.HOMES is launching as an unrestricted TLD

.HOMES is launching as an unrestricted TLD on January 14th, 2019.

Dominion Registries, which operates .HOMES, will be removing the current restrictive eligibility requirements. Anyone will then be able to register or acquire available General Availability (GA) or premium names starting 14 January.

Think names such as vacation.homes, tiny.homes, foreclosed.homes, LongIsland.homes, BayArea.homes, Houston.homes, Chicago.homes, YourCompanyName.homes and so on.

Pricing for standard GA .HOMES names is going to be significantly lower than it is now, and the lower pricing will be effective on 14 January as well. Most premium names will be offered in 7 price tiers via EPP and renewals will be at standard prices. Afilias is the backend RSP.

Real estate is a $1.5 trillion dollar industry in the U.S. alone, and over half the country will be looking for a new home over the next five years. There are 1.4 million monthly searches for keywords relating to homes for sale. Names containing “homes” are registered in .com at a rate of ~250/day ~91,500/yr pace.  Sources: National Association of Realtors, Verisign DomainScope

This will be a great opportunity for registrars to acquire or upsell business customers and naming investors with interests in the housing and real estate verticals. Proxy registrations will be allowed starting on 14 January.

Dominion Registries is a relatively new client. Their parent, Dominion Enterprises, own and operate widely recognized B2C web and mobile portals, including ForRent.com, Homes.com and CycleTrader.com, that generate nearly 30 million unique visits monthly. They have 3,000 employees in their Norfolk, Va. home office, across the U.S., and internationally.

They also own and operate .AUTOS, .BOATS, .YACHTS and .MOTORCYCLES. All were originally launched as restricted TLDs.

.BOATS eligibility requirements have already been removed with pricing to be reduced on 15 October.

.YACHTS eligibility requirements will be removed on 15 October and prices will be reduced.  .MOTORCYCLES will follow on 1 November with equally lower pricing.

.AUTOS remains restricted for now. I’m expecting that will change at some point in Q1 2019 with lower pricing as well.

Please go here to request a review copy of the .homes RRA or simply contact me to learn more or set up a call.