Iron Track Technology is selling the HomesAndLoans.com URL and other assets in a sealed-bid auction this month, Inman News has learned.
The minimum bid is $4 million, the company said, and the sale includes the Homes and Loans brand and logos and the copyrights and license to the “homes” SMS short code and the “loans” SMS short code. An SMS short code is a short string of numbers that allows individuals to use text messaging on their cell phones to request or deliver information.
Iron Track Technology has retained the law firm of Seed Intellectual Property Law Group to manage the auction. The terms and bidding procedure are available through the Homes And Loans Web site.
Seed IP will accept sealed bids until June 30 at 11 a.m. Pacific.
HomesAndLoans.com currently hosts a placeholder site that’s been live for a couple of years, said co-founder Larry Cragun, but the company has made no efforts to drive traffic to the site during that time. The site was intended to serve as a model to drive leads to real estate agents and mortgage brokers
“We had high hopes of doing a lot with the URL, but we’ve been more focused on the backend technology,” said co-founder Larry Cragun, a 30-plus-year industry veteran.
Cragun and his team will focus more on a lead management system they’ve been building, he said. Cragun has applied for a patent for the lead tracking technology his team is working on.
“I’d like to see someone who can really do something with it end up with the site,” Cragun said.
The URL name came from Cragun’s former real estate finance business, which he said will be closed and not included in the sale.