Domain Magnate

How do I make money domaining?

Well by most part it comes to:

1. know the market well
2. buy low
3. sell high

Domaining is a strange market. There are the end user prices and the market/reseller prices for any domain – both can vary a lot and there is a lot of money to be made on these differences.

However the risks are high, so you have to know the market very well. Being able to appraise a domain as close as possible for any specific marketplace is among the most valuable skills for a domainer. read more »

Despite the recession in US economy and a certain amount of uncertainty in the domaining market July 08 have been pretty good for me. I had around $50k in sales, with over 2/3 of it being profit. While most sales were private and the buyers preferred to keep them confidential, couple of the top sales are through public auctions so I can mention them here:

Dickinson.com $12K on Bido
Krom.com $5,5k through AfterNic
Harlot.com $5145 on Bido (I owned 50% of this one)

I rarely disclose my earnings and report sales, however I feel this is needed to encourage others to see the hidden opportunities in domaining. What I like most about the industry are the large gaps. Appraisals always range widely and so do auctions and sales, it’s not unusual to see domains being resold for 2x and more shortly after. read more »

VQU.COM Sold for $6551 on Bido, just $51 above my estimation as posted in the sale comments

The letter quality isn’t good and only 123K results in google, but it has a decent acronym for “very quick update”, a phrase that could be branded into a hosting, or web services.

This is the forth bido sale of LLL.com domain, after:

2008-07-11 14:00:00 utq.com 20 6,001.00
2008-07-02 14:07:42 qvk.com 19 6,730.00
2008-06-20 14:03:46 ryy.com 10 7,124.00 read more »

Villas.com Sold for 305k Euros on sedo, $480 USD in one the largest sales this year.

In other sales, yestarday’s 20K euro sale of gmx.ca was one of the highest for a Canadian domain. Gmx.com is a huge site with alexa 123, so they are most likely the buyers. More .ca sales:

Afternic:
adultdate.ca $1,000
airfaredeals.ca $500
teas.ca $650
naturalfoods.ca - $190.50

bad.ca is currently auctioned at sedo with $2,550 high bid

Few top .me auctions are ending soon: read more »

Nice to see the industry leaders working together, TRAFFIC in NY will have domains from all the major players:

1. Moniker
2. Aftermarket.com / DomainTools
3. Rick Latona
4. Bido.com
5. Sedo

thedomains reports these sales, totaling $25k:

eastorange.com                         $5,890.00
northolmstead.com                   $2,950.00
norridge.com                             $2,950.00
southeuclid.com                        $2,950.00
aaan.com                                   $920.00
carinsurancewashington.co       $890.00
StateOfNewMexico.org              $850.00
lakehavasu.tv                            $590.00
eastleon.com                            $590.00
japanonline.net                         $590.00 read more »

DebtNews.com sells for $10,628.00 on Bido.com

This domain would make a perfect content website all about current events in the debt world. The national debt is a major concern to many nations.
The news of things happening in regards to debt and finance are of importance to all businesses. Consumer debt is something many people pay dearly for and many businesses profit from as well. A website about debt has a very large target market and plenty of advertisers supporting the industry.

It was clearly an awesome domain and it’s a goldmine for the buyer, can be developed into something really big with the appropriate planning and financing.

This marks the first 5 figure sale for bido and we’ll sure see more!

No it.s not WhiteCity.com, actually it’s the real city this time! As msnbc reports, also spotted on unplain

CARLSBAD, N.M. – White’s City, a tourist town at the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, has been sold at auction for $1.55 million.

Higgenbotham Auctioneers International says the community and the surrounding 366 acres were sold Monday. The company did not release the identity of the winning bidder.

White’s City includes two motels, a recreational vehicle park, a museum, retail shops, a gasoline station, an opera house and a water park. read more »

Sedo is notorious for making sellers pick low reserves to “encourage more bidders” and while it sometimes work, frequently there aren’t enough bidders in the first place, so names end up with low prices. This mostly refers to GreatDomains auctions.

Next GreatDomains event has these names in the list, among others:

Attended.com no reserve
Calcium.net $1-$499
Debbie.net no reserve
Doctor.net $5,000-$9,999
Illicit.com $1,000-$4,999
Doorway.com $1,000-$4,999

Now some of these reserves are just ridiculously low, someone will get bargains!
I think low reserves only hurt the sale, there should be either no reserve at all, like on snapnames and bido, or a fair reserve like there is usually in TRAFFIC auctions and good sedo auctions. Low reserves will just reduce the domain’s value in the eyes of the buyer. A quick example is when I recently sold my coriander.com for just $5100 on greatdomains auction with reserve $5k, after it went up to $9k on a sedo auction previously, shy of reaching its reserve. There are simply not enough bidders to create a bidding war to get the price up, especially now due to summer, recession, election, global warming..

I think this was a clear marketing success for bido. They managed to sell a two word .org domain for almost $2k.

Honestly it’s a good domain, but I’m not sure how it can be used, besides by some kind of organization that is keen on keeping secrets, or on the contrary revealing them. Might also fit for an entertainment site.

But still, that’s the price I’d expect from the .com!