discuss Revisiting .Realty - Holy Guacamole!

[ThatNameGuy]

August 28, 2023 - by Andrew Allemann and Domain Name Wire

"Two Top Level Domains have changed ownership

Perhaps most notably, Identity Digital sold .realty to Internet Naming Company. Internet Naming Company, run by Shayan Rostam, contains some of the remnants of Uniregistry. According to the company's website, it manages more than 10 top-level domain names.

Rostam told Domain Name Wire that the backend for the registry will move to Tucows' registry services.

.Realty has just over 1,500 domains in the zone file."

Many of you reading this might say.....Holy Guacamole! what the hell is this nut job thinking? Well, it was on September 27th 2020 i started a thread here on NP titled,

$1 .Realty Domain Sale - Marketing ideas​

While this was three years ago, other NP members and myself registered well over 1,500 .realty domains alone. However, very few ever sold. And by very few, I sold just 1 out of about 500 that I'd registered over a 90 day period. One of the biggest problems as I see was, Jay Westerdal the owner of the .Realty TLD made the decision to charge $298 for renewals, and sadly that wasn't received very well by the real estate industry.

Moving on.....many of you have seen me binge buy on other TLD's that i liked; .link, .homes, and .online, but all to no avail/success. In each case however I knew these names wouldn't sell themselves despite listing them with the likes of DAN and Afternic, so if .Realty is to be successful a different marketing approach needs to happen.

I've connected via Linkedin with the new owner of the TLD .Realty Shayan Rostam, and we've shared a few email's about my aggressive/progressive outbound marketing approach especially since realtors are so easily accessible and approachable via email, phone and text.

Finally, i'm sure Shayan has checked me out since he was one of the founders at Uniregistry. I'm also sure he knows well the new owners of .link who I tried my best to connect with and get to know, but maybe when he learns my favorite .Realty domain is;

Sold.realty

he'll be interested

ps. No Binge happening here.....just sharing my logic.

 

[JB Lions]

While i happen to own the domain BroadBayRealty.com for my own personal use, what I've learned about this crazed industry is that BroadBay.realty is just as good, if not better

It tells me you haven't learned anything after all these years.

 

[ThatNameGuy]

Very wise to not invest in the names until there's evidence of improved uptake.

I think @jmcc was also saying that promotion is only a part of the equation. Possibly even more important is the need for the extension to achieve a sort of critical mass among end users, where they are willing to both develop sites on the names and pay a premium to acquire them.

Your plans often focus on promoting to the end users themselves, but it's not their education in ngTLDs that will drive their interest in buying them. What they need to see is mass adoption by the general public and by their industry's community.

Attaining that mass adoption is no small thing; something that brands spend fortunes to achieve through years of advertising, promotion, and product expansion. I can't imagine how one (or a few) individuals would make meaningful strides in that kind of endeavour when working against an extension (.com) that has such an incredible moat in the world of domain extensions.

Educating end users about technical matters is one thing, but ultimately businesses don't buy .com names because they think they work better technically. They buy them for the intangible authority and trust that the extension carries in the mind of consumers.

Even "successful" alternate extensions - like .net, .xyz, .io - despite their popularity in the domaining community, see only limited use among end users. Domainers typically only profit from these names when they invest early in very strong single-word terms.

Anyway... that's just me thinking out loud. You've tried this promotion and business development route quite a few times. Why not at least try out the formula that has proven profitable for so many other domainers? I'm just a shlub with none of your business experience, and even I make money with domains by picking decent ones, listing them, and sitting on my hands. Imagine what you could do if you employed the same name selection strategies, while also employing your networking/outbounding skills.

"you've tried this promotion and business development route quite a few times"

In all due respect Joe, i haven't tried it even once. Yes in my rhetoric, but not in reality. Speaking of "rhetoric", just yesterday a friend of mine told me his grand daughter was majoring in "rhetoric" at our local university. Ever hear of that being a major? I know talk is cheap, but without an investor/lender in my rhetoric this entire exercise is moot

"imagine what you could do if you employed the same name selection strategies, while also employing your networking/outbounding skills"

Joe.....don't you see, that's the plan

 

[ThatNameGuy]

The problem is that most of these new gTLDs had their origins in an artificial scarcity created by Domain Tasting over the years 2005 to 2008. Basically, people couldn't register on the drop because most of each day's drop was being hoovered up by a few registrars. Google stopped monetising new registrations, legal action was taken by Dell against a few of the main registrars and ICANN turned up years late and millions short with a restocking fee on domain names deleted during the five day Add Grace Period that was being exploited for Domain Tasting.

Fast forward to 2013 when the new gTLDs started to launch and there was no large-scale Domain Tasting. There was no artificial scarcity.

Many of the new gTLD registries had based their business plans on the artificial scarcity with major helpings of snakeoil. Even ICANN projected 35 million new gTLD regs in the first year. That's the level of cluelessness that infected the domain name industry at the time.

I posted something earlier about Epik being the major registrar in .REALTY. That, on its own, was a major red flag given the poxification of various new gTLDs with its Digital Town rubbish. Some of those new gTLDs had a chance but once the Digital Town rubbish regs flooded their zones, development was killed in some of them. It may take years for some of them to recover. It was a horrifc thing to see gTLDs that could have served a community being nearly destroyed and turned into dead zones.

The problem for .REALTY is that it isn't a category killer. There are other property and real estate gTLDs and that cannot be solved without a lot of expensive marketing and development. It is also a US focused gTLD because the real estate business outside of the US tends to use ccTLDs. Even in the US, the .COM dominates the real estate business so the main competitor for .REALTY is not other real estate gTLDs but rather .COM itself.

On the registry side of things, most people working for registries do not think in terms of domaining. Domaining is only a small part of any gTLD and registries tend to be more focused on development. The initial pricing of some new gTLDs is intended, in no uncertain terms, to deter domaining because domaining rarely results in developed websites.

Some of the gTLD registries that rely on heavy discounting as a business model can see over 95% of a zone being replaced each year. They make a small profit from each registration but development in those gTLDs is almost non-existent. If there's no development in a gTLD, then the gTLD is rarely worth a gamble. The number of "good" keywords still available is almost a metric of the health of a gTLD. High value ones are going to be reserved by the registry for auction or later release. If a large number of keywords that are valuable in .COM are still available, it may point to low development or interest in the gTLD.

When the Epik regs were deleted in .REALTY, the numbers collapsed. That, alone, was a very bad sign. It was also a good indication for any domainer who was considering investing. On the upside, it removed a lot of the deadwood regs that would never be developed. This has made the number of developed websites seem impressive with respect to the zone total but many of them would have been developed while Epik was still the main registrar in the gTLD.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc.....like with Joe Nichols, your analysis and critique are very helpful. Key takeaways since starting this thread;

1. .Realty has been a dismal failure despite starting 10 years ago in 2013
2. To date .Realty has just 1,500 DUM (domains under management)
3. Just 100 of these domains are developed and lead to a website
4. .Realty is mostly local in terms of domain names
5. the market for .Realty is mostly the US for domains like PalmBeach.realty and Manhattan.realty
6. an attempt to mass register .Realty names via Epik three years ago resulted in about 12.000 names, but that too was a failure in that 85-90% of those names were dropped after the first year, thus just 1,500 domains today.
7. a newly launched TLD needs development and usage (note, without this .Realty is doomed for failure again)
8. "The problem with .REALTY is that it has no visibility in the market. Most end-users are unaware that it exists"

jmcc....the fact that the word "realty" already exists in 40% of brokers and agents business names is very positive imo. Obviously the .com is preferable, but take for example MyrtleBeachRealty.com that's currently for sale at GD for $44,800. My first reaction when learning this was "WOW!" that's a lot of money, however after realizing there's Billions of dollars in real estate in this popular resort community, the price wasn't so "wow" after-all.

My bigger point here is that only a few realtors in Myrtle Beach could afford MyrtleBeachRealty.com, but hundreds or as many as a thousand realtors in Myrtle Beach could afford to pay as much as $2,000 for MyrtleBeach.realty and would pay even more if it came with a website.

If only it had visibility aka Exposure

Thanks again jmcc for all your help!

 

[ThatNameGuy]

It tells me you haven't learned anything after all these years.

So you mean to tell me if JBLions.com were taken you wouldn't opt for JB.Lions Haven't you learned anything after all these years

 

[Joe N]

My bigger point here is that only a few realtors in Myrtle Beach could afford MyrtleBeachRealty.com, but hundreds or as many as a thousand realtors in Myrtle Beach could afford to pay as much as $2,000 for MyrtleBeach.realty and would pay even more if it came with a website.

If only it had visibility aka Exposure

Does .realty have premium prices for these types of names?

I mean, I see what you're getting at, but the devil is in the details:

• If this is a premium name, does a $2,000 sale net you a high enough margin to make this plan worthwhile?
  • Even if not premium, is it worthwhile (based on the time investment)?
• Are we talking about only high quality names like this, or ones that are currently available to register?
• You say Myrtle Beach realtors would pay $2,000 for the name. How do you know?
  • Why would they want the name? What viable reasons can you give them?
  • How much time would you need to invest to find a buyer?

It feels like you're approaching domaining from a business development angle. You're willing to invest the time and money up front because you're targeting the big win several years from now.

I propose that instead of buying domain names, or promoting them for a registry, you should look into creating your own gTLD. You would have full control of its promotion and sale. You would invest a lot up front, but hopefully grow something that would be a consistent source of income.

As long as we're hocking domain names, we're basically someone else's bitch. As domainers, we don't create the market; we follow it. We're slaves to the registries, the registrars, the marketplaces, and the buyers. If you're not ready to work within that, stop focusing on existing TLDs, because you'll never have control.

 

[Lox]

If only it had visibility aka Exposure

You still don't have enough time to do a proper due diligence & understand why some of the registries operating as a offshore clouds...

They don't want you to participate in 69 & Exposure is not welcomed . So... focus on some other things /tlds that auto-works.

Regards

 

[ThatNameGuy]

Does .realty have premium prices for these types of names?

I mean, I see what you're getting at, but the devil is in the details:

• If this is a premium name, does a $2,000 sale net you a high enough margin to make this plan worthwhile?
  • Even if not premium, is it worthwhile (based on the time investment)?
• Are we talking about only high quality names like this, or ones that are currently available to register?
• You say Myrtle Beach realtors would pay $2,000 for the name. How do you know?
  • Why would they want the name? What viable reasons can you give them?
  • How much time would you need to invest to find a buyer?

It feels like you're approaching domaining from a business development angle. You're willing to invest the time and money up front because you're targeting the big win several years from now.

I propose that instead of buying domain names, or promoting them for a registry, you should look into creating your own gTLD. You would have full control of its promotion and sale. You would invest a lot up front, but hopefully grow something that would be a consistent source of income.

As long as we're hocking domain names, we're basically someone else's bitch. As domainers, we don't create the market; we follow it. We're slaves to the registries, the registrars, the marketplaces, and the buyers. If you're not ready to work within that, stop focusing on existing TLDs, because you'll never have control.

Joe....i don't know about the new owners of .Realty, but I've noticed NameCheap will sell you MyrtleBeach.realty for $296 and renew it at the same price. Even though GD values it @ $203 they say it's not for sale?

With just 1,500 DUM my guess is most names like this are back under registry control and they are available to register.

While I can only speak for myself, if I were a realtor in Myrtle Beach I'd luv to start a brokerage and name it Myrtle Beach Realty and I'd luv to own the domain MyrtleBeachRealty.com. However since that's not available except for $44,888, and knowing what I know about the new gTLD's like .Realty, I'd consider MyrtleBeach.realty in a heartbeat if I could buy it for $2,000, unless of course I could buy it for $296

As for how much time I'd need to invest to find a buyer? My guess is maybe 36 months depending on my ability to create exposure and visibility for all the realtors in Myrtle Beach.

As for creating my own gTLD, that's not in the cards. I may be a little too old for that, but i'll be someones bitch 'IF" they have a financial interest in me. What do i mean by this?.....we'll just have to wait and see

 

[ThatNameGuy]

You still don't have enough time to do a proper due diligence & understand why some of the registries operating as a offshore clouds...

They don't want you to participate in 69 & Exposure is not welcomed . So... focus on some other things /tlds that auto-works.

Regards

Lox....i'll be 76 years old/young this month....is that what you mean by not having enough time? I do know what your talking about though Last i checked GD isn't offshore despite buying many of the gTLD's originating off by Frank Schilling and Uniregistry. Not sure about the .Realty origination, but I think it originated here in the US.

Not sure what you mean by "participating in 69", but I think i understand what you mean about Exposure is not welcomed. What I don't understand is why this is such a big deal to you?

 

[bmugford]

While I can only speak for myself, if I were a realtor in Myrtle Beach I'd luv to start a brokerage and name it Myrtle Beach Realty and I'd luv to own the domain MyrtleBeachRealty.com. However since that's not available except for $44,888, and knowing what I know about the new gTLD's like .Realty, I'd consider MyrtleBeach.realty in a heartbeat if I could buy it for $2,000, unless of course I could buy it for $296

As for how much time I'd need to invest to find a buyer? My guess is maybe 36 months depending on my ability to create exposure and visibility for all the realtors in Myrtle Beach.

So after (3) years of creating "exposure" you might be able to sell a single domain?

That seems like a pretty terrible business model.

Here is crazy idea... Why not buy domains that have actual demand?

Brad

 

[ThatNameGuy]

So after (3) years of creating "exposure" you might be able to sell a single domain?

That seems like a pretty terrible business model.

Here is crazy idea... Why not buy domains that have actual demand?

Brad

Brad....it's my business to create demand Any idea what that means?