According to the Chicago Tribune the real estate site, BuyOwner.com sold today out of Bankruptcy court for a cool million.
“It was once billed as the nation’s largest for-sale-by-owner operation and according to the story, the company’s revenue declined from more than $28 million in 2008 to less than $250,000 last July.
“Since July, the company generated about $588,000 in revenue but netted only $56,000 after expenses.
So to be clear this is not the sale of just a domain but an operating site, still the fall from grace of one of the premier real estate businesses over the last 10 years is quite spectacular.
$28 million in 2008?
I wonder if that figure was somehow verified by The Tribune. Home valuation rebound has lagged somewhat in my opinion. A really large housing market glut from around 2002 – 2008.
Interesting sale – I would much rather have “ByOwner.com”. $1-million seems high, even with the existing business.
– TBC
ForSaleByOwner.com and FSBO.com would be major competitive websites to BuyOwner.com
We’ll be competing in this space as well, except we’ll have a social networking/incentive twist.
– TBC
Buy > Owner ???
i would rather have boy owner… or bay owner… but that’s just me.
No surprise to anyone, but the melting down of the RE market gravely impacted RE domains and sites- particularly ones that scaled up in direct proportion to the size of the inflated bubble and laid up inadequate cash.
One thing I learned from this last bubble is that economies of scale should always be risk adjusted, relative to their impact on reserve capital.
ForSaleByOwner.com and FSBO.com would be major competitive websites to BuyOwner.com
——
Poozie.com or Mixado.com or Skint.com could be “major competitive websites” to BuyOwner.com too. The domain is a nice little advantage, but maybe 2% of what goes into actually conquering a hypercompetitive space with an operating website.
I own .com LandXContract (-x) which is a bang-on term in that space too (albeit a bit regional in nature), but to actually make it into a competitive By-Owner site would require a gigantic outlay of resources we just don’t have…
Everything cycles. Now Note selling is booming in real estate with a 300% growth rate. I just happen to own ByNoteOwner.com, NotesByOwner.com and NotesForSaleByOwner.com …
Domain name aside, they used to advertise heavily here in the Chicago market on TV and billboards. They were competing with a few large, tech-savvy real estate firms as well. With such slight profit margins, they must have had a ton of expenses and their business model must have been built on volume. Not so much any more.
My guess is there’s an infrastructure that was pretty pricey that went with that domain name that together made for a bargain sale price.
mp/m
Hello Mike,
The most important thing to learn from this example is the power that an action verb before a good branded recognizable name, is a powerful formula for success. Your domain business address either intrinsically leaves a good or weak impression. This name on a stand alone basis is a gem and the savy buyer knew it.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
Wonder if they were originally ranking better in SE´s than they do these days (which may explain part of the decline).
Hello Mike,
I will repeat myself once again. It is not about I.T. it is all about the business address and the marketing behind it. Some domainers understand this, and if you still think its about I.T. it was in the past, NOT in the present, because all the I.T. will be easily accessible through the clouds, to anyone. Old thinking will get you into trouble.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
the HP/Palm tablets released today are the first REAL competitor of the iPad but ONLY if the price will be VERY competitive but HP doesn’t own the domain name TouchPad.com that has been registered in May 17, 1998 by another (and clearly VERY lucky) guy!
whois.domaintools.com/touchpad.com
I nabbed ByRenter/s.Com awhile back when I heard of all the turmoil.I still think By Owner and By Renter are decent names.
the domain business is going to crazy nowadays,
how this domain can go up to $1M?!
It just could be that the new new owner is looking at it from a different perspective.
Current “booming” niches in our down economy. You can bet with approx. 98% no one invest $1 Mil just on a whim. Plus later on when the .R.E. market comes back he can have his cake and eat it too. 🙂
I want to disclose fully that I am a former sales rep for BuyOwner out of the Chicago area. The new owner took over in 2011 and the headquarters is located in Delray Beach, Florida and their current BBB rating is an F. I only went on appointments for a little over a month (July 2011) before they closed the office. I certainly wasn’t involved long enough to be disgruntled and I liked the people who worked out of the same office. I am glad that it is over though since the service is way too expensive and sellers are much better off taking their business elsewhere. Once someone pays them to advertise their home, a couple of hourly employees put the home on their website within a couple hours and the cost is $2000 to $5500 depending on the number of photos and virtual tours included. That’s very little work and a lot of money to simply be put on a website that hardly anyone visits anymore. Their website still shows a ‘customer service’ address in Woodridge, IL which is the ‘Chicago’ office that closed. I guess they decided to leave it up on the website to give people the impression they have a dedicated customer service department.
If the customer pays the balance over 4-6 months then the rep is suppose to be paid a percentage of those payments. My last sale with them opted for payments and paid one payment which I was paid on before the office closed. After that, the owner decided there was no need to pay me a little over a lousy $100.00 in commissions on the other payments the customer made. I asked him to pay me in an email and he ignored my request. I guess he figured since there was no longer an office in Chicago why bother paying me. So I let the rest of the representatives know about this in a mass email and one of them actually physically threatened me if I put this information on the Internet.
Hard to believe that people with short tempers like that are going into people’s homes. They do not do background checks on the independent representatives (at least they did not with me) so you could be letting felons, rapist or child molesters into your home.
Anyway, the new owner did respond to my mass email letting everyone know that he cheated me. He didn’t deny it but instead went off on some tangent pleading for sympathy ADMITTING that the company has failed by not changing their old ways. I feel sorry for all the people he let go in the Chicago office and those still aboard his sinking ship then I do him. I gave him another chance to make good on the commission letting him know he was not leaving me many options but to take this information to the internet. I purposely did not share the final request with all the others in my email. He responded that I forgot to not realizing it was intention and asked me to share the links with him. Hard to believe he doesn’t have better things to do and would want this information on the Internet when it could have been avoided for a little over a $100. It is my hope that this information does cost him business although he is doing a pretty good job on his own making that happen. Do you really want to give your money to someone who would cheat someone else out of $100.00 or to a guy who admits his company is failing?