HOUSING AGENTGlobal brand in the making - easy to remember

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Definition: housing agent (n.)broker’s office, housing agency, real estate office, estate agency (British), real-estate agency (American)

The history

•Working with expatriates for 15 years and travelling the world we noticed that there are hardly any new global recognizable brands for renting and selling property.

•The largest companies outside of the USA use names and logos that are not easy to recognize and remember, or are not at all times present in the most markets.

•By looking at the AVIS business model for car rentals, we created a concept to help internationals finding a place to rent, to buy or to sell, under the same standards and conditions all over the world.

•The basics of our concept was finding a ‘catchy’, easy-to-remember, descriptive name for the real estate market that would allow an international roll-out. Around 2009, after having researched it we discovered that the terms Housing + Agent and Housing + Agency were not claimed over the internet and we could register/buy the .com domain name and most important ccTLDs for this combination. Note: housingagent.nl was owned as of 2003 as a redirect and brought a lot of success in the Amsterdam rental business. As of 2009 the site for .nl went live.

•We decided to keep this combination of words, as opposed to creating a ‘brandable’ name because the marketing costs to get the name recognized on a worldwide scale would be much higher.

•We also conducted an informal research on the understanding of the terms ‘housing agent’ in different countries around the world, and all English speaking responders confirmed that they knew what the main business of the company would be, even if the term “housing” was not generally used in their country. E.g. Latin European countries use the term “Immobiliare”.

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The history

•Based on our preliminary research and the fact that we could claim the most important spectrum of domains in this area, we decided to firstly protect the brand and after that roll it out as a franchise around the world.

•We started by hiring an award winning web designer (Nikolai.nl) to create our logo that would be descriptive and very easy to recognize. He delivered the above logo and the www.housingagent. com website design, and we immediately purchased the copyright to protect the brand.

•We continued by buying related domain names such as ‘housing-agent’, ‘housing-agency’, ‘housing agents’, ‘housing-agents’, ‘housing agencies’ and extensions such as ‘.xxx’ to also protect the business model from being copied or from websites that could damage its name.

•We work with Baker & McKenzie Amsterdam to apply for registered trademarks. We were advised we cannot trademark the words themselves, and therefore decided to trademark the logo, as we were quite happy with the result.

•Baker & McKenzie applied for trademarks in Benelux, Europe, USA, Canada, China and Australia. The first four were approved and China and Australia are pending. The whole process took over 4 years.

•While talking to franchise lawyers around the world we understood that we did not have the expertise nor the platform to support the very different technicalities in international franchise law so we decided to perfect this concept and sell to a company that already has the platform to roll out a franchise.

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Our vision

•In today’s modern world defined by mobility, we are still lacking a worldwide ‘go to’ service that is easy to recognize and easy to remember when it comes to relocating, buying, renting or selling property. (Realogy.com entities are an exception on this observation)

•The international market is currently lacking a platform to offer expatriates the option to find real estate in different countries without too much struggle. Within this concept clients can be served more than once when they relocate globally.

•The international market is lacking a suggestive recognizable brand and name for real estate. There are many realtors around the world, but their names are not always suggestive of their business or are hard to spell (e.g. Engel & Vőlkers, www.engelvoelkers.com)

•There is great potential in having a worldwide brand that offers the same standard in service and contractual conditions all around the world. The business can first tap into the relocating expatriates market, which is a multi-billion business on its own, and can gradually expand to smaller locations.

•Alternately, the on-line infrastructure can be solely used as an advertisement hub for local agencies around the world, which can generate revenue almost instantly. E.g. Realtor.com could apply it in the app as well on the website.

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The benefits

•One name – one brand (in the making)

•Easy to remember: “Who do you call/mail for a new house or apartment? Your Housing Agent!”

•Registered ™ logo

•Ownership of design and copyright of logo and website developed by award winning designer

•Clean brand – all ccTLDs have not been used and were parked to keep a clean history (no monetization). Exceptions are: .com and .nl

•Clean brand – related domain names and similar domain names were claimed and parked to avoid damage to the HOUSINGAGENT name. HousingAgent.com B.V. currently owns 246 domain names all related to the terms ‘Housing’ + ‘Agent’ and ‘Housing’ + ‘Agency’.

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The benefits

•Worldwide coverage - HousingAgent.com B.V. owns domain names in 89 countries and also has key new extensions such as .paris (geoTLDs). The realtors operating on a global scale do not have dedicated domains for each country. E.g. they have a top level domain and then an extra extension www.example.com/es/eng

•The realtors operating on a global scale do not have dedicated Twitter User Names, or do not have a logical structure in it. HousingAgent has matching ccTLDs as user names, even for 50 USA states. E.g. HousingAgent, HousingAgentUSA, HousingAgentNY, HousingAgentNYC. Note: Twitter user names are completely free of charge and will be donated as a bonus to this package.

•This business model offers the opportunity of tapping in the Asian market where the common language is English, and the terms “housing agent” are widely recognized. It would be a great benefit to native English speakers relocating to Asia and having to find a realtor.

•Housing Agent.com B.V. offers this unique turn-key opportunity to instantly gain a protected brand in Europe, USA and Canada that is easy to recognize and remember, a process that took over 6 years to build.

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Suggested structure

HOUSINGAGENT.com & HOUSINGAGENCY.com• All content of all country sites to be listed on top level domains• All international clients will find their query here

HOUSINGAGENT.nl (+ various ccTLD’s)• Managed by local agents-> local company with country domain• Easy to find by local landlords/investors • Easy to find by local and international tenants/buyers• International tenants/buyers can also search for rental houses abroad on

the .com website when relocating abroad (client base share between countries)

• Every country can have more than one office and so it can be further developed to include more cities. For example: www.housingagent.de/Frankfurt ; www.housingagent.de/Berlin

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Trademark

HOUSINGAGENT logo is a registered ™ in:

Benelux (since 2010)

Europe (since 2011 OHIM)

USA (since 2014 USPTO)

Canada (since 2015)

China – pending approval, application filed in 2012

Australia – pending approval, application filed in 2015

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Design

HOUSINGAGENT.com owns the copyright for the websites and logo.®

*Note: the dots on the map are editable and can be updated with new locations

HOUSINGAGENT.com B.V. - Portfolio

HOUSINGAGENT.com -> 122 domain names + 20 New* TLD’s

HOUSINGAGENCY.com -> 30 domain names + 4 New* TLD’s

HOUSINGAGENTS.com -> 35 domain names

HOUSINGAGENCIES -> 13 domain names

VARIOUS in HOUSING -> 21 domain names + 1 New* TLD

TOTAL = 246 DOMAINS

*See next slide

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HOUSINGAGENT.com BV – PortfolioNew TLD’s

NEW TLD’s for HOUSING AGENT (extract)•housingagent.TOKYO

•housingagent.MOSCOW

•housingagent.PARIS

•housingagent.ESTATE

•housingagent.COMPANY

•housingagent.VILLAS

•housingagent.PROPERTIES

•housingagent.CONDOS

•housingagent.RENTALS

NEW TLD’s for HOUSING AGENCY(extract)•housingagency.LONDON

•housingagency.INTERNATIONAL

•housingagency.COMPANY

NEW TLD for VARIOUS•housing.agency

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HOUSINGAGENT.COM - 142 domainsSUMMARY

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HOUSINGAGENT.COM142 domains

Europe43 ccTLD

Asia18 ccTLD

Middle East4 ccTLD

Americas 31 ccTLD

Africa8 ccTLD

Pacific3 ccTLD

Generic15 gTLD

New TLDs20 new TLD

For more details please visit: http://www.housingagent.com/portfolio/

HOUSINGAGENCY.COM* – 34 domainsSUMMARY

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HOUSINGAGENCY.COM

34 domains

Europe

16 ccTLD

Asia

2 ccTLD

Middle East

2 ccTLD

Americas

3 ccTLD

Africa &Pacific

2 ccTLD

Generic

5 gTLD

New TLDs

4 new TLD

*Can be sold separately

For more details please visit: http://www.housingagent.com/portfolio/

HOUSINGAGENTS.COM*– 35 domainsSUMMARY

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HOUSINGAGENTS.COM

35 domains

Europe

16 ccTLD

Asia

4 ccTLD

Middle East

1 ccTLD

Americas

3 ccTLD

Africa

1 ccTLD

Generic

10 gTLD

*Can be sold separately

For more details please visit: http://www.housingagent.com/portfolio/

HOUSINGAGENCIES* – 13 domainsSUMMARY

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HOUSINGAGENCIES13 domains

Europe6 ccTLD

Americas2 ccTLD

Generic5 gTLD

*Can be sold separately

For more details please visit: http://www.housingagent.com/portfolio/

Various in HOUSING*– 22 domainsSUMMARY

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HOUSING-AGENT.COM5 domains

US1 ccTLD

Generic4 gTLD

HOUSING-AGENTS.COM5 domains

US & NL2 ccTLD

Generic3 gTLD

HOUSING-AGENCY.NET3 domains

Generic3 gTLD

GLOBALHOUSINGAGENT.COM1 gTLD

GLOBALHOUSINGAGENCY.COM1 gTLDOthers

5 domains

*Can be sold separatelyFor more details please visit: http://www.housingagent.com/portfolio/

HOUSINGAGENTUSA.COM

1 gTLD

HOUSING.AGENCY1 gTLD