Are Domain Brokers Crazy?

Wow! that's insane!
I can purchase 500 domain using the $5000 dollar!!!

I had exactly the same thing when i tried to buy a domain recently

$3600 for a domain that has never been used for anything and always just sat there

To me, a long time domain investor, it is worth what someone will pay, period. I feel that if it is industry specific and key it is worth more than you might think. Also, if it is generic in nature and a general search term, that has ( perhaps ) greater value.

I have tried to buy domains that could be very easily branded and advertised for certain markets. I can tell you that some of my domains would never leave my ownership for less than 10's of thousands of dollars as they get alot of traffic even with no site, and of are very specific in a certain industry of huge interest.

I have no idea what the domains are that you are speaking of and it is possible they are worthless.....unless someone else is willing to pay, that is pretty much what can justify it.

I have never paid more than $ 1,200. for a name and have never sold for more than 2,800 BUT, my main hundred or so domains I would never sell for less than 10-12 K each. Several as I said above, I would not even consider less than $ 40-50 K each.

As I talked about in another post, I was ready to buy a domain for $ 25-k several years ago and the guy that owned it, let it drop while we negotiated, it was like hitting the lottery and I got them for $ 8.88 in my eNom account.....how much are they worth now ?

Just from CRAZY me....buying-selling domains for about 8 years .
Enterpryzman

I had the same thing happen to me. I found a pretty good domain name here in South Africa. Checked out the website, it had not been updated since 2003. I emailed them asking if they would be interested in selling in. I got:

"Based on projected profits, we would only be interested in selling it for R100 000(roughly $10k"

Projected profits??

Its got like 3 or 4 pages with a bit of adsense on it.

Crazy.

That may be the case, but now these domains are just going to sit there, unused and, more importantly, unsold.

If I owned the domains I am referring to and someone approached me for them - I'd let them go cheap because I know they're just going to be sitting there forever.

I seriously doubt these domains would EVER be worth this amount of money to anyone.

AL

I wanted to acquire a domain for some project of mine.

Checked whois, emailed the guy and got a reply in 5 minutes.

We exchanged a couple of emails and I decided I'd ask for the price.

It was nothing special, domain registered a couple of months back, no pagerank, nothing that eye catchy, no keywords related, no content, never used.

I thought that guy was gonna ask for like $50.

He asked for $10.000.

I believe a total n00b would even consider something like this. I'm glad I wasn't one.

Cheers,
***"CPA"***

Hi Allen,
As a domain owner/flipper/seller, I have to say that guy is nuts.
unless it is a totally fabulous domain name, even without a site or product, it doesn't deserve a 5k price.
As far as price, if he has been sitting on it for say 5 yrs, assuming he pays 8.00 a year, he would want to get back the 45 plus additional , the most I would pay would be 100.00. Then I would throw in paypal fees, so lets say 107.00
Again, that depends on the domain name. I have quite a few I wouldnt sell for under 3k, and they arent online anywhere.
Someone mentioned they are worth what someone would pay for them, and they are.
Instead of playing the back and forth games, just ask what they want for it.
if I have a domain parked or not being used and someone makes an offer, I counteroffer and almost always we come to a fair agreement.

example this week
domain parked, have owned it for 3yrs, offer for domain was 50.00. I countered with 185.00
they said 155.00 and domain sold, took all of 15min. Good domain, short and useful to someone who could use it.

That wouldn't happen in your case!

I agree partly with what you are all saying however, it depends on why you purchased it to start with and what you plan to do with it....keeping your options open may be important.

I think based on what I have read thus far here, everyone has inique idea of what worth is. That is proof it is subjective and what someone is willing to pay is the price.

It would be hard for me to say a domain is never worth "x " or higher because each industry is unique and the possible dollars earned are not the same. This has been an ongoing battle since the domain name thing started years ago.

Bottom line is, I have been fine tuning my portfolio for years in certain industries and have what I am certain, based on my own working knowledge, to be some pretty valuable domains yet, to someone unaware of the exact market, or even the terms used within the market, they might only be worth $ 25......that's OK, everyone is entitled.

If you ever figure out a way to determine a price for the worth of a domain that is consistant and good, let me know and I would love to check it out. No software exist's that can be trusted and most that do the work by hand, are emotional about some and not other's which is bad for everyone.


Enterpryzman

Thats Insane!! I also got one offer in which a person tried to sell me a domain with 3 hyphens for $500. The best part was his email started with
Hey,
I have the world's best domain which I will hand over to you at a throw away price....blah blah blah.... :p

The truth is that a domain that may be worthless to you may be valuable to another.
imaginethat.com was sold for $25,000
topix.com was sold for $1,000,000
248.com was sold for $75,000
fish.com was sold for a million dollar

they're fishin for dummies - there's plenty out there...

pizza.com was supposedly sold for 2.6M and that was a lot of commotion at the time. But the deal was never completed and not many people know this.

But the domain brokers took advantage of this false sale to dump a lot of pizza related domains on the market at very high prices.

It just shows that there is a lot of underhand stuff that goes on in the domain industry. If you pay premium prices, you may end up at the top of the bubble.

Similar problem here... Been after a certain domain for years. It's not that great, but fits my needs perfectly! The owners want around $4000 for it. I can (and have) bought so many *almost* as good domains with the $3950 that I didn't have to spend on that ONE! Some domain pricing is just plain crazy.