less valuable? What is the value of this name in anyone’s opinion? Thanks in advance!

 

[fka1080405]

First and foremost, money is made by selling a domain to the right buyer. The lack of interest from a broker does not necessarily mean anything about the value of the domain.

Regarding "letters", except for the small number of domains that are valued for their structure (e.g: 3 letter .com) there is no such thing as "extra letters" because buyers aren't thinking in terms of letters they are thinking in terms of words, phrases and acronyms. In this case, you're asking about a plural vs. singular phrase.

Think about the type of businesses that might want to use the domain name "renthouses.com" and think about the relevance of the phrase, and what other words and phrases they might be interested in. "Rent House" is a very clumsy and unnatural sounding phrase in English, it doesn't sound like something an English speaker would ever say. An English speaker would say "Rent A House". If a phrase is awkward to say, it would make a bad brand.

"Rent Houses" is a much more natural phrase in English. The majority of real estate platforms I'm familiar with use either plural (e.g: houses, homes, apartments) or words that can be read as referring to more than one (e.g: property). I would value "renthouses.com" much higher than "renthouse.com".

That said, would "rent houses" make a good brand name for a tenant facing rental business? The plural feels much more natural of a phrase in English but it doesn't really match up to a phrase I'd expect to hear a tenant say when looking for a house. A tenant wouldn't ever say "I want to [rent houses]" they would say "I want to rent a house" or "I want to browse through houses". A tenant rents a singular property.

Landlords on the other hand, they rent out properties, and "I rent houses" could well be language that a landlord uses. So, for a business that is either a landlord or works with landlords, it could be a meaningful brand... but when I think about the brand that type of business might want, "rent houses" doesn't seem obvious or particularly useful. "Visit renthouses.com to manage your rentals!" doesn't sound bad it just doesn't stand out.

If this were my domain, I wouldn't expect to ever find a buyer, but I'd probably list it at ~$10k because property businesses do involve a lot of money and, relative to the best premium property domains, $10k could be a compelling steal for someone setting up a landlord facing business.

edit: my strategy for selling this domain would be to google the phrase "rent houses", find any company using the phrase on their website and then email them pitching something like "an exact phrase .com is very valuable, this domain has been registered for over 25 years, and you use the phrase on your website. Upgrading to renthouses.com would be of great benefit to your brand.".

 

[Nilima45]

Hello,
Yes, the additional "s" typically reduces its value marginally since singular names tend to be easier to brand.
Renthouses.com remains a good, descriptive domain name in the rental space. In my estimation, its current market value is probably somewhere between $2k-$6k.
There seems to be a preference among end users for plurals when it comes to category domains within real estate.

 

[DomainJava]

First and foremost, money is made by selling a domain to the right buyer. The lack of interest from a broker does not necessarily mean anything about the value of the domain.

Regarding "letters", except for the small number of domains that are valued for their structure (e.g: 3 letter .com) there is no such thing as "extra letters" because buyers aren't thinking in terms of letters they are thinking in terms of words, phrases and acronyms. In this case, you're asking about a plural vs. singular phrase.

Think about the type of businesses that might want to use the domain name "renthouses.com" and think about the relevance of the phrase, and what other words and phrases they might be interested in. "Rent House" is a very clumsy and unnatural sounding phrase in English, it doesn't sound like something an English speaker would ever say. An English speaker would say "Rent A House". If a phrase is awkward to say, it would make a bad brand.

"Rent Houses" is a much more natural phrase in English. The majority of real estate platforms I'm familiar with use either plural (e.g: houses, homes, apartments) or words that can be read as referring to more than one (e.g: property). I would value "renthouses.com" much higher than "renthouse.com".

That said, would "rent houses" make a good brand name for a tenant facing rental business? The plural feels much more natural of a phrase in English but it doesn't really match up to a phrase I'd expect to hear a tenant say when looking for a house. A tenant wouldn't ever say "I want to [rent houses]" they would say "I want to rent a house" or "I want to browse through houses". A tenant rents a singular property.

Landlords on the other hand, they rent out properties, and "I rent houses" could well be language that a landlord uses. So, for a business that is either a landlord or works with landlords, it could be a meaningful brand... but when I think about the brand that type of business might want, "rent houses" doesn't seem obvious or particularly useful. "Visit renthouses.com to manage your rentals!" doesn't sound bad it just doesn't stand out.

If this were my domain, I wouldn't expect to ever find a buyer, but I'd probably list it at ~$10k because property businesses do involve a lot of money and, relative to the best premium property domains, $10k could be a compelling steal for someone setting up a landlord facing business.

edit: my strategy for selling this domain would be to google the phrase "rent houses", find any company using the phrase on their website and then email them pitching something like "an exact phrase .com is very valuable, this domain has been registered for over 25 years, and you use the phrase on your website. Upgrading to renthouses.com would be of great benefit to your brand.".

Thanks for your lengthy explanation and appreciate it. I have a large domain portfolio of names acquired 25 or more years ago and am looking at the best strategy to sell some names quickly ( thinking of auction so if you have any input on the best places to go for that where you have had success would appreciate it (thought Sedo might be a good option) and thought of putting some brandables on BrandBucket) I
am going to drop prices on some names and also am doing the LTO on Afternic as thought that may hopefully have a better sell through rate?…thx so much for your input!

 

[DomainJava]

Hello,
Yes, the additional "s" typically reduces its value marginally since singular names tend to be easier to brand.
Renthouses.com remains a good, descriptive domain name in the rental space. In my estimation, its current market value is probably somewhere between $2k-$6k.
There seems to be a preference among end users for plurals when it comes to category domains within real estate.

Thanks so much as your input was very helpful!!!

Hello,
Yes, the additional "s" typically reduces its value marginally since singular names tend to be easier to brand.
Renthouses.com remains a good, descriptive domain name in the rental space. In my estimation, its current market value is probably somewhere between $2k-$6k.
There seems to be a preference among end users for plurals when it comes to category domains within real estate.

 

[fka1080405]

Thanks for your lengthy explanation and appreciate it. I have a large domain portfolio of names acquired 25 or more years ago and am looking at the best strategy to sell some names quickly ( thinking of auction so if you have any input on the best places to go for that where you have had success would appreciate it (thought Sedo might be a good option) and thought of putting some brandables on BrandBucket) I
am going to drop prices on some names and also am doing the LTO on Afternic as thought that may hopefully have a better sell through rate?…thx so much for your input!

Absolutely do not auction off domain names. Auctions for domain names are terrible, auctions all but guarantee you will receive much less than you could otherwise. The only way to make an auction work is by setting a reserve but by setting a reserve you will discourage participation. If you really want to auction off domain names then you should spend some time exploring auctions across Sedo, Atom, DropCatch and observe just how poor the outcomes are. The most common mistake people make is looking at expired domain auctions and treating them as representative of seller auctions. If you exclude expired domain name auctions, auction results are terrible.

You need to start out by deciding what you want to achieve. What's your timeline? How much money do you want to make? Do you need to make money?

Domain names are very illiquid and so liquidating (i.e: selling according to your timeline) means you will take a huge haircut on the potential value of the domain names. I'd expect liquidating domain names to generate close to 1% of the value to an end user. Very rarely is it a good idea to liquidate domain names.

For example, if you have 100 domain names, each that you believe could sell to an end user for $10,000 then you could expect to liquidate them for $100 each (1% of $10,000). If you liquidate them all, that will generate $10,000. Or, you could hold out for an end user and even if you only sell 1 domain you've made just as much as you would have if you had liquidated every single one.

You also need to keep in mind that dropping prices doesn't increase sell through rate unless you're pricing domains that are in demand and you're dropping the price to a level where an interested party would find it compelling. If there are no people interested in your domain, you could price it at $1 and it will still never sell.

As a starting point, a price around ~$2,000 will generate sales if there are people who want your domain, because $2,000 is within the "instant buy" range for most buyers. So, if you price all your domains at $2,000 then you are likely to get sales from any domains that have people interested. However, if there are people who want your domain names, $2,000 is almost certainly not the most they would pay, so pricing all at $2,000 will leave money on the table.

Making money from domain names requires time, information and distribution. The starting point should always be to get as much information about your domain(s) as possible to make good pricing decisions, then focus on distribution. I've written about this before, I'll try and find my comments...

Liquidating domains requires distribution, you should be using every opportunity you can to have people see the domains. For example, this thread should include the domains.

That said, liquidating a portfolio as a whole is the wrong strategy in almost all circumstance. The majority of domains are junk even to investors so what people will see in a portfolio is a bunch of liabilities and a small number of domains they actually want. So, rather than think about buying the portfolio to get the domains they want, they'll think about how they're going to end up with all the domains they don't, depressing the price.

You should sell the domains individually, without mentioning that you're looking to liquidate, because that will depress the prices. That horse has bolted now, but maybe you change your name to "notodom" and nobody will know. If you need to raise as much money as possible in the shortest period of time, then you should be auctioning off the domains individually.

You could run auctions here on NamePros, or use a platform like Atom (they also have auctions) or with DropCatch. Keep in mind that almost all of the price of a domain comes from the buyer's desire to have the domain for their use... by selling domains to investors, you're leaving almost everything on the table. If you think these domains are worth $10k each, it would be a great success to get an average of $100 for each of them.

I've done a few to experiment. I think they're a bad idea in general. I sold a very nice .com at a ~$6k loss during one experiment. If I were liquidating a portfolio of domains, I would...

1. List the domains individually on every platform that has distribution (Afternic, Spaceship, Sedo, Atom) at a price I think would entice any interested parties to Buy It Now, somewhere around $500, with make offer enabled -- I would automatically accept any offer of $250 or more, no countering. I'd also enable Lease-To-Own.

I experimented a few months ago with repricing my entire portfolio to $100 each and I sold a bunch of domains in quick succession, because people wanted the domains but weren't willing to pay a good price. You can also try repricing a week later at ~25% higher to try and capture anyone who is waiting for the domain they want to go lower (i.e: they see the price go up and think, "oh no, this is the best price it'll be, I need to buy now").

The more time you can spend at the first step, the better.

2. After I've run out of time to capture available end user sales, I would come to NamePros and list the domains for people to make offers on them individually. At this point, I'd expect to receive low ball offers, but a couple of offers on the best domains for a few hundred dollars each. I'd accept any offer over $100. Maybe I'd get lucky and get an offer on the whole portfolio that works for me. I would not mention liquidation at this point.

You could do this step first just in case you have some really good domains that you're blind to the value of. I think that is unlikely given you have a lot of experience with end user sales so you should have a good sense for which of your domains are valuable.

3. After the make offer phase, I'd switch to fixed prices using the strategy employed by @dnbknowledge. The strategy is to offer domains at very good prices and incentivise people to buy multiple with a discount on each subsequent domain (example thread here). The quality of your portfolio would determine the prices but I'd guess around $50/domain.

I like this strategy because if an investor is interested in one of your domains, they probably have some overlap with you in how they think about domains. Giving them a discount triggers the human need to get a great deal so they start closely looking through the list, actively trying to find domains to get a great deal on. I think this is the right time to start mentioning liquidation as it should catch attention from people looking for a good deal. Perhaps @dnbknowledge can share some insights here into how the strategy works for them, maybe it's a bad strategy, I haven't tried it, I just like it in theory.

4. After enough time has passed for the more valuable domains to have been picked up by investors, I would then start auctioning the individual domains I had left, without reserve. I would split them across various platforms (e.g: 10 auctions on Atom, 10 on DropCatch, 10 on NamePros) to see which platform fits best with the portfolio, then use only that platform for the remainder of the domains. No idea about ebay, I see it mentioned sometimes, maybe worth a shot.

I wouldn't expect many of the domains to sell at auction but it would get some gone.

5. After I've auctioned off as many domains as possible, I'd expect to be left with probably 75% of the portfolio unsold that no investor wants. At this point, I would reprice all the domains at ~$1995 each across all platforms and then cross my fingers for an end user sale or 2 before they expire.

I might also consider then listing the whole portfolio for purchase in bulk on NamePros. I think, at this point, you'd have squeezed the maximum value from the domains and so the domains left wouldn't be worth the registration fee to other investors... but maybe you'd get lucky.

Anyway, that's the strategy that I think would extract the most value from a portfolio in the shortest period of time. I haven't done it though, and I think in general liquidating domains is a mistake, so caveat emptor.

(I've always assumed @dnbknowledge's "liquidation" is a marketing strategy rather than true liquidation but maybe their experience and insight would be helpful even if not an identical situation.)

So, starting point:

1. What are your domain names?
2. What is your goal?

If you can answer those questions, we can come up with a good strategy

Most likely, 99% of your domain names will be worthless trash, but 1% will have potential and could easily make more money for you than the other 99% combined.

 

[xwat]

Thanks for your lengthy explanation and appreciate it. I have a large domain portfolio of names acquired 25 or more years ago and am looking at the best strategy to sell some names quickly ( thinking of auction so if you have any input on the best places to go for that where you have had success would appreciate it (thought Sedo might be a good option) and thought of putting some brandables on BrandBucket) I
am going to drop prices on some names and also am doing the LTO on Afternic as thought that may hopefully have a better sell through rate?…thx so much for your input!

First I prefer rent houses dot com of rent house dot com. I think it is a great descriptive domain.

Secondly DomainJava or anyone else I am looking for places to sell domains. I am using ATOM.com right now.

 

[DomainJava]

Absolutely do not auction off domain names. Auctions for domain names are terrible, auctions all but guarantee you will receive much less than you could otherwise. The only way to make an auction work is by setting a reserve but by setting a reserve you will discourage participation. If you really want to auction off domain names then you should spend some time exploring auctions across Sedo, Atom, DropCatch and observe just how poor the outcomes are. The most common mistake people make is looking at expired domain auctions and treating them as representative of seller auctions. If you exclude expired domain name auctions, auction results are terrible.

You need to start out by deciding what you want to achieve. What's your timeline? How much money do you want to make? Do you need to make money?

Domain names are very illiquid and so liquidating (i.e: selling according to your timeline) means you will take a huge haircut on the potential value of the domain names. I'd expect liquidating domain names to generate close to 1% of the value to an end user. Very rarely is it a good idea to liquidate domain names.

For example, if you have 100 domain names, each that you believe could sell to an end user for $10,000 then you could expect to liquidate them for $100 each (1% of $10,000). If you liquidate them all, that will generate $10,000. Or, you could hold out for an end user and even if you only sell 1 domain you've made just as much as you would have if you had liquidated every single one.

You also need to keep in mind that dropping prices doesn't increase sell through rate unless you're pricing domains that are in demand and you're dropping the price to a level where an interested party would find it compelling. If there are no people interested in your domain, you could price it at $1 and it will still never sell.

As a starting point, a price around ~$2,000 will generate sales if there are people who want your domain, because $2,000 is within the "instant buy" range for most buyers. So, if you price all your domains at $2,000 then you are likely to get sales from any domains that have people interested. However, if there are people who want your domain names, $2,000 is almost certainly not the most they would pay, so pricing all at $2,000 will leave money on the table.

Making money from domain names requires time, information and distribution. The starting point should always be to get as much information about your domain(s) as possible to make good pricing decisions, then focus on distribution. I've written about this before, I'll try and find my comments...




So, starting point:

1. What are your domain names?
2. What is your goal?

If you can answer those questions, we can come up with a good strategy

Most likely, 99% of your domain names will be worthless trash, but 1% will have potential and could easily make more money for you than the other 99% combined.

Thx as this info was invaluable…would a good strategy as well possibly be to list on other marketplaces as my names are listed strictly on Afternic. I was reading on a domain blog about cross listing like that to try and maximize exposure and hopefully sales ( on marketplaces that Afternic does not partner with)…thx for ALL your explanation as gave me a lot to think about…

 

[DomainJava]

Absolutely do not auction off domain names. Auctions for domain names are terrible, auctions all but guarantee you will receive much less than you could otherwise. The only way to make an auction work is by setting a reserve but by setting a reserve you will discourage participation. If you really want to auction off domain names then you should spend some time exploring auctions across Sedo, Atom, DropCatch and observe just how poor the outcomes are. The most common mistake people make is looking at expired domain auctions and treating them as representative of seller auctions. If you exclude expired domain name auctions, auction results are terrible.

You need to start out by deciding what you want to achieve. What's your timeline? How much money do you want to make? Do you need to make money?

Domain names are very illiquid and so liquidating (i.e: selling according to your timeline) means you will take a huge haircut on the potential value of the domain names. I'd expect liquidating domain names to generate close to 1% of the value to an end user. Very rarely is it a good idea to liquidate domain names.

For example, if you have 100 domain names, each that you believe could sell to an end user for $10,000 then you could expect to liquidate them for $100 each (1% of $10,000). If you liquidate them all, that will generate $10,000. Or, you could hold out for an end user and even if you only sell 1 domain you've made just as much as you would have if you had liquidated every single one.

You also need to keep in mind that dropping prices doesn't increase sell through rate unless you're pricing domains that are in demand and you're dropping the price to a level where an interested party would find it compelling. If there are no people interested in your domain, you could price it at $1 and it will still never sell.

As a starting point, a price around ~$2,000 will generate sales if there are people who want your domain, because $2,000 is within the "instant buy" range for most buyers. So, if you price all your domains at $2,000 then you are likely to get sales from any domains that have people interested. However, if there are people who want your domain names, $2,000 is almost certainly not the most they would pay, so pricing all at $2,000 will leave money on the table.

Making money from domain names requires time, information and distribution. The starting point should always be to get as much information about your domain(s) as possible to make good pricing decisions, then focus on distribution. I've written about this before, I'll try and find my comments...




So, starting point:

1. What are your domain names?
2. What is your goal?

If you can answer those questions, we can come up with a good strategy

Most likely, 99% of your domain names will be worthless trash, but 1% will have potential and could easily make more money for you than the other 99% combined.

Another thing meant to mention is that by using the word “auction” that is presumed to be liquidating? That is not the word I used as thinking auction could fetch possibly some decent prices as it is a good portfolio and would not want a lot of good names gone by way of liquidating as know they are worth much more to the right end user and would be a fool to liquidate a lot of them ( but I realize mostly only investors are looking at auction?) But after reading some explanation on auction results and not to confuse “expired auctions” with “ seller auctions” that opened my eyes even wider because I see names on auction that are far less better than mine selling at great prices but maybe I am not seeing true “seller” prices? I am new to certain parts of the domain game so if I inserted foot in mouth it wasn’t intended that way…I was not talking about liquidating in the sense of that word …but I guess auction is considered that? I learn so much on here as I go along…I sure don’t want to depress value of portfolio as it is in my opinion a great portfolio…I would want to fetch prices that I feel certain names truly deserve and could be of great value to the right end user. I was not speaking of entire portfolio as it is pretty large but maybe auctioning some of them, but after reading about how auction goes it has me thinking other strategies as that is not at all how I thought it might could be…so it has me wanting to ask the question why do “expired auctions” go higher than “seller” auctions when the “seller” names may be even better than the “expiring” names?

 

[Corey]

Have you considered creating a sales lander for the name?

Cheers
Corey

 

[DomainJava]

Have you considered creating a sales lander for the name?

Cheers
Corey

Yes the names

Have you considered creating a sales lander for the name?

Cheers
Corey

Yes the names are listed in Afternic and have their sale landers…I was also reading a domain blog regarding listing in other marketplaces that Afternic does not partner with ( for example Sedo and sure others) to maximize exposure and potential leads as it was saying in there also that some looking to buy come to different marketplaces..I do know Afternic has a broad reach but thought maybe could list on others not partnered with then…thx for your comment!!!

 

[Corey]

I'm talking about non parked pages, spending money on development, hosting & coding may fine tune your registration skills.

Cheers
Corey

 

[fka1080405]

I was not speaking of entire portfolio as it is pretty large but maybe auctioning some of them, but after reading about how auction goes it has me thinking other strategies as that is not at all how I thought it might could be…so it has me wanting to ask the question why do “expired auctions” go higher than “seller” auctions when the “seller” names may be even better than the “expiring” names?

Yes, exactly. For the avoidance of doubt, the same domain could sell for $10,000 at expired domain name auction today but only sell for $100 if sold by a reseller at auction today. Same day, same domain, completely different price.

1. Attention

Expired domain name auctions have a huge amount of attention, there is an entire ecosystem built around finding expired domain names, millions of dollars flow through expired domains every single day. Nothing like that exists for domains being auctioned by resellers.

If "renthouses.com" expired today and went to auction, tens of thousands of expired domain name auction participants would become aware of it through sites like Expired Domains and their own automations.

If you put up "renthouses.com" at auction today on Atom or Sedo, maybe 100 people would see it.

2. Psychology

The reason for the difference in attention is that the psychology of expired domain name auctions is different. A domain name expiring could be a complete accident, the domain name could be hugely valuable but someone might have died and their family may not have renewed, or someone's credit card expired... or they just don't know the domain name is valuable. An expired domain name has unbounded potential, there could be hundreds of end users queueing up to pay hundreds of thousands for the domain name if only they knew they could buy it.

If you own "renthouses.com" and put it up for auction today, people viewing the auction are going to think "why is this person selling renthouses.com? If it had huge upside potential, they would surely hang on to it" and so you immediately nullify almost all of the potential that might be seen in the domain. You might have spent years trying and failing to sell it.

--

Domain name investing is all about 1 domain in 100 giving you >100x returns: you buy example.com for $10 and sell it for $2,000 so that the $1,000 you spent on 100 other domains that nobody wants is offset. If you're selling "renthouses.com" at auction for $100, is it possible that I can then sell that domain for $2,000? $10,000? $20,000? No, probably not, because if that were possible, you would do it.

I sure don’t want to depress value of portfolio as it is in my opinion a great portfolio…I would want to fetch prices that I feel certain names truly deserve and could be of great value to the right end user.

That's great. You're in the perfect position, then. That's exactly how you want to approach domain name investing: patiently.

All you need to do is focus on distribution. Get your domain names in front of as many people as possible. A very common source of sales (more than half) is the "registration path" of a registrar, e.g: if you list your domain names with Afternic then when someone visits GoDaddy and searches "renthouses.com" your domain will be listed with a "Buy It Now" button.

Landing pages don't matter much, you can use whichever you prefer. Afternic encourage you to use theirs by offering a discount on commission so most people use them for their landing pages. NamePros itself has free landing pages that you can use.

Marketplaces in order of importance (but since they're all free to use, it is good to list with them all):

1. Afternic domains will show up on GoDaddy which is the world's #1 registrar
2. Spaceship is owned by Namecheap, the second largest registrar, your domains will show up on Namecheap
3. Sedo has partnerships with hundreds of smaller registrars
4. Atom is a little different, it's a registrar/marketplace hybrid that is focused on branding but still good to have a presence
5. Dynadot is a pretty big registrar with their own marketplace

For all of these venues, you will have access to stats showing search volume, appearance in searches etc. which you can use to get a better sense for how popular your domain may or may not be. If you have a .com that is showing up in lots of searches, that is a good sign it has value.

Regarding pricing, it is more art than science so everyone has their own approaches. My recommendations:

1. Include a Buy it Now price
2. Enable lease-to-own (on the marketplaces that support it) so that people can pay monthly
3. Enable "make offer" or "contact owner" as some people must negotiate

For the actual price, the question I ask myself is "if someone wants this domain, what might they be able to afford?" and so using "renthouses.com" as an example: real estate is a very lucrative industry with lots of money, there are lots of well-funded startups and investors in the space, and for a consumer facing brand, a .com name is important.

If you need to sell "renthouses.com" I'd list it for $1k
If you want to sell "renthouses.com" I'd list it for $10k
If you want a good price and don't care if it ever sells I'd list it for $100k

And if I receive an offer of ~60%+ of the list price, I automatically accept it

 

[Jannes]

3. Enable "make offer" or "contact owner" as some people must negotiate

I'm not saying I disagree with that, I'm actually undecided, but BIN+MO is controversial

https://twitter.com/x/status/1727792042720252032

(Note that here he doesn't distinguish $2k from $100k BIN, and e.g. Swetha is currently using BIN+MO)

Then there's a separate question about whether MO/CO needs to be explicitly enabled, since those who always want to negotiate will find their way to do it

https://twitter.com/x/status/1887331657553727801

 

[xwat]

Thx as this info was invaluable…would a good strategy as well possibly be to list on other marketplaces as my names are listed strictly on Afternic. I was reading on a domain blog about cross listing like that to try and maximize exposure and hopefully sales ( on marketplaces that Afternic does not partner with)…thx for ALL your explanation as gave me a lot to think about…

So I have never listed anywhere until a few months ago but have had a couple of sales by people reaching out to me.

Late last year or earlier this year I started listing at ATOM but I am not going to join any of their elevated programs and list across the board. I bet you have some good names. Good luck!

 

[xwat]

( but I realize mostly only investors are looking at auction?)

Though this is true there are other variables to this. So say investors are mostly looking at auctions, that does not mean every or even the majority of investors see every auction. I have never tried auctions because I want to sell for money and of course resellers also want a profit so they wish to buy lower.

 

[johnn]

Plural is always better.

Wife.com is not good - You have no choice but just one wife.
Wives.com is good - You can pick the one that you like.

 

[xwat]

Plural is always better.

Wife.com is not good - You have no choice but just one wife.

There are a lot of cultures where you have just one wife.

Singular domains are generally more valuable and brandable. Apple vs Apples. Space vs Spaces.

Singular suggests a single, reputable entity, whereas plural can sound generic or descriptive. Singular suggests a single, reputable entity, whereas plural can sound generic or descriptive.

 

[URL Expo]

Depending on what the word refers to, the plural form may sometimes be more useful/valuable for example: shoes, cars, flights, etc... Regarding your domain I think RentHouses.com sounds better than RentHouse.com however is always up to the buyer's preference.

 

[DomainJava]

I'm talking about non parked pages, spending money on development, hosting & coding may fine tune your registration skills.

Cheers
Corey

Are you speaking more of like pages you may put up say on a website or anywhere else where you dress the name up so to speak with different visuals and such that may pertain to the particular domain with backgrounds that may go along with name and it is a landing page geared toward that particular domain name