Domain and Email Setup for a New Apartment Community
First-time owners stall here for weeks. This is the whole step in order: who registers the name, how to choose it, what to click, what to skip at checkout, and how to get email on your own domain. Nothing here is technical and nothing here requires a web designer.
The rule, before anything else. You register the domain. Not your web designer, not your management company, not your marketing agency. It goes in an account with your name on it and your card on file. This is about the domain name only, which is a registrar account you control.
Why the name has to be in your account
- The domain outlives everyone else on the project. A website gets rebuilt and a management company gets replaced. The name on the building and the name in the address bar stay the same for as long as you own the property, so the account holding it should belong to the party that is not going anywhere.
- Renewals get missed when nobody remembers whose account it is in. The renewal notice goes to whichever email address was used when it was set up. If that address belongs to a vendor who is no longer involved, nobody sees it. A lapsed domain takes the website and the email down at the same time, and the leasing phone number on every listing stops matching anything.
- Moving a domain you do not control is slow. If the name sits in someone else's account you need their cooperation to get it out, and you need it at exactly the moment you are least likely to get it, which is the week you decided to leave them.
None of this requires a fight. Most vendors will offer to handle registration because it is one less thing for you to do. Decline it and do this one step yourself. It takes about fifteen minutes.
Picking the name
Use the community name. If the building is called Gulf Bay Landing, the domain is gulfbaylanding.com. People type what is on the sign.
- Take the .com if it is available. It is what people assume and what they type when they guess. The other extensions are cheaper up front and cost you every time someone gets it wrong.
- Make it short and sayable over the phone. A leasing agent has to read it out loud to somebody driving. If you have to spell it twice, pick something else.
- No hyphens, no numbers. Both get lost in speech. Nobody says "hyphen" out loud and nobody hears it.
- Check the name is not already a business. Search the name in Google and in your state's business entity search before you commit. A community with the same name in another state is usually fine. One in your own metro area will cost you search traffic and phone calls for years.
- Think about what happens if the property is renamed. Names change when a property sells or repositions. Picking a name tied to a single phase or a single building is the common mistake. If you plan to add sixty units next to fifteen, register the name you will still be using then.
One distinction worth being clear on: a management company's own domain is a different thing from the community's domain. If you hire a management company later, they have a website for their company and their portfolio. Your community still needs its own name, in your own registrar account, pointing at its own site. The two do not substitute for each other.
Buy the name as soon as it is settled, even if the building is a year out and nothing is designed yet. It costs about twenty dollars to hold and you cannot get it back once somebody else takes it.
Registering it
Any ICANN-accredited registrar sells the same .com. The name itself is identical wherever you buy it. What differs is the interface, how hard they push add-ons at checkout, and the renewal price.
We recommend Namecheap. GoDaddy is also fine and is the one most people have heard of. If you already have a Network Solutions account, that works too.
| Registrar | First year | Renews at | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Namecheap | About $10 to $15 (approximate) | About $15 to $20 (approximate) | Our recommendation. Domain privacy is included at no charge. |
| GoDaddy | $0.01 with a three-year purchase | $22.99 | The penny price requires buying three years, and the other two years are $22.99 each. Privacy is included. |
| Network Solutions | $11.99 | $22.99 | The same renewal price as GoDaddy. Domain privacy is sold as a named separate product. |
The number that matters is the renewal, not the first year. You will pay the renewal every year for as long as you own the building, and the first-year price is a promotion that expires.
The steps
- Search the name. Type the .com you want into the registrar's search box. If it is gone, work down your list before you get attached to one option.
- Create the account in your own name. Use an email address you will still be reading in five years. Do not use an address on the domain you are about to buy, because if that domain ever lapses you lose the way back into the account that controls it.
- Read the renewal price before you pay. It is on the same screen, usually in smaller type than the promotional price.
- Turn auto-renew on. Then put the renewal date in a calendar anyway, and check that the card on file is not one that expires next year.
- Turn on WHOIS privacy. Without it your name, address, phone number and email are published in a public record and scraped within days.
- Turn on two-factor authentication and write down where the recovery codes are kept. This account controls the website and the email together.
- Send us the domain name. That is all we need. We do not need the login and we do not ask for it.
If the ownership entity already exists, put the LLC that owns the building in the registrant contact fields rather than a personal name, with your own email as the contact. If the entity does not exist yet, register the name today in your own name and update the contact details later. Registering it now is more important than getting the contact fields perfect on day one.
What to skip at checkout
Every registrar sells add-ons on the way to the payment screen. For a community website we are building, you need the domain and nothing else on that page.
- Hosting. Included in the build, and the care plan keeps it running after the first year. Buying hosting at the registrar means paying twice for the same thing.
- Website builders. You are having a site built. A drag-and-drop builder subscription is a different product you will not use.
- SSL certificates. Included. Every site we build runs on https at no extra charge.
- Email add-ons at the registrar. Buy email from Google or Microsoft instead. That is what we set up and what most offices already know how to use.
- SEO packages and directory submission offers. A registrar is not a search marketing company and these are the lowest-value products they sell.
- Extra extensions. One .com is enough to start. The cheap extensions are cheap for one year only. Network Solutions publishes .online at $0.99 for the first year and $52.99 to renew, which is the shape of that trade.
One .com for one year is usually ten to twenty-five dollars. A multi-year promotion totals more than that because you prepaid the later years, which is fine. What should not be on that screen is hosting, a website builder, an SSL certificate, an email add-on or an SEO package.
Email on your own domain
Once you own the name you can have email at it. [email protected] instead of a personal Gmail address on your signs and your listings. The address stays with the building when staff change, which a personal address does not.
Two options, and they are both fine.
| Plan | Entry tier | Next tier up |
|---|---|---|
| Google Workspace | Business Starter, $7.00 on an annual plan | Business Standard, $14.00 |
| Microsoft 365 | Business Basic, $7.00 paid yearly or $8.40 month to month | Business Standard, $14.00 paid yearly or $16.80 month to month |
The entry price is the same on both, so choose on habit rather than cost. If the office already works in Outlook, Word and Excel, take Microsoft. If everyone already uses Gmail and Google Docs, take Google. Microsoft's Business Basic covers the web and mobile versions of the apps and the desktop versions start a tier higher, so read their plan comparison if desktop Office matters to you.
Which addresses a small community actually needs
- leasing@ for tour requests and anything from a prospect. This is the one that goes on the website and in listings.
- info@ as the general catch-all for everything else.
- maintenance@ for work orders, so they do not land in the same inbox as leasing.
You do not need three paid mailboxes to have three addresses. Both platforms let you add extra addresses that deliver into a mailbox you already pay for. Start with one or two real mailboxes, add addresses that point at them, and add a mailbox later when there is a person to read it. Two mailboxes on the entry tier is about fourteen dollars a month plus tax.
Setting it up
- Sign up at the provider. Google Workspace is at workspace.google.com and Microsoft 365 for business is at microsoft.com/microsoft-365/business. Take the entry plan from the table above. You can move up a tier later.
- Say you already have a domain. The signup asks. Enter the name you registered in step two rather than buying a second one from them.
- Prove you control the name. The provider gives you one line of text to paste into the DNS page of your registrar account. That is the verification step, and it is the part people expect to be harder than it is.
- Add the mail records. Same DNS page, a few more lines, printed for you by the provider. Step five explains what those records do.
- Create the first mailbox, usually leasing@, then add info@ and maintenance@ as extra addresses pointing at it.
- Send a test message to the new address and one from it, on a phone as well as on a computer.
It takes under an hour. You can do this before you have hired anyone to build the site, because email does not wait on the website.
Setting this up is included in the build. You buy the plan in your own account so the subscription stays yours, and we do the setup: the records, the mailboxes, the extra addresses, and checking that mail actually arrives. We do not resell it and we do not mark it up.
DNS, in plain language
DNS is the part that connects the name to the machines. The registrar holds the name. DNS records inside that account say which server answers for the website and which service handles the email. The records themselves are short text entries on a settings page.
Pointing a website takes two records. Email takes a few more, and Google and Microsoft both print the exact lines to enter during their setup process.
There are two ways to get them in. You add them while we read them to you, which takes about ten minutes on a call. Or you give us temporary access, we add them, and you change the password afterwards. Either way the account stays in your name and you keep the login. Nobody needs to hold your domain in order to build on it.
Once it is done, write down the registrar, the account email and the renewal date somewhere other than one person's inbox. The website handoff sheet is a one-page form for exactly that.
What this adds up to
Written out so it can be forwarded to whoever else is deciding.
| Item | Cost | Paid to |
|---|---|---|
| The .com domain name | About $15 to $25 a year at published renewal rates | Your registrar |
| Business email | About $7 per mailbox per month plus tax on the entry plans | Google or Microsoft |
| Website build, LeaseUp | $2,500 one time, five pages | Us |
| Website build, CommunityPro | $4,500 one time, up to twenty pages | Us |
| Hosting, SSL and care | Included for the first year, then $99, $199 or $299 a month depending on the plan | Us |
| Domain guidance and email setup | Included in the build | Us |
The domain and the email subscription are third-party costs paid in your own accounts. We never bill for them and we do not take a cut. The reason for pointing that out is that a first-time buyer usually assumes the domain is bundled into the build price somewhere, and it is not, on our quotes or anyone else's.
Full package detail is on the pricing page.
Two decisions that do not block this one
People bundle these into the same week and then stall on all three. Register the domain first. It is cheap and nothing else waits on it.
Taking rent online. If you are collecting from a handful of units and do not yet need a general ledger or applicant screening, RentMerchant is the lighter way to take rent online. A full property management system such as Buildium includes rent collection in its subscription and publishes a starting price of $62 a month, checked 2026-09-15. RentMerchant is not property management software: it does not manage units and floor plans, syndicate listings, screen applicants or keep a general ledger, and we set that out plainly in running a small community without property management software.
Choosing the management system. Pick the system first and scope the website around it, rather than the other way round. The website connects to whichever one you choose. If Buildium is where you land, how a community site works alongside Buildium covers the part people get confused by: their included website lists everything a management company handles, and a community site carries one community's name, photos, floor plans and local search presence. They do different jobs.
What people ask at this stage
Can my web designer just register the domain for me?
We do not, and we suggest you do not let any vendor do it. You create the account, you pay with your own card, and the name sits with you. We will walk through the screens on a call if that helps. The reason is practical: the domain outlasts every website vendor and every management company, and pulling a name out of somebody else's account later takes time you will not have.
What if the name I want is already taken?
Try a short variation that still sounds right when a person says it out loud, such as adding the city or the word apartments. Settle it before signs, business cards and listing profiles are printed, because changing the community name later costs far more than changing the domain now. If the name is parked and offered for sale, the asking price is usually many times a normal registration and it is rarely worth it for a first building.
Do I need domain privacy?
Yes, turn it on. Without it your name, address, phone number and email sit in a public record that gets scraped constantly, and you will get calls and emails from people selling web design and search services. Namecheap and GoDaddy both include basic privacy at no charge on a .com. Some registrars sell privacy as a separate product. Either way it is worth having.
What does a domain cost every year?
A .com runs roughly $15 to $25 a year at the renewal rates published on 2026-09-15. You pay the registrar directly and we never bill for it. The first year is often discounted, so read the renewal price at checkout rather than the headline price. Business email is separate and starts at about $7 per mailbox per month plus tax.
Can I move the domain to a different registrar later?
Yes. Domains transfer between registrars. You turn off the transfer lock on the name, get an authorization code from the current registrar, start the transfer at the new one, and it usually completes in a few days. Most names cannot be transferred during the first 60 days after they are registered, which is a standard rule rather than one registrar being difficult. You can also point a domain at a different website at any time without transferring it anywhere.
Do I need a separate domain for a second property?
Usually yes. A second community with a different name needs its own name and its own site, because people search for a community by name and each one needs a page that answers for it. A later phase of the same community under the same name can share the domain you already have. If you expect to own several communities you can also register a name for the ownership company, but that is a separate name from the community domains and it does not replace them.
Once the name is registered
The lease-up website timeline lays out what to do in each month between now and opening, including when the coming-soon page goes up and when the full site needs to be live.
The website handoff sheet is where you record the registrar, the account email, the renewal date and who holds the login, so the next person is not guessing.
What goes on a coming-soon page is the content checklist for the first page that sits on the new domain, written for a building that does not exist yet.
Third-party prices on this page were read from each vendor's own published pages on 2026-09-15, except the Namecheap figures, which are approximate. Registrar and software pricing changes often. Last verified 2026-09-15.
We will walk you through it
Send the community name and roughly when you plan to open. We will tell you what to register, what to skip, and what the site will cost.