At the end of January, Elliot Silver of DomainInvesting.com revealed that Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation acquired the domain Home.com from long-time owners Anything.com Ltd in a deal facilitated by Larry Fischer and Andrew Miller.
There was some speculation that the domain name may have sold for an eight-figure fee based on anecdotal evidence provided by Elliot in his article.
Quickly, Fairway put up a temporary website promoting its services. Now, Fairway has rolled out a new website on Home.com, putting the company’s latest digital purchase to work.
Rather than redirecting Home.com to a sub-page on Fairway’s existing website, the company has opted to harness the power of the high profile domain by developing a dedicated site on Home.com.
The new Home.com features abundant references to the home keyword, with Fairway heavily referencing its home purchase and home refinance options.
According to Google data, there are over 9 million monthly searches for the home keyword. Fairway could also look to dominate related home mortgage and home refinancing terms with the powerful Home.com domain.
Assuming that Fairway acquired the domain name outright, the only future costs it would need to pay on the domain name are renewal fees of around $10 per year.
As the category-dominating Home.com isn’t set to expire until December 2030, Fairway essentially has nine years of usage of Home.com, attracting and converting leads from type-in traffic and search engine traffic, before needing to pay anything further.
A powerful consideration for making an ultra-premium domain name an intrinsic part of a company’s digital strategy.
It’s smart that they are not re-branding their existing Fairway site and expanding their brand with the addition of a Home.com site.
Home.com gives Fairway the ability diversify into several consumer areas and income streams.
Congratulations to all those involved.
“There was some speculation that the domain name may have sold for an eight-figure fee based on anecdotal evidence provided by Elliot in his article.”
That is just the domain industry echo chamber. When the price isn’t known domainers frequently default to the highest price they can think up.