Being an owner of a category dominant, generic domain name, it is part of my business to track the market values of similar domain names. Everybody seems to have their list of top selling domain names, and many of these sales have been covered in the press. However, I’ve never seen an all-encompassing list. So, I found it worthy to post these findings here.

RealEstate.com, Loan.com, and Hotels.com are are important sales when establishing comparables for Realty.com. These lie more closely into the housing, financial, and vacation categories which encompass the “realty” term.

Not included

Know that for the purpose of this list, we are focusing strictly on sales of domain names. There are several generic domain sales which were excluded from this list because they were coupled with businesses and other assets. Names in this category include Interest.com (sold for $30mm), Property.com (touted to be an 8 figure sale, but was complete BS and more of a PR move for the king domainer himself), Internet.com (sold for $18mm with several other domains and yearly revenues of $14mm, operating at a 10% net), or the 2007 sale of Business.com (sold in 2007 for $345mm).

The List

Sales over Time

This wasn’t possible 3 years ago, and wasn’t really possible last year. But, with recent sales and 10 years of premium domain sales history, charting the trends reveal a lot. When charting all domain sales ($2mm and above) over time, you can see that the average market value of category dominant names lie in the range of $4mm-$8mm just for the names alone.

Some names tap a higher profitable market. Some have more traffic. Some names had a better salesman sell the name. Some names were fire sales. Some names sold in a down market, or down economy. And many of the premium names which sell for under $2mm, often sell below the radar without alerting all potential buyers, or the right buyers.

How does Realty.com compete?

Does it compare in traffic?
When comparing Realty.com’s traffic to the 19 names (Counting Hotel.com and Hotels.com separately) which have sold for $4mm and above, Realty.com’s traffic exceeds the traffic of 12 of the 19.

Is it a one-word category dominant name?
Yes. Realty.com is the last independent URL in the real estate category that has the opportunity to steal consumer mind share away from Realtor.com and other competing brands.

Is the category high volume, high priced
Even in a down market, people are always moving, relocating, buying and investing in real estate. Current traffic is an indicator of the strong category volume.

Summation

If you have a category dominant, short URL. If the category is in high demand. If you are able to sell (particularly sell online) products and services within this category. And if these these products and services can be sold for high profit margins… Then you have a premium asset.

A ten year history of domain sales places the average price tag for such an asset at $6mm. Selling a category killer domain below $4mm is selling short. Selling above $8mm and you’re doing great. Monetizing the traffic is a must. Building a business on top of the traffic and the domain will catapult your domain value well above these figures.

This snapshot should give you a few hints. Keep tuned for more updates.

Thanks, Homethinking!

Check out Joel’s summary here for a more detailed review.

In response to John C., let me say this. After careful consideration, I recommended HV to my brother who is a new agent. HV is legitimate, they have commercials on TV, and they have great support and CRM solutions. So, after my lofty recommendation, my brother signed up. Two years ago, what was a $250/mo fee, turned into a $600/mo fee last year for my brother’s small market. My brother received several leads per week – week after week. He followed up on them all. He followed HV’s recommendations, went through their training, and offered every service they suggested. After 5 months of no sales, he gave up. He realized he was wasting his time chasing these leads which simply did not close. He was locked into a long-term contract, but realized that his time was best served finding business elsewhere than spending the majority of his day chasing curious home owners who weren’t interested in selling – or selling with the HV agent.

My article below basically questions the excessiveness of lead generation. The consumer deserves the opportunity to browse homes online without the pressure of having to provide their personal information. Zillow provided this option to HouseValue’s dismay. And now, companies like Trulia, Propsmart, Redfin, and Blueroof are providing home listings as the consumer deserves.

See the original story and the rest of my thoughts here.
Originally posted by Inman News here. (subscription required)

It should be noted that Realty.com was strictly a lead-gen site at the time of me writing this article. Immediately after, we began work to provide a broader range of services. The new site was launched 5 months later, and we still are working on providing a better consumer experience.

The Domain Name Journal couldn’t have said it any better…

…Schwartz asked the panel “How is it that Hilton and Marriott and Westin and all of the rest couldn’t figure out how many leads they would get from a domain like hotels.com? Instead of paying a million or two for a domain they now have to pay tens of millions (for leads) for the rest of their lives. So they flunked – they failed – and their advertising agencies failed them too!”

Regarding corporate America’s opportunity…

What we think they fail to understand is that a generic domain name reaches the consumer when they are thinking about buying something in a category, like an automobile, before they zero in on brands. Owning the generic domains, like cars.com, could effectively make them the gatekeeper for the entire industry, allowing them to intercept the customer and send them to the brand they want before they go to a competitor.

I wouldn’t say that we here at Realty.com are close to being the gatekeepers of our industry…yet. But, I would say that we’re getting closer to figuring out the combination!

First, I flew on JetBlue. They just opened up in Charlotte, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. This was my first time on a JetBlue flight and I was overly impressed. Free Wifi in the terminals. All seats are made of plush leather. (I said ALL seats). Each seat has their own personal TV monitor and headphones are provided for free. Each TV comes equipped with 36 stations of DirecTV and XM Radio. And when it came time for snacks, the attendents didn’t roll out the drink cart, they personally went to each seat and took your order. I thought this was a nice touch to eliminate the drink cart, but it did lengthen the time to receive your order (my only complaint).

Second, and the downside of the trip, is that I flew into JFK. OMG! What a small, outdated airport. It’s located way outside the city, and by car it took 90 minutes to get from the airport to Manhattan. The flight from Charlotte was only 75 minutes. So, this was a bit unexpected. Ontop of rush hour traffic and being crammed in the back of a shared shuttle, this transit into Manhattan left much to be desired.

Then the good stuff. On the way into town, we passed all the goodies. Grand Central Terminal, Park Avenue, NBC Studios, Radio City Music Hall, Rockefeller Center, Carnegie Hall, and I swear I saw Mayor Bloomberg walking on the sidewalk. I wish I had access to my camera then.

We arrived at the hotel at 10:00. Walking into the Hilton NY, Adtech was booming with activity. People were everywhere. Ontop of all that, the NY Marathon runners were all checking out, so it made for a hectic time. You couldn’t help to feed off of the energy of the room. You could tell everyone was amped. After a few brief meetings and lunch, I was back on my way to JFK to catch my 5:30 flight.

Is it me, or does any photo snapped from a moving taxi cab just look awesome. Out of focus? Who cares! Subject not fully in frame? I meant to do that! Fuzzy images through the back window? It makes the image authentic! I wish I had snapped some images going into the city, but these photos still do the job. Having NY, NY as the backdrop is only a plus!

The cab ride back to JFK sucked. But, after arriving back in Charlotte by 7:15, I realized I still had time to make it to my weekly card game. So, waking up at 3:30, flying to Manhattan for the day, flying back and being able to play a few hours of poker are days when you know you are blessed. Ok…back to work.

1. Yellow Door
2. Target Door
3. Roofline
4. Color Door
5. Picket Fence

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We’re bumping the total number of bloggers up to 4, so we’ve got just 2 more openings.

A friend of mine, who’s in the industry as well, tipped me off recently that House.com had moved their operations from NY to Charlotte. So, seeing the sign on the side of the road wasn’t too surprising. But, it did make me wonder about House’s business model, and about Charlotte in general.

Charlotte is quietly becoming the mecca for online real estate. Now, there’s no way that it can compete with the prowess of Emeryville, Seattle, or the Valley. But, just take a look at which companies call Charlotte home.

• RealEstate.com
• House.com
• Realty.com
• iHomes.com
• LendingTree
• Bank of America
• Wachovia
• Lowes

In addition to LendingTree and RealEstate.com, I also believe that IAC has parts of GetSmart.com, Domania, and iNest here. If not in total, some representation of these three can be found in Charlotte. I also was informed recently that the new CEO of NewHomes.com was pulled from Charlotte to their Florida home office.

I was curious about what House.com was up to. So, I shot an email out to Dan Parisi – no reply. (He rarely does). Then, I figured I would call the 800 # listed on the sign. After asking a few questions to the customer service rep I was informed that their plans for opening a brokerage are on hold, and they are focusing on obtaining more agent relationships for their lead network. That’s cool. Sticking to your core biz strategy is never a wrong move.

But, with all of us in the same town, we should all get together for a drink and chat. It would make for a fun game of trying to find-more-about-your-competitor-than-they-can-find-out-about-you.

So, Dan, Eric, Gary, Michael, Doug… when’s the first pow-wow?

Here are the rest of my photos…

On a lighter note. I had dinner with the crew from RealtyTracker.com last night. Thanks to Sean, Tom, and Colette for a good dinner and great time connecting. The Clift was a great place to hang. And at the end of the night as I was walking out the door, in walked…HULK HOGAN. So surreal. What the heck was he doing in San Francisco??

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