Homes.Forsale and Houses.Forsale sell for $90,000

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Robert Bruce a self described expert in online marketing strategies, wrote an article on Entrepreneur.com that he purchased two .forsale domains for $90,000 in total.

From the article:

The startup I’m currently building aims to modernize real estate marketing, and is scheduled to launch this summer. To position myself in the market, I opted for the exact-match domains www.homes.forsale and www.houses.forsale. They weren’t cheap, either: I worked with Name.com and purchased the domains for $90,000.

Bruce writes that back in 1994 he was asked if he was interested in buying a domain name? He did not know what domain names were and passed on the name. The name was Dog.com.

I have to say I have a bit of a problem with some of what Bruce wrote.

Bruce gives 4 reasons on why to pick a new gtld. I can agree with 1 and 2 but when it comes to 3 and 4, it’s a nice thought but no proof currently.

For example:

4. Reduced online marketing costs

Because new domains drive organic web traffic to your site, you’ll be less reliant on expensive search engine placement and other online ads.

Google has stated there is no benefit to using a new gtld, so I am not sure where the organic web traffic boost is coming from. Most new gtlds certainly don’t have type in traffic. Some do, Michael mentioned that Moving.Company has made about $800 as a parked domain.

Would someone outside the domain industry know where to put the dot in Homes.forsale ? Maybe they put Homesfor.sale, or Homes.for.sale. Let’s look at the fact there is a .sale extension and someone owns for.sale, so they can put up a subdomain like Homes.for.sale, if I spent $90,000 on two .forsale names, I kinda think I have to buy for.sale as well. Just my opinion.

Comments

      • Marc says

        I bet no clicks either because the traffic is not real. That’s ghost traffic friend.

        • James Stevens says

          If you want to test it out for yourself, name a phrase I have that fits with a website you own, I’ll tell you the number of visitors I’m seeing for it and you can take it on our 30 day free trial.

          Reserved phrases not included 🙂

          If you sell Rompers for men – we’ve seen ~1400 visitors to romper.for.men & rompers.for.men since May 14th.

          James

      • STRIKER says

        whatever — NOBODY is searching for homes.for.sale (TOO MANY DOTS! WORTHLESS DOMAIN!)

    • WQ says

      I’m surprised you would hang onto these kinds with “no nothing” for so long. Typically these names get dropped.

      It’s the equivalent of someone holding onto a domain in any other extension with “no nothing”.

    • Lucas says

      “I have 18 “Forsale.com” domains. Never got a single offer in my life on any of them. No traffic. No income. No nothing.” So what is your point Rick? is that a final sourrender and confession that “Team Schilling” won? 🙂

  2. James Stevens says

    I know Google says there is no advantage, but Names.of.London has domains that rank top 5 where we have absolutely ZERO relevant content (which is meant to be Google’s top criterion).

    I think the advantage is partly gained from the levels of type-in traffic those names get. If you’re running Google’s Analytics on your site, this gives them visibility to this type-in traffic that they would otherwise not know about – I suspect this is what boosts the ranking.

  4. HIGHEST.DOMAINS says

    Nice (sale) price,
    interesting times we live in,
    someone owns this masterpiece*:

    forsaleforsaleforsaleforsaleforsaleforsaleforsaleforsaleforsale.forsale

    *
    – highest possible number of ‘forsale’ in a domain name (9)
    – highest possible number of characters in a domain name (63)
    – TLD .forsale

  5. Konstantinos Zournas says

    Stupid purchase in one of the worst extensions. 2-word extension while someone else owns for.sale?
    This is suicide. I can’t watch.

    BTW these sales were announced last month by Rightside with a bunch of other sales.

  6. Mark says

    That’s quite a bit a money to pay for those two confusing domains…I could have sold him HomeForSale.me / BuyHome.me / BuyHomes.me for a much better price.

  7. gene says

    Once again, here come the collection of prognosticators who feel the need to save a sophisticated business guy from the errors of their own decision — and viewing his spend on these names as a ‘foolish domain name investment.’ But he didn’t make a ‘bet’ on domain names that would increase in value over time: He’s building a BUSINESS, and doing so with ‘brands’ that he feels will give him a competitive advantage.

    Moreover, he doesn’t care whether there will be potential ‘leakage’ or ‘confusion’ on the part of users. When someone types “houses for sale” into Google, his site (if good) will likely rank very highly. So he’s not going to have to worry about where users put the dot in the address bar.

    Considering that he’s investing $90K into these names, and that he’s probably going to spend many times that amount on the site, content, etc., he’ll likely have the last laugh when he sells the site to a major RE player for 9-figures.

    • gene says

      …and for the record, I don’t own ANY dot-forsale names, nor do I have plans to purchase any. Frankly, I don’t think much of the extension, either.

    • Mark says

      No offense, I just can’t see branding Houses.ForSale.com or HomesFor.Sale.com on a billboard, TV Ads… was it “Houses.For.Sale” or “Homes.For.Sale”…%%#@%$#@# I don’t remember…Anyway, i’m sure he made the right choice for his business.

      • James Stevens says

        As (in the US) the house sale signs that are put up in the street already pretty much all say “Home For Sale” – seems to me “home.for.sale” would make a great choice, but I’m bias.

        • Mark says

          I can envision it but unfortunately I can only see the downside…I’m in the real estate/finance business myself and would never select such names but this of course is his own choice and obviously he has money to burn. A good test is to look at a .whatever the#$#$, look away and then ask yourself what domain name you just looked at? If you can’t recall where the dot is placed then you have problem…

          • James Stevens says

            that’s not a bad test, and /personally/ I don’t get the dot-FORSALE gTLD – two words compressed together doesn’t work for me, but when I go to Amazon I just type “ama[enter]”, so the exact URL doesn’t make much difference once the site has been visited a few times, and for any links, advertising or social media, the domain name makes no difference as the user just clicks.

    • phil says

      agree with gene 100% .. how many of the negative posters have ever bought a 45k name? homes.for sale is a nice name , houses.forsale i don’t care for personally, we dont hold a lot of .forsale just names like UsedCars.Forsale and FarmLand.forsale. I dont discount his 25 years with large companies in a marketing roll so quickly. I am betting he will do well.

      • Mark says

        I agree, homes.forsale is a nice domain, since he’s worked in this area before with other sites should give him a leg up with his start-up. Best of luck to him…

  8. steve says

    90 K USD — that’s a lot of money — for domain hacks.

    If I had that kind of money to splurge on, I’d rather use it for a cool trip — Mt. Kilamanjaro, sailboat cruise through off the coast of Italy, or one bottle of 1961 Margaux to share with the lovely lady in my life.

    whatever.forsale — no thanks

    • WQ says

      How do you know the guy wasn’t sitting on a yacht off the coast of Italy when he bought the domain?

      Do you think he has no money left for a vacation now? That 90K was all he had?

      Just because it’s a lot of money for you doesn’t mean it is for the next guy. To him, his 90K might be the equivalent of the change you have in your vehicle ashtray.

    • STRIKER says

      I hope you’re joking — that literally makes no sense. Is English a 2nd language to you?

  10. Gordon says

    My “shoulda coulda woulda” story starts in 1997 when I bought about 75 “XYZForSale.com” domains. I figured if I cornered the market on all consumer products then people wouldn’t need a search engine – they’d just type them in.

    It wasn’t a unique idea – a venture backed company launched with the idea, but putting the number 4 in front of products. 4cars.com etc.

    I’ve sold a bunch of the names for 4 and 5 figures, but overall my renewal fees have probably equaled the sale prices because I’ve kept a bunch of junk for 20(!) years.

    I did get a few unrelated good names back in 1997, but nothing truly amazing. If only I had bought a few generics when they were available, I’d be in a boat fishing somewhere right now, not in an office building typing away….can’t look in the rear view mirror though.

  11. Gabriel says

    How is this a “stupid” purchase? The guy is building a website around these domains. You can’t think people are that dumb that they can’t remember another extension that isn’t dot com. The more people see these new GTLDS the more familiar they’ll become. Stop already with your negativity you small minded people.

    • STRIKER says

      He paid between 100x – 200x the true value of these domains…that’s what people are primarily criticizing.

      • Phil says

        Homes.forsale a 90 dollar domain? Striker really??. One sale of a 350k home is worth 17k in commission .. Not sure his biz model but if he is building a site and charging for listings , or a lead gen site .. Or an affiliate site .. Several great ways to monetize.

  12. Anthony Noe says

    Poor guy; somebody sold him a bill of goods.

    From my experience, there were indeed plenty of people refusing amazing domain names in 1994. I don’t remember anyone actually “selling” domain names back then, but what was going on was people offering to register an awesome domain name to companies as part of a DNS/hosting package. Unfortunately, the ‘net was slow and unpopulated, sales were tough.

    In 1994 domain names were actually free, although you did have to have two DNS servers that were already set up to resolve the domain name to a web page. If those weren’t already set up, your registration would be rejected. That’s probably what he was offered. It essentially works out to be the same thing, but it’s different.

    Another reason I doubt anyone tried to sell the guy a domain name in 1994, is because there was no privately held inventory like there is today. Initially, .com meant a domain name established for “commerce”. And while there were a more than a few .com domain names already registered, commercial traffic was not authorized on the Internet until January 1995. Additionally, if a company tried to register more than one domain name back then, the registration was put on hold and Internic would demand an in-depth justification as to why the company could not use a sub-domain instead of the new domain name. The real hustlers out there were setting up a new DBA every other day just to register another domain name.

    Mr. Bruce also admits that he really didn’t get it for quite a while. Indeed, Internet growth was painfully slow for the first few years, but by 1999 a LOT of people were starting to see the writing on the wall. Yet, Mr. Bruce’s “Ah ha” moment came with seeing the purchase of hotels.com – which wasn’t purchased by David Roche for $11M until 2001.

    The point is, I do not believe Mr. Bruce has found the opportunity he thinks he has. I do not believe the new extensions – or even the old new ones (remember .info) – will ever reach the mainstream popularity/value of .com domain names. There are too many of them and they face the same difficulties that all non-.com domain names have faced. Mainly, that no matter what your domain name is, people will remember it as a .com.

    Moreover, technology has created a new pool of domain names (spoken domains) so now you can easily find a .com domain name that your phone or desktop can load up faster than you can type a much shorter name. Thus, telling your computer/phone “Open web page DiamondRoofingandConstruction.com” will open that page faster than manually typing http://www.homes.forsale (which voice recognition does not interpret correctly).

    In conclusion, I believe the gentleman was sorely misinformed about the potential and the value of those names, and as a result has lost tens of thousands of dollars.

  13. Smith says

    For a new gTLD to receive decent type-in traffic it needs to have one word to the left of the dot and one word to the right. In its entirety the gTLD must form a heavily searched for term consisting of two words – as is the case with “Moving Company” in the example provided. If there are two or more words either as the SLD or TLD then there will be minimal type-in traffic. I have previously said I believe this is because people are trying to execute a search on their phones and accidentally connect the two words with a . rather than hitting the space bar. This is easy to do and in my mind is the only explanation for any new gTLDs having type-in traffic and parking revenue. My best performing new gTLD has type-in traffic of around 1,000 visitors per month and an average $60/month in parking revenue. Its renewal is $220/year.

    • James Stevens says

      I have about 30 newGTLDs and get about 600,000 visitors a year, 88% type-in traffic, *ALL* are THREE-word domains – like pugs.for.sale, gifts.for.men, photos.of.london etc.

      Three word phrases are the cornerstone of the marketing industry, whole books have been written on the subject. Try and tell be the domain “just.do.it” isn’t worth a few bucks and I won’t listen – sadly Italy does not allow you to register the country code of other countries, DO=Dominican Republic 🙁

      As you say, a likely explanation is hitting dot instead of space (90% of our traffic is high end mobile), but 55% are under 35 and we also have to accept Generation-Z are too young to remember the first dot-COM boom and have grown up with the internet always being there. This gives them a very different relationship to it, and domain names, than those of us who have been around a little longer.

      I tried parking a ton of them, but the revenue (totalling about $150/month) was not worth the loss of traffic to my site. Parking rates collapsed when people realised 90% of type-in traffic is not related to what people are looking for and so doesn’t result in a click-through – with some newGTLDs (certainly with the ones I have) I find it hard to beleive this is still the case.

      If someone types in “pugs.for.sale”, its hard to beleive they are not looking to buy a Pug 🙂

      homes.for.sale & houses.for.sale got 524 & 489 /human/ visitors last week – so in the region of 52.5K per year – small fry when compared to the sort of numbers Zilla quotes, but never the less, it would still cost quite a lot to get that number of actual click-throughs from paid-for advertising.