Real Estate Domains Are Super Hot !!!

[thegenius1]

The website for the North County Times (a regional newspaper serving the San Diego, California area), has an interesting article from writer Chris Bagley about how the domain boom has produced a severe shortage of viable .com domains in the real estate sector. Bagley does a good job of conveying the value inherent in a good domain to his paper's readers so that they can understand why prices can run into 6 figures. It is encouraging to see mainstream journalists grasp what we've known for a long time and pass that knowledge along to the general public. We'll still see occasional mainstream articles loaded with misinformation about this business, but as more and more media outlets get it right, we're confident that the man on the street will eventually understand why good domains command the prices they do today.

As the last meadows and vacant lots disappear from inland boomtowns, some of the businesses sprouting up there find themselves jostling for space even on the virtual landscape of the Internet.

Temecula's economic growth has increased the value of locally focused domain names that have long been registered and used, such as temeculavalleyhomes.com and temeculainformation.com. Development in surrounding communities has created a more recent market for Web addresses that incorporate names such as Menifee and Murrieta.

It all makes for a field of domain names that's increasingly crowded, with real estate agents, informational businesses and other companies coming up with increasingly varied spellings of local place names. While temecularealestate.com has been in use for a decade, temvlyhomes.com was first registered in 2003.

"It's very difficult to find a good dot-com name right now," said Dan Jauregui, a Ramona-based agent who sells real estate locally through lakeelsinoreland.com and menifeerealestate.com. "They're pricey."

Caroline Collins said a real estate agent once offered her $100,000 for the rights to her domain name, temecularealestate.com, which she first registered and built a site around in the mid-1990s. Collins turned down the offer; her business had come to depend on the site, she said.

Collins launched a sister Web site, murrietarealestate.com, in 2000. It gets fewer visitors than the Temecula site. A couple of years ago, another real estate agent offered to buy it. After she suggested $25,000, she didn't hear back from the other agent, she said.

Collins' experience is common, said Judy Zulfiqar, a Temecula-based consultant who advises clients on Internet strategies. Though Zulfiqar said she regularly hears of local businesses making and receiving offers of $300 to $15,000 for their domain names, they often are unable to agree on a price. The would-be buyer usually ends up registering a less desirable name, she said.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/07/08/news/californian/21_32_037_7_06.txt

 

[TestCase]

Hmmm... Forgot that I had a couple of MLS's too:

MLSWest.com
SouthCoastMLS.com
+ a few others I can't think of right now.

 

[Carlton]

Here we go again but it's only money.

CAROLINAREALTY.US

Nice name. I think this is the type of name in which you would get inquiries and offers based on a letter announcing its availability.

 

[panospheric]

virtual tours in real estate

One of the biggest things realtors are doing to promote real estate is using virtual tours to present a panorama of a room, called virtual tours. Using the mouse to look around the viewer can go from room to room. This allows the realtor to display a house to anyone in the world who has internet. A very big advantage over the tiny snapshots in the paper or the little realty mags! Virtual Tours are becoming the standard for realtors.

We have a selection of virtual tour domains for sale and anyone who wants to list their VR names can do so for free with no commission.

LuAnn
VRtechDomains.com

 

[jaikini]

I'm sorry to tell you this Jaikini but you just spend reg fee on a domain you can not own due to trademark issues

It's very well possible you will recieve a letter soon telling you about this.
I know it's sounds silly as GreenGambler said but any domain with realtor in it is not in your right to own unless you are a member of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS.

Some threads with some more feedback on this issue:

http://www.namepros.com/legal-issues-and-disputes/181133-realtor-finder-net-tm-issue.html
http://www.namepros.com/legal-issues-and-disputes/174770-dangerous-to-use-realtors-in-dn.html

So i am sorry for your loss

so i have lost reg fee?
what if someone interested to buy? can i sell?

 

[Damion]

Good question, depends i think whom the buyer is. If the buyer is also not a member then would this mean it's problematic for you if someone from the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS would find out?

I really have no idea and to be honest with an earlier eye opener for me i really can't advise you on this.
The States is a very tricky country regarding the law.

I think you would be in trouble since you made a profit from a domain you had no right to own in the first place, so it would be in your best interest to let it expire.

 

[- me -]

I'm not sure how true this is, but I heard elsewhere that realtor is a trademarked word, so you might want to be careful with domains with realtor in it.

ripley.

It's true.

BUT when one sees sales like this reported,
#6. wwwRealtor.com $21,361 SnapNames*

It makes you shake your head.


*source: THIS WEEKS dnjournal

 

[jaikini]

will there be any problem or tm issue if regged with the word REALTY
coz i have already lost my reg fee regging a name with the word REALTOR

plz help

 

[slugraduate]

Realty is ok.

 

[Brand Herald]

WinnipegRealestates.com

Inspired me to reg

WinnipegRealestates.com

 

[Charley]

Other Industries that pay thousands in commissions include:
Mortgage Industry
Legal Profession
Import/Export
Car Sales

Are there more categories?

Does these with extensions like .info sound good?

 

[thegenius1]

A new report on real estate online advertising from Borrell & Associates

Internet Beats Yard Sign For Selling Homes
Posted July 24th, 2006 by Jack Loechner

Internet Beats Yard Sign For Selling Homes

The Executive Summary reporting the July Borrell “Update: Online Real Estate Advertising,” says that the $11 billion spent on total real estate advertising has stagnated, growing less than four percent over the past four years, while the available advertising inventory, the number of existing homes for sale on the market, rose 41 percent in the last 12 months.

An overheated home-sales market has only recently begun to slow down, says the report, and the proliferation of “free” listings sites on the Internet portends a collapse in the $6 billion print classifieds business, especially with the vast majority of home seekers now using the Internet to find a home. As home sales slowed, the Internet became the most-used method of selling a home, beating out even the old-faithful yard sign.

The study concludes that this “tipping point” will help propel Internet real estate advertising to a $2 billion level this year and push it past $3 billion by 2010, surpassing newspapers in terms of advertising market share.

The summary says that despite the hype about agents and brokers already advertising on the Internet, there is huge room for growth. Sixty-one percent of agents do not advertise on the Internet. And 87 percent of agents are not buying keywords on Google or Yahoo. However, the real estate bonanza has brought an influx of new agents who seem hell-bent on using the Internet to reach new customers.

In the survey of 535 agents, 64 percent of the less tenured agents were likely to advertise online while only 36 percent of the agents selling homes for more than 10 years were likely to advertise online. The rest of the findings indicate that an Internet-marketing gap exists between newer and long-time agents. And, concludes the report, new sites like Trulia, edgeio, Oodle and CityCribs may wind up being the new disruptors to the “old” business models of paid online listings.

http://blogs.mediapost.com/research_brief/?p=1228

 

[abdulbasit]

I have got uaeproperty.net

 

[katanka]

is "estate" without "real" also worth something? Or does this have a different meaning?

 

[TestCase]

Katanka,

In "American English" usage, "estate" by itself usually means a very large and expensive piece of property (including a house and possibly more). Though related, this meaning is still very different than "real estate".

Estate also means "a term used in common law to signify the total of a person's property, entitlements and obligations" (per Wikipedia).

Here are some definitions for "estate":

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=estate&db=*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate

 

[katanka]

Katanka,

In "American English" usage, "estate" by itself usually means a very large and expensive piece of property (including a house and possibly more). Though related, this meaning is still very different than "real estate".

Estate also means "a term used in common law to signify the total of a person's property, entitlements and obligations" (per Wikipedia).

Here are some definitions for "estate":

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=estate&db=*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate

thanx!

 

[harkster]

Would you reg a xxxxxxxrealestate-biz and/or info when the .com,.net,.us and .ca are all active sites? The .org is not developed or parked (network error).

3 of the sites are Canadian. the xxxxxxx could be small us/canada cities or a regional interest and has an OVT of 13,000+.

 

[kemjika11]

after reading this thread, i regged 2 more!

raleighrealty.us
capecoralrealty.us(in top5 growing cities in US.)

all other tlds were gone

hark that sounds like a catch. i would reg it. Every now and then i think about how many domains that haven't been regged that get some traffic. I have regged a few domains from registrars and after setting up nameservers, get 15 hits in a month*

 

[harkster]

after reading this thread, i regged 2 more!

raleighrealty.us
capecoralrealty.us(in top5 growing cities in US.)

all other tlds were gone

hark that sounds like a catch. i would reg it. Every now and then i think about how many domains that haven't been regged that get some traffic. I have regged a few domains from registrars and after setting up nameservers, get 15 hits in a month*

I hesityated because both had been reg'd and dropped but $13.48 what the hey. MidlandRealEstate.biz and .info.

I like RaleighRealty - big growing area.

 

[jaikini]

can .org be valuable for realty names?

 

[ponyone]

I have platinumrealties.com

why? I don't remember.