The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has around 1 million members who sell real estate. The NAR applied for and will be managing the .Realtor new gTLD extension. According to a press release, “NAR is offering a free one-year license to the first 500,000 members who register for a .REALTOR domain.”
In my opinion, this could become a pretty lucrative business for the NAR. I would imagine that some (or many) of these free domain names will be renewed by members once the first free year is up. This would be even more likely if the Realtors build a website on their free domain name in the first year. Assuming the price per domain name is reasonable, I would think their renewal rates will be pretty high.
For people in the domain space that think Realtors won’t want their .Realtor domain name for whatever reason (despite the fact that many will be given away for free for the first year), think again. According to a poll conducted by real estate industry website Inman News, “More than 8 out of 10 Inman News readers say they plan to apply for their own “.realtor” domain.” Just under 800 people participated in the poll. I don’t think this 80% will carry over throughout the entire real estate agent community because those who read news online are probably more likely to be domain name owners (a guess), but I believe it indicates a strong interest in the .Realtor extension.
The NAR has a captive audience of professionals who look to the organization for best practices and other tools. If the organization heavily promotes the .Realtor domain name extension, I could see it become very popular amongst its members. One issue potentially standing in its way are the real estate companies who may or may not have rules about the urls its real estate agents own and operate. I can’t speculate on that though because I am not familiar with such regulations.
My bet is that .Realtor will be a winner, and it will become a profit center for the National Association of Realtors. .Realtor domain names will be available on October 23.
Thanks to OnlineDomain.com for making me aware of this press release.
This will be a huge money maker for them. It will probably become their biggest money maker. Most realtors will register their name not because they will actually use it but to keep their competition from registering it and redirecting it to their own website. They will not only register their own name but also all the real estate areas they specialize in. .XYZ keeps saying they will be the first to reach 1 million registrations. I put my money on .REALTOR
“It will probably become their biggest money maker. Most realtors will register their name not because they will actually use it but to keep their competition from registering it and redirecting it to their own website.”
Defensive registrations with parked pages and redirects, this should make it popular in no time at all.
There are over 2 million licensed realtors in the United States so if we slice it in half and say that only 50% will register their name that means .Realtor will generate roughly 40 million a year for life off of the 1 million registrations at 40 bucks a pop.
Every realtor that registers their domain will continue to register their domain even if they don’t use it.
This is the type of extension that doesn’t need to become popular or even heavily marketed. The realtors themselves are the salesman for the extension.
Just like those of us that registered our names in .com. We will never use it for anything but I will continue to pay for it year after year just to keep someone else from having it.
Hi Elliot,
The .Realtor name is exclusively available to Realtors. The first name we register will be free for the first year, each additional name will be $39.95. And Geo-names are reserved by the NAR for directories, etc. so the current prohibition on registering geographic names with the word Realtor continues in force. Thus no one can register NewYork.Realtor
Legit relators can already get their names like JohnSmith@remax.com etc.. nothing new here…
Ron,
Not sure what you mean by “legit” but the one advantage of having a .Realtor name is that if/when a Realtor would change firms, he/she would not lose all web content and search advantage to ReMax – he/she should be able to keep the same site, no matter what firm is employing the Realtor.
The Realtors that really “get it” own the best Geo-names for capturing real estate leads – see Denver.com!!!
This is a great business model, which should be an inspiration for any association. They have a huge advantage having direct access to their customer group, which many other registries must envy.
Denver.com,and WhateverName.Realtor are not on the same page.
Yes, some real estate pros get what a generic domain can do for them, others are stingy, and would rather spend thousands mailing out flyers that go in the garbage.
.Realtor will not change the game, most successful realtors already have an online site, this would be a secondary, or forwarding site, I am sure the geo names are all going to be reserved, or sold at premiums that most scoff at anyways.
.Realtor is by no way a game changer.
Just saw the .Realtor launch video and shared it: https://www.domaininvesting.com/see-realtor-launch-video/
Ron,
I agree, a .Realtor domain will not be a difference maker. But I do think it will be more valuable than a name based upon an employing-broker domain, which will have to be left behind when the Realtor changes firms. Also, with thousands of new Realtors coming online every year, I agree with Elliot that .Realtor may be one of the most successful new extensions as those folks need to find their way to a quality online presence.
I have personally been collecting quality geo-domains since I first attended TRAFFIC Orlando back in 2008, having learned from the experts I met there and at Geo-Domain conferences that there is great value in having the best, most intuitive name for your market area. I used Denver as an example because that guy is way ahead of the rest of us in controlling the best leads in real estate. I in no way meant to compare the value of any .Realtor to Denver.com. That would be silly.
One last item – the ONLY people who will be allowed to register .Realtor names are currently-licensed Realtors. So no un-licensed domain investors allowed. And as I mentioned earlier, no one can register city-Realtor combos – that is trademark protected stuff there.
From what I understand the only trademark that is enforceable would be left of the dot. DenverRealtor.Realtor would be trademark infringement but Denver.Realtor would not because the dot makes the two words totally separate. The .Realtor guys wouldn’t allow you to register it anyway so it would never become a trademark case.
If someone registered Vision.Works it would not be trademark enforceable by the eyeglass company Vision Works because the dot separates the two words. So the word Vision would be enforceable but the two words combined would not be. This is the way I understand it. Maybe a trademark lawyer can chime in on this.
As the owner of Denver.com and one of the largest Denver real estate brokerages, Kentwood Real Estate ($2.2B in 2013 sales), less than 25% of my 200 sales associates have any interest in registering a .Realtor brand. My Realtors have access to Denver.com, DenverRealEstate.com, DenverHomes, HomesinDenver.com and Kentwood.com as part of their brand just to name a few that I own and control. My goal is to control generic keyword search for real estate in Denver.
NAR is trying to reclaim authority with its Realtor.com brand (a distant 3rd place) in the eyes of the consumer. Zillow and Trulia have garnered most of the local unique visitor traffic…