National Association of Realtors Gains Exclusive Rights to Top-Level .realestate Domain

The National Association of Realtor (NAR) has won its bid to manage top-level domain .realestate in an effort to beef up its branding in today’s increasingly competitive online real estate space, a statement from the association said.

According to the statement, NAR aims to use the domain, and another .realtor domain, to “create order for real estate information on the Internet and to provide NAR members with tools that help brand themselves as the most trusted, valued source of real estate information.”

“As the leader in the real estate industry and the 'voice for real estate,' NAR has been a pioneer for new technology in the digital space and intends to use the .realestate domain in conjunction with the .REALTOR domain to build an online space where home buyers, sellers and investors can find credible and professional real estate resources and services,” said NAR President Steve Brown of the domain’s acquisition.

NAR Senior Vice President of Marketing Bob Goldberg added to Brown’s statement, saying: “Obtaining this top-level domain along with .REALTOR will solidify NAR and our members' standing as groundbreakers in the rapidly changing real estate environment and change how the Internet is used to educate and connect with consumers, not only today, but in the future.”

NAR will specifically use the domain for “business applications,” the statement revealed. Inman.com reported that NAR is yet to reveal what these applications may be. Meanwhile, it intends to allow the organization’s first 500,000 members to register for rights to use the .realtor domain and “get as many as they want to creatively brand themselves,” Inman.com reported.

Three companies namely New North LLC, Uniregistry Corp. and Top Level Domain Holdings Limited lost the bid on the .realestate top-level domain to NAR, Inman.com reported.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) granted NAR the exclusive rights to the domain, giving it the same privilege to liberally use the domain as it does with its trademarked term “realtor.” ICANN is a non-profit organization that develops policies and manages global domain name systems (DNS). Inman.com reported that the organization released over 1,000 URL suffixes in December.

NAR’s move to acquire the top-level domain only goes to show that today’s “prime” digital real estate address is as important as having a physical address in a high-traffic location. New York City made headlines early in September when it also acquired its generic top-level .nyc domain and opened up an auction for early adopters before the domain’s October launch. 

A batch of .nyc addresses, which were exclusively reserved for resident individuals and businesses of New York City, launches today, Venture Beat reported. Other location-based URLs are also available such as Las Vegas, London, Miami, Berlin and Paris. But as Emily Badger puts it, those addresses “translate quite as elegantly into a web appendage.”

NYC agents waiting in line for an .nyc or.realtor address can use alternative platforms to build their reputation online and market their listings. Realbiz Media Group, Inc. RBIZ develops proprietary video marketing software that agents and their brokers can use to promote their virtual tour listings online. The company’s listing platform Nestbuilder.com, makes a great platform for hosting agents’ virtual tour listings and personalized agent profiles.

Nestbuilder.com is a consumer site based on Realbiz Media’s patented marketing technology Nestbuilder Agent.

Realbiz Media’s platforms, applications and web sites feature social integration, which allow agents to cross-publish their posts to social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.

To learn more about Realbiz Media and its products, contact sales@realbizmediagroup.com or call 1.888.REAL.BIZ (888.732.5249).