Interesting read, although the writer made a few valid points, they clearly don't understand some domain acquisition, SE and general development issues.
A few things I'd have to hold an opposite view on are:
1) "all the good ones have been taken"
-- Cough cough - expired domains, auctions, etc... The real estate agent market is only willing to spend 8-9 bucks on a domain name?
2) "even real words are getting harder to latch on to"
-- I bought a few one worders (obviously not premium but available) this past year... they exist. Premium names, as we all know, are available if you have a premium budget.
3) "Any new URL will not be listed in Google search results for about six months"
-- He clearly needs to bone up on SEO. I've broken a site out of the sandbox and had it listed on Google in under 72 hours. It's a repeatable process.
4) "Remember, youâre a Realtor, not a get-rich-quick artist seeking to line up some gigantic companyâs name as a Web address so you can sell it to them later."
-- a) He forgot to afix the registered trademark to Realtor(R), b) My partner and I sold a domain & website just the other month for 31k that took part time development work. Granted it's not a daily occurance but it's also a repeatable process.
This author seems mainly to be publishing this rebuttal article to real estate agents to keep them away from doing what he does, which is understandable I guess.
The average person should also not consider becoming a real estate agent, you might actually have to take time to learn about the industry to do it well.
One thing that I thought was very valuable that he brought up is his reference to lead capturing. Selling off clicks or one time sales to affiliate programs seems short sighted. Having a lead/customer list is pretty powerful and if you also have a sales force (affiliate list), even more so.
