Domain Leasing?

[Mike]

NP'er rsequin posted a link to a company specializing in "renting out" domains.

Has anyone ever heard of them or done business with these folks?
They go under the name of LeaseThis.com.
I'm not sure if its truly newsworthy, or indeed really to be considered news at all. However, if this opens a chance to escape the ever fluctuating PPC model, i'm all for it.

Anyone have any knowledge about these guys?

Again, thanks to rsequin that pointed it out!

 

[Lasher]

I like this from a domainers perspective, but unless the leases are "lease to buy" with a fixed amount at the end, a company would have to be crazy to build their online business and brand on a domain that could be pulled out from under them at any moment. A business owner is faced with the potential of being asked for huge sums of money in order to retain the online brand they built unless a buyout price is set up front, I just can't see why they'd do it.

 

[Broker]

Lasher, there is an option to buy domain with whatever you set your price to. My question is, what is leasethis.com's cut of that deal.

 

[Lasher]

Lasher, there is an option to buy domain with whatever you set your price to. My question is, what is leasethis.com's cut of that deal.

Cool, my bad, I should have read the full T&Cs before posting. Is that binding to the seller? IE the buyer can lease a name for, say, $200 a month with a 20k buyout offer or walk away after X years, and the seller is then contractually bound to sell the name, or, is it just an "option"? As a business owner, I could go for that. Not using my start up funds to buy a good domain (which are generally not very liquid if things don't work out) with the option to buy it later if the business does well.

It will also be interesting to see how this is enforced with overseas holding companies, what weight will a contract signed with a .US company hold with a registrar/domain owner in China for example? Don't get me wrong, I really like this concept and it's great to see a new approach in the industry, I just hope buyers are educated enough and do their due diligence (or leasethis do on their behalf) otherwise a handful of horror stories hitting the press could kill the whole thing.

Looking forward to trying it out...

 

[markfromslo]

LeaseThis:

I have someone who is interested in purchasing a name of mine on payments. I really don't want to do that and lose control of the name while I await his payments. I was thinking about a lease-to-own program for him. For example, an initial down payment of perhaps 20% and then 12 monthly installments to complete the deal.

I could write up my own contract, hold on to the domain and point the nameservers to his choosing, and then once paid in full, transfer the name. But, I would understand if the other party might have concerns about trusting me.

So, my question to you is, can your company act as the 3rd party escrow account for a transaction such as this? And, if so, what would your charge be on a total contract value of around $15,000?

If not, do you or any one else have any suggestions or recommendations?

 

[maildeepak]

13. Will potential advertisers be approached by LeaseThis?
Yes, we have a sales staff that we are continuing to grow. If you have lists of legitimate leads that would be interested in leasing your domains, we are more than happy to follow-up with them.

I am very much impressed by this point. Now if the company really keeps up their word about promoting our domains like they claim they will do, then our headache of marketing the domain to the end user will come down a bit.

For ex, It is sort of the marketing involved in the sale of Vodka(dot)com. A person from a reputable organisation contacting a small/medium business will have a better recognisable value than a domain owner like me. and the chances are very much that atleast discussions will start.

i signed up for a domaineer's account and waiting for the confirmation email.

Hoping for a successful relationship with LeaseThis....

All the best guys for this wonderful initiative.

 

[leasethis]

Question #1: What if someone wants to buy a domain through LeaseThis? I don’t see this on your site, just a pricing option to buy. What is your cut if any?

Answer: It varies depending on the domain and other factors. If you have specific details please contact [email protected] for more information concerning this.

Question #2: Will we help promote domains to advertisers?

Answer: Yes we will have a full time sales team reaching out to advertisers. If you have any potential leads that you believe may be interested in your site feel free to let us know.


Question #3: I have someone who is interested in purchasing a name of mine on payments. I really don't want to do that and lose control of the name while I await his payments. I was thinking about a lease-to-own program for him. For example, an initial down payment of perhaps 20% and then 12 monthly installments to complete the deal.

I could write up my own contract, hold on to the domain and point the nameservers to his choosing, and then once paid in full, transfer the name. But, I would understand if the other party might have concerns about trusting me.

So, my question to you is, can your company act as the 3rd party escrow account for a transaction such as this? And, if so, what would your charge be on a total contract value of around $15,000?

Answer: If you would like to contact [email protected] about this we would be glad to help you.

Question #4: Cool, my bad, I should have read the full T&Cs before posting. Is that binding to the seller? IE the buyer can lease a name for, say, $200 a month with a 20k buyout offer or walk away after X years, and the seller is then contractually bound to sell the name, or, is it just an "option"? As a business owner, I could go for that. Not using my start up funds to buy a good domain (which are generally not very liquid if things don't work out) with the option to buy it later if the business does well.

Answer: The option expires at the end of the lease.

Thanks for your questions!
Regards,
Travis Pearman
LeaseThis.com
Customer Support

 

[maildeepak]

Hi Travis,

thanx for the short update above...

If you have any potential leads that you believe may be interested in your site feel free to let us know.

what details do we need to forward to you and to where? For ex. I have a domain name that PPC people will be interested in. Do i just forward the websites of these people or are any other details required? the thing is apart from the details that is available in the whois and in their website, i may not have any new contact info. about them. pls let me know on this...

 

[Broker]

Answer: It varies depending on the domain and other factors. If you have specific details please contact [email protected] for more information concerning this.


Travis, I will certainly be contacting you regarding this. I do feel however that there should be some kind of guidelines/terms already in place for this on the website for us domainers to go by.

 

[Damion]

Hi Travis,

thanx for the short update above...



what details do we need to forward to you and to where? For ex. I have a domain name that PPC people will be interested in. Do i just forward the websites of these people or are any other details required? the thing is apart from the details that is available in the whois and in their website, i may not have any new contact info. about them. pls let me know on this...

Provide as much details as possible, i have provided a list of prospects as well.
I included as much contact information as was obtainable by me.

Company Name:
Address:
Contact person:
Tel:
Fax:

Website:
Email:

I presume this would be the best route to take.

 

[Charley]

Mostly from the US at this point although in the last 2 weeks I have started getting inquiries from other countries.

Right !

Any information for people other than U.S. ?


- Do I earn from parking[as on Sedo, NameDrive, so on] the Name Server other than the domain lease money every month?

- Can I transfer back the domains in case the domains aren't earning as much on the Parking websites I am curently using.

- Should I lock the domains?

- I have changed my contact information[except for my email] for some registrars to make myself private. Will that be a problem here?

 

[Damion]

Hi Charley, if you don't have a problem with it i can answer some of your questions as well.

- Do I earn from parking[as on Sedo, NameDrive, so on] the Name Server other than the domain lease money every month?

You can submit your domains to leaseThis.com and if they are accepted they are listed as domains that can be leased on the LeaseThis.com website.
Your domain(s) remain parked to your parking provider of choice until an interested party would like to lease your domain(s)

At that point your domain will of course not be parked anymore but used by the leasing party at a agreed period of time, for this a contract will be set in place and agreed upon.

You know beforehand how much your domain(s) will yield in revenue, so you have to decide to Lease the domain or continue Parking if the lease price does not meet your expectations.

This leads to your other questions,

- Should I lock the domains?

Changing the nameservers is all what is required for someone to use your domain and i don't believe unlocking is a process required for changing nameservers, i haven't encountered this though.

Your admin email and registrant information stays the same, you will always remain ownership.

Some registrars do have a locking system in place to change anything on your domain such as admin email, nameservers, contact details, forward...
Check with your registrar for this, all the main registrars don't require any fees for changing this...some do unfortunately.

- Can I transfer back the domains in case the domains aren't earning as much on the Parking websites I am curently using.

You know beforehand what you will earn on a monthly basis so you will have to decide if the proceedings of leasing the domain(s) is more attractive then parking your domains instead.
Lease Pricing can be discussed when interest is shown for your domain(s).

You have agreed to a contract and you have agreed upon the compensation you receive on a monthly basis. At this point you can't transfer back the domain(s) to your parking provider.

Expectations can not be disappointing since you know beforehand what you will earn.

- I have changed my contact information[except for my email] for some registrars to make myself private. Will that be a problem here?

I would not recommend to use this method to make your contact details private, your whois needs to have valid contact information or reflect a legitimate proxy or organization.

I don't know if you mean that you already have a legitimate proxy registration in place but i thought i should let you know about this

Domains with invalid WHOIS information can be revoked. So it wouldn't be recommended to use an alias as "Joe Smith" for your registrant name for your domain(s).

This question was also addressed by Jonathan though:

User information will need to match the whois and for private registration email verification will be required. Once a lease is requested we contact the owner and thoroughly verify all elements of ownership. Keep in mind that the DNS will have been switched for 30 days before any payment is issued to a domain owner so collecting money from a fraudulent domain lease is impossible.

I hope that cleared some things up for you?

 

[Broker]

Just got off the phone with leasethis.com

I informed them that my domains are showing a "page under construction" page. This page needs to be a parked page and offer the domain for lease/sale etc with a link to leasethis. Atleast thats what I thought was going to happen if nameservers were changed. Currently it does not and I'm told this is in the works. Name servers changed back to my original page.

Also, any sales of a domain through leasethis is not anywhere on their site as far as commision. This is also under works. I did find out that any lease earnings are spit 60/40 domain owner/leasethis.

So until they get it all straightened out, I wouldnt change your name servers just yet.

HasRob.......

 

[Damion]

I informed them that my domains are showing a "page under construction" page. This page needs to be a parked page and offer the domain for lease/sale etc with a link to leasethis.

LeaseThis as i recall and understood did not offer parking services from the DNJournal cover story.
It was also not mentioned by LeaseThis on the forum as well.

You keep your domains parked with the parking provider of your choice, your domains are listed at the LeaseThis.com website and LeaseThis will make efforts to find advertisers for your domain(s).

Hopefully advertisers will also find it's way to the LeaseThis.com website to pick domains that are relevant to their objectives.

It would be nice to see that a link on a parking page would point to leaseThis.com and a notice that the domain can be leased.
I guess this is something where Trafficz will jump in sooner or later.

From the DNJournal article:

If you are a TrafficZ customer, he noted that you will have some added benefits and functionality, but the PPC aspect of the system is not exclusive to TrafficZ.

I think this means a notice that the domain can also be leased will be integrated on the parking page and a user friendly way to get started as an advertiser when landing on a Trafficz parking page, to be redirected to the LeaseThis.com website.

Note: Ammar Kubba = COO at TrafficZ.com

 

[mrgreen32]

not a bad idea. i dont have some nice domains yet

 

[Seabass]

40% Seems steep to me, especially if it is supposedly being pitched as an attractive alternative to domain parking. That percentage only seems justified if they spend the majority of the money received on advertising to attract new domain leases.

Taking the 40% into account I also wonder if the domainers would up the lease price to the point where it is overpriced for leasing, thus basically killing this model, or take most of the interest out of this business model.

 

[Damion]

In my opinion 40% is a fair share, taking account with the efforts that are being made to attract advertisers (LeaseThis has been crossing the country nationwide -->U.S.) and these type of efforts will surely continue along the way.

Not only that, LeaseThis also puts in efforts to find advertisers for YOUR domains if they have enough potential, and not only for a specific category when for instance potential advertisers will be contacted if they would be interested in certain domains of a certain portfolio that is presented.

LeaseThis also approach potential advertisers with YOURDOMAIN.com so all in all the service that is provided is something you will not find ANYWHERE else.

On top of that, you discuss the lease price and you always know beforehand if the revenue yielded is an improvement of your current parking revenues or not. Each domain is a domain on it's own so there is no need to UP your lease price in comparisement to others since there is no standard lease price you need to comply with.

I have no problem with the percentages, if you make better revenue with leasing a domain then it's an improvement and regarding overpricing that is a matter of discussing price with the advertiser.

I don't think there will be domains overpriced only domains with competitive bids from advertisers.

 

[Mike]

40% Seems steep to me, especially if it is supposedly being pitched as an attractive alternative to domain parking. That percentage only seems justified if they spend the majority of the money received on advertising to attract new domain leases.

Taking the 40% into account I also wonder if the domainers would up the lease price to the point where it is overpriced for leasing, thus basically killing this model, or take most of the interest out of this business model.

Overpricing the lease prices wouldn't be in their (LeaseThis.com) best interest, thus putting the company in danger. I believe these guys to be smarter than that. The share that LeaseThis.com wants for their services is actually quite fair, especially considering that THEY have all the leg work. Granted, once their portfolio of potential clients has grown, their job may become increasingly easier, that doesn't change the fact though, that we [the domainers] still don't have to do anymore than we've done before. On the contrary, some of us may even have to do less. Don't get me wrong here, i am not saying that LeaseThis.com is going to solve any and all problems, but in regards to the recent PPC revenues, even from good domains and the recent performance of parking companies, the fog and blankets they place over their business and confusion they are either causing or supporting, LeaseThis.com is offering an opportunity that i, as a domain owner, simply cannot turn down. Essentially we're getting the best of both worlds; Your domain is not rented? Good, leave it parked and generate money, Your domain is rented out? Even better, because the rental revenue is based on a fair evaluation of your domain and your parking revenue is being considered in this evaluation. So far, unless i'm really from another galaxy and don't get the concept, i see this as a win-win situation.
If LeaseThis.com wants their percentage of the revenue? Fine with me, so far they have not given us questionable performance (they're so young they didn't have a chance yet ) their evaluations and pricing convention has not dwindled into oblivion,....overall, and that's truly just my opinion, i'd rather lease my domains out at any time than have them sitting there being parked. Ultimately, any type of renting your domain, provided that the renting party is playing by the rules, it's going to increase the value of your domain in the long run. More traffic, better ranking, more recognizability = higher valued domain.

just my .02 euros though.

 

[duceman]

40% isn't bad. Remember that you are getting a fixed rate of return every month the domain is leased.

How many times have you seen your revenue on your portfolio swing 20-30% in one month? And how many threads have you seen that start out with "WTF is up with *****" when RPC nose dives. Not to mention the summer season when traffic is low.

 

[Charley]

I finished importing the domains. But it doesnt allow me to seggregate them into different categories. Can that be done after all the domains are approved?

 

[HeavyDuty]

I would use the spreadsheet returned as an attachment instead of the online form. I noticed all of the keywords I included in the sprsht file were used. I imagine it's much easier for LeaseThis to copy'n'paste the data after they check it's content. Besides, it gives you (the dn owner) a little more input as to the disposition of your cherished dn's

It's been 4 business days, I'd like to hear some kind of feedback in the forum soon.
It's way too early I guess, but hey!, I'm an impatient person LOL!

Regards,