I just learned that House.com has been sold, with Domain Holdings serving as the domain name brokerage in this transaction. I am told the sale price is confidential, although I understand the original asking price had been $2.5 million, which was later reduced to $1.5 million. My guess is that this was a 7 figure transaction but that is really just a guess.
Based on the current Whois record, the registrant name is listed as Hangzhou Duomai E-Commerce Co.,Ltd, which is a company based in China. The buyer appears to be associated with domain name marketplace 4.CN, as the registrant street address is listed as “please contact with 4.cn brokers.” The registrant appears to be the same company that has been buying other exceptional domain names, including WW.com and MM.com.
The seller of House.com was listed as a company based in New Jersey. There was a small website operating on House.com, and as of right now, the website is still functional. Based on some email newsletters from Domain Holdings, the company had been seeking a buyer for at least a year. I suppose this shows that when you’re working with a domain broker, sometimes a deal doesn’t materialize for quite some time.
Commenting on the deal, Domain Holdings broker Joe Uddeme, who represented the seller in this transaction, said, “We always strive to achieve the best possible outcome for all parties involved. In this case we have succeeded. House.com is a great brand with tremedous upside.” Domain Holdings broker Mark Thomas represented the buyer.
I am unsure of how this domain name will be used in the future.
I still see MM.com and WW.com much more valuable names, but obviously the new owner is looking for bigger portfolio.
On the other hand, it is not good news to see such great name to be sold to non-end-user buyer. End-user sales usually come with much higher price tag.
$2.5 million would be a huge bargain for House.com; $1.5 million would be a big steal.
Mike, you seem very possibly extremely misguided and misled by an erroneous “shorter is *always* better” bias and mentality that some seem to have.
MM.com and WW.com don’t even have any inherent meaning. House.com blows both of them away in terms of both intrinsic value and extreme brandability, by a hundred miles no less, so to speak. House.com is without question one of the best .com’s there is even.
MM.com and WW.com are certainly still great domains each genuinely worth 7 figures at least, however, so no question about that as well. Since the suggested pricing for this recent move on House.com is so extremely low compared to what it’s worth, I’d be very surprised if the other two aren’t sold for substantially more if they are to be sold then, unless of course any seller is motivated to do a quick sale below real value as seems to have occurred with House.com.
This is probably one of the smartest high-stakes speculative buys ever, considering this news:
http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/01/houzz-raises-165m-series-d-led-by-sequoia-to-fuel-international-expansion/
An absolute cracker of a buy IMO, even at the original $2.5m asking price.
Whatever this sold for I believe the plural version is worth far more.
Not really. “House.com” not only covers the immediately obvious first-thought-of subject matter, but is actually infinitely more brandable than “Houses.com.” A domain like “Houses.com,” while still obviously an excellent killer domain, is first of all considerably inferior to Homes.com and RealEstate.com, and is merely just a kind of dry, clinically accurate generic descriptive plural without having any of the brandability cache, snappy appeal, and capturing of the imagination of “House.com,” not to mention the extremely superior versatility of the latter. In light of terms like “homes” and “real estate” being the more natural top of mind terms people use, at least here in the US, “houses” is actually even slightly awkward for the intended purpose if the purpose involves real estate compared to the few that are better. No, without question “House” is not only considerably better than “Houses” in terms of value and versatility in every way, but also without question one of the best one-word .com’s one could ever have.
Just based on houzz vc money received…this seems like a steal…crazy name for a vc backed company…house.com sounds much better…more mature than houzz