According to a press release today Condo.com bought houses.com in December 2010 for an undisclosed price.
“Condo.com, the world’s largest condo marketplace, today announced the launch of Houses.com”
“The new site is a “category” or “generic” domain that combines the power and brandability of the generic domain name with the large volume of web searches for terms relating to houses. Similar in scope and design to Condo.com, the website utilizes the team, operations and online real estate platform developed during the past 4 years by the Miami-based company. The new site launched with over 3 million properties and will be adding new listings for sale, rent and vacation in the coming weeks.”
“The domain, Houses.com, was an undeveloped web property until it was acquired by Condo.com in December 2010 and launched just two weeks later.”
“The domain acquisition and expansion into the single-family housing market made perfect sense for us”, stated Houses.com CEO Richard Swerdlow. “We understand the branding power of Houses.com and how to leverage the category domain into a large and successful global internet real estate company. We became profitable with Condo.com in 2010 with a limited share of online real estate (condos represent approximately 10% of the housing market). With our acquisition and expansion through this new top level single-family housing domain, we look forward to quickly growing traffic and revenue”, added Swerdlow”
“”Securing a category domain name is proving to be a ladder for success across many different businesses and industries. The acquisition and launch of Houses.com takes place in the wake of several high-profile category domains and related businesses being acquired or launched in the past six months.”
“E-commerce giant Amazon.com acquired Diapers.com and Soap.com. Others include Insurance.com, CreditCards.com and Sex.com. “The ability to leverage our team and platform across the new domain with a limited learning curve and marketing costs made the opportunity very attractive”, stated Matt Pluznick, Chief Operating Officer. “The new investors that helped fund the acquisition are a unique mixture of successful real estate developers and internet marketers, each understanding the value of a great address”, he added.”
“When asked about the site launch on Swerdlow commented “it was a unique opportunity that won’t come around again for another thousand years in the year 3011 (2111 will have twelve ones). We wanted to connect to the unity of all things by connecting to the eleven ones at launch time. One represents unity, primacy, the first, the only. Our goal is to connect buyers, sellers and all the pieces of the real estate puzzle to help consumers and industry professionals complete transactions easily and efficiently. We will become the ONE site people think of when buying, selling or renting houses.”
“for an undisclosed price”
when the price is “undisclosed” the price likely is very high
in my opinion, the REAL record price domain has been office.com acquired by Microsoft but we can’t verify if it’s true because its price still is “undisclosed” 🙂
“it was a unique opportunity that won’t come around again for another thousand years in the year 3011 (2111 will have twelve ones). We wanted to connect to the unity of all things by connecting to the eleven ones at launch time. One represents unity, primacy, the first, the only.”
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This thought-pattern brought to you by: Sour Diesel.
Home.com would be better – they should have bought that.
Home.net would have been even better
)):::
@MHB,
I’m guessing you own home.net? 🙂
– TBC
@MHB,
I see Home.net resolves here, so I guess that answers my question. Just curious, what’s the asking price on that gem?
– TBC
Good guess
houses.com has to be one of the record holders for posting a coming soon/site is in redevelopment page for years to come…interesting they believe so strongly in the category killer domain but opted for houses.com over property.com, probably can surmise the range the name sold based on this correlation
Well we don’t know what they acquired houses.com for and we know Mr. Schwartz wouldn’t have sold property.com cheap
soon or later the “houses” market will start to grow again
Houses sounds very awkward & unnatural to use in most cases.
“Home.net would have been even better”
House.net is for sale at $201,600 on Buydomains
Home.net…WAY better domain
People that live in Glass HOUSES
shouldn’t throw stones … 🙂
They should’nt have sex with the lights on either 😉
an entire industry of homebuilders are asleep at the wheel. no kbhome they aligned with martha stewart,no pulte,no meredith….not one real estate company nationwide realized the type in traffic of houses.com.no century 21, no coldwell banker a real idiot here they let denverhomes.com expire and was sold on the aftermarket for 100k. no realtor.com who will buy,build and expand a new unknown suffix.so while homebuilders carry lot interest,homes under construction,employees, they completely missed the point of home sales.
what this clearly indicates big biz still does understand the value of a good domain and type in traffic.