Do we need fresh domain names for real estate?

Many domain names used in real estate are still available in .com.

There are lots of fresh top level domain names coming out (or by now released) for real estate purposes: .Realtor, .realty, .realestate, .casa, .immobilien, .immo and probably a few others I’ve missed.

This stretch Rightside released .forsale, a domain it is pitching for real estate purposes, i.e. 123Anystreet.forsale.

Domain names purchased for real estate marketing are big business. GoDaddy has frequently touted domain names as a key part of marketing a home for sale. This is part of the reason GoDaddy originally applied for .home and .casa.

There are a number of types of real estate domain names. There are ones registered by agents, ones registered by management firms, real estate service providers and aggregators. But the ones that probably drive the most volume are individual home websites, which have become quite popular in the past 5 or so years.

These are the types of sites that GoDaddy saw driving registrations: 123TownCircle.com, 472EasyStreet.com, 9237WinterPass.com.

Yet there’s something unique regarding most of these address domain names that are used for marketing real estate. That uniqueness is that they are unique. There aren’t too many people that share your same address, unless you live on a very common or numbered street name. What are the chances that a property with your same address is for sale at the same time as yours?

In other words, most domain names registered to market a property are actually available in .com.

For example, the home next to mine just went under contract. Its street address is available in .com, both with our without the “Place” at the end. Why would they register it in .forsale instead?

Another interesting factor in the success of fresh TLDs designed for real estate marketing is the inverse relationship between housing markets and marketing spend. In hot markets, where homes go under contract within days of being listed, real estate agents are less likely to invest in a unique domain name and website for a property. There are an awful lot of hot markets right now, at least in the United States.

This is not to say that all real estate domain names are designed for single property marketing. .Realtor can’t be used for this purpose; it’s designed for Realtor websites.

And .casa is an interesting play that could be favored over .com in Spanish speaking communities. (Not to mention that its wholesale price is just $2, so it’s a lot cheaper!)

To answer the question posed in the headline: there are lots of uses for real estate domain names. But we don’t need fresh TLDs for the very common use of marketing an individual property for sale.