Earlier this morning, Donuts reported that it sold the Home.Loans new gTLD domain name for $500,000. Whenever I read about large deals involving the new gTLD domain names, I know that some people will ask questions about whether or not they are legitimate. Some new gTLD domain registries offer creative deals to ensure the best domain names are developed and supported, so a deal may not be entirely what it seems.
I reached out to Matt Overman, Senior Vice president of Sales at Donuts, to ask him about the deal to confirm there were no marketing gimmicks and it was an all-cash (paid at once) deal. Matt confirmed that “it was an all cash deal paid up front without any marketing kickbacks or anything like that.”
Using the Whois History tool at DomainTools, I noticed that the domain name was first created at the end of August of 2017 and transferred to the buyer in November. Matt confirmed this and told me Donuts and the owner agreed to wait to report the news until after the owner launched his website. Assuming Ron Jackson charts this sale, it will have taken place in 2017. This will be the tenth largest publicly recorded sale of 2017, tying the $500,000 sale of Refi.com (ironically).
In addition to being one of the ten largest public domain name sales of 2017, it is also the largest public new gTLD domain name sale of all time, as recorded by NameBio. Casino.Online sold for $201,250 in 2017 and Video.Games sold for $183,000 in 2017, which rounds out the top 3 public sales of all time.
It is going to be interesting to see how Home.Loans ranks in Google over time. This is the exact match phrase for a highly competitive industry, but most of the biggest competitors have been around for a while and operate on long existing domain names.
IMHO that’s just a big marketing stunt for a dead new gTLD … obviously they deny it was …
There are many ways of “set up” those deals …
That’s certainly possible, especially considering the buyer agreed to an announcement of the sale. On the other hand, companies in the loan business tend to have a lot of cash they can draw on if they decide that they like something. We sold InstallmentLoans.com for $500,000 in 2013 (thanks to broker Derek Giordano).
HomeLoans.com has been owned by Wells Fargo for over 15 years. I’m not sure anyone knows how much they paid.
When I sell domain names at that price point, the buyer can dictate preference regarding publicity or privacy.
Matt assured me that isnÂ’t the case. Buyer paid $500,000 and there were no kickbacks or other gimmicks.
That “confirmation” is worthless to me.
There could be anything behind it, and in this case they would never admit it.
You know, those “deals” can be structured in such ways you can’t see anything from the outside.
🙂
“companies in the loan business tend to have a lot of cash they can draw on if they decide that they like something.”
Also “companies” operating in financial scams business “tend” to have a lot of cash … 🙂
A few words to the wise …
Pretty big risk if they did something shady and people found out.
People have the right to question things though.
I’ve digged a bit to see who the alleged buyer is …
“Weird” buyer … to say the least …
Looks like one of those guys selling hot air, involved in borderline businesses, like “dietary supplements” not approved by FDA, debt settlements, recovery and other financial scams, direct marketing scams, etc …
Definitely not a guy IÂ’d do business with.
Congrats to the buyer and seller. I’ve had a couple .loan and .loans domains available for quite so time but might be selling them to low… 🙂
I can say that my .loan gets more traffic than the .loans.
Will this be another Lending.Club which doesn’t even resolve?
Nice ROI for $25k
This is a great sounding domain. That said I bet homeloans/com will be grateful for the traffic leak
Well the Fleecing goes on. The obvious timing and motivation to keep the ( Techno Babble Entitlement Syndrome ) alive and sputtering forward. We are all being Massively Manipulated for the sake of the Google/Godaddy Duopoly. The dirty wash will soon be fully exposed. JAS 1/24/18
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger) (Former Rockefeller IBEC Marketing Intelligence Analyst/Strategist) (Licensed CBOE Commodity Hedge Strategist) (Domain Master ) http://www.UseBiz.com
Don’t believe this sale is real, but whatever.
There is no SEO benefit, no way this helps them with rankings. They are 15 years behind companies that are billion dollar entities. Their play appears to be lead generation, which puts them in an even tougher positions. Think about how long lending tree, bankrate, etc have been in this space. No one is defining a market with a GLTD, they would need a uber compelling reason to use their service, and probably tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars to build a real brand in this space.
HomeLoans.com will be getting so much more traffic as this site starts to advertise and people remember “homeloans” There is no way this buyer was anything but a public or funded company not using their own money- we’ll see.
I’ll believe in the tooth fairy before believing in this fake news. The new G’s suck big time.
We just completed the second biggest gTLD sale for the(.)club at $300,000. You can see the confirmation on DNjounrel.com