Over the last several weeks, I have been adding more domain names to my account at Atom.com. I have just shy of 250 domain names listed for sale along with some that are pending review. With another lease to own sale started last night, I currently have 4 LTO deals in progress at Atom. Two are .com, one is .AI, and one is .xyz.
Atom.com shares quite a bit of sales data from platform sellers. Towards the bottom of the customer dashboard page, there’s a section called Featured Sales. These domain names were sold on the platform, and Atom requests that customers keep the sales data private. Some of these sales are reported to NameBio with the permission of the seller and some are kept private.
One thing to note is that these deals aren’t necessarily completed deals. In fact, one of my recent deals is a $36,000 36 month LTO sale. Despite it being an LTO that was started less than a month ago, the domain name I sold appears in the Featured Sales list as if the sale was completed. Because I don’t allow Atom to report my sales publicly, I don’t know if it would be shared with NameBio while the LTO is ongoing, but others who do allow their sales to be reported can have a look for themselves.
Personally, I don’t think LTO deals should be reported as sales – even in private like this. That’s not my call though. Perhaps Atom should mark LTO deals with an asterisk or something else to indicate the domain name hasn’t been paid in full.
In the meantime – or if that never happens – customers who view these Featured Sales should understand some of them are not completed deals and not make business decisions based on this data.
I posted a poll on X to see what others think about this:
Should LTO deals that are still being paid be included in @atomHQ Featured Sales found on customer Dashboards?
— Elliot Silver (@DInvesting) July 23, 2025
Congratulations, but why is it a blog post?
Thanks.
There are multiple reasons.
I don’t think it is wise for customers to be basing their own purchases or sale prices on deals that aren’t yet completed. If someone sees I sold (redacted).xyz and (redacted).ai for mid 5 figures each, they shouldn’t see that as a market indicator when the buyers only made one payment of 36. I don’t think people realize these Featured Sales aren’t all completed deals. I didn’t until I saw mine.
In addition, I have found that things that should be changed tend to get changed more quickly when they are written about and discussed within the industry. If others think these sale listings are fine as is, then maybe I am in the minority and that’s fine, too.
In short, this post uncovers something people may have not realized, and it is now a discussion/poll about whether or not it should be changed.
Thanks for sharing this, Elliot. I think you make a very valid point regarding how Lease to Own (LTO) deals are presented. Reporting LTO agreements as completed sales—especially without clear labeling—can definitely be misleading, whether the data is shared publicly or kept within the platform.
From a transparency and industry standards perspective, marking LTOs with an asterisk or clear notation would be a small but meaningful change. It helps other users interpret the data accurately and prevents inflated assumptions about market activity or pricing trends.
That said, it’s great to hear Atom is showing solid traction for your names and that the platform is generating deals. Hopefully, they consider this kind of feedback—it would ultimately benefit the whole domain investing community.
So far so good, and I continue to build my portfolio there.
I have had 8 deals in total, including those 4 LTO sales. I had one additional LTO deal that fell through after a couple of payments.
I agree,
LTO deals should be reported as “sales” after the final payment.
LTO sales on Atom are not reported to NameBio as part of our integration until they are completed. I agree, they shouldn’t be reported on the dashboard even though it is more private.
Thanks for the clarification.
I don’t mind if they’re shown on the dashboard, but I think there should be something that identifies ongoing LTO deals so they don’t appear with deals that fully closed.