investing in domains ...
 

can somebody tell me what some of the most reputable companies are for buying high-end domains? I've decided to sell my stocks and invest in something a little more secure. I probably have around $10K to $15K to invest.

ya buy real estate:glugglug

www.sedo.us is pretty good... Im with you on investing in domains :thumbsup

Domain names ARE realestate with a lot less hassle. :Graucho

good luck with 10-15k what are ya gonna buy the . or the com?

dont forget about the ppc revenue you can generate while your trying to turn it over :)

i was looking to put a couple hundred k into it a couple months back, but the domain game is a serious zoo. obviously money can be made, but you seriously need to know what the fuck you are doing first...

Thanks for your input, insightful as always :thumbsup

Depends ... you can loose on some . You gotta play smart.

hey man it dont get any easier than buyin an FHA foreclosure sherrif sale for 30% under market and sellin it in 2 weeks to make an easy 20k. Cheers. Real Estate the time tested monster money maker:glugglug

Yea, good investments if you know your shit and have plans for the names...

Been dealing with anything.com which owns a shitload of names... still negotiating with them

$10k-$15k investment won't make any significant returns in most cases. Domain game is tight these days.

:2 cents:

$10k-$15k won't get you anywhere. :2 cents:

Good luck though.

I just got out of the domain acquisition game in July, my buying spree has ended, so I'll share what I can from time to time, even though other domainers will blacklist me. lol.


generic info:

reputable companies to buy from:
greatdomains.com
moniker.com
sedo.com
afternic.com
(always bid low, ALWAYS.)

reputable firms to use for transactions:
escrow.com

tips:

be very careful "investing" in domains. it'll prove fruitful but take your time analyzing all options, stick w/.coms, and never stop negotiating downward. don't worry about what everyone else said, $10-$15k will get you a few quality domains depending on your masterplan. some you can flip for double, some for mid6, and others for low7. but do not enter this game half-hearted or half-brained. no joke. you will get taken & you will lose money. make offers on names you are interested in whether or not they are for sale. The last 5+ names I bought were direct contact with owner and negotiating primarily thru their spouses/families. And the prices were far less than market value but everyone walked away happy. be prepared to wire money to escrow.com immediately as a buying tactic. don't play the domain drop game unless you've done the research.

resource sites:
dnjournal.com - check out his weekly top ten sales archives. MUST READ all articles to teach yourself the industry.
dnforum.com - chat, help, etc. but be cautious

if you're gonna get in, do it now because the next wave is a tsunami and it is almost to late to get in the domain game. I started adding premium domains to my portfolio at the beginning of this year because I noticed all the Venture Capital "overhang" and realized that the domain market would follow, and the ipo market would resurface.


i posted these prices on another gfy thread, but this reflects what deals are still out there and also how the prices are rising. these are all accurate and auction prices after the domain name EXPIRED from previous owners:

///

all $K, all .com
carfinancing 45
xxxpics / 28
dater / 35

ones that I wished I got but missed out on (had damn dialup before)
taboosex / 8
castingcalls / 8
animeclub / 7
blinks / 4
eroticpersonals / 3
watermanagement / 3
artmuseum / 11 (asleep...lol)
messaging / 28 (beat out by elequa...lol)


missed out on dailyblog.com recently. damn. but i'm out anyway.

///


CreditCard/CreditCards.com just sold for almost $3,000,000 two weeks ago and once that ripple goes out to all domain owners and newswires, the prices will climb even higher.

Webfather sold Men.com over half a year ago for $1m+ but I believe he should've held out for more and perhaps he feels the same way now. hope he doesn't shun me for saying it even tho I haven't chatted with him for years. he could prob fetch 5+m right now. marketed correctly. Maybe his friends didn't advise him that Maxim is launching a digital cable channel called MAXIM ENTERTAINMENT NETWORK aka MEN and Dennis would've paid handsomely.

Me.com (WOW) just sold for almost $500,000 and there's a few more undisclosed sales this year of over $1,000,000 that will never be made public. :winkwink:

keep in mind, you will not find any free "GOOD" advice out there. lots of misdirection or lies. fend for yourself. the domain game is more cutthroat than the porn game. no lie. each domain is unique, and therefore a potential mona lisa.

and always, YES, always tune into news, tv, radio, mags, etc and reserve new domains surrounding current events, new tech, new slang, industries, etc. but never reserve trademarks, etc. Set aside anywhere from $200-$500 to buy names that you thought up on your own. I do that often and it is successful. Use a reputable company like godaddy.com, only $8+ per domain and easy to transfer to buyers if you sell. I have thousands of domains, but my portfolio is rich, diverse and strong. So you can enter this game two ways:

1) drop all your cash on one PREMIUM domain, make sure you have a backup plan to develop it or potential buyers in mind in case you made a big mistake

2) diversify. buy a few smaller premiums @ $1k-$3k and reserve some on your own.

lots of info to digest, but it pains me to see ppl who want to enter the game who end up buying 1,000 variations of the same theme/vein or say "I just bought BLAH-BLAH-SUCKS.com for $15,000k."

I watched Sony buy connect.com and when I heard rumors of what the site would offer and their proposed launch date, who the competitors were, market cap, etc... I offered a guy $700 for his domain and within one week after the name was transferred I got email replies from Sony, Apple, Limewire, Comcast, VCs etc. Some of the emails were to buy the name, others were to partner with me for licensing, distribution rights, etc. LOL. I did not grab any trademarks just a useful marketing phrase that describes their entire industry and they wanted to know who I was. Soon the name won't be mine anymore.

I recently bought another name for $3k that I can develop myself or flip. but before I acquired it, I researched who my potential buyers were if I ever had to flip it to reinvest into another domain. Then I compiled a list of the top 5 target buyers, all fortune 500 companies in multi-billion dollar industry. Got all their corporate info, made some calls without revealing domain name to see if they'd be interested in working with me, partnerships, sponsorships and once I saw that I had an exit strategy, the name was mine.

and if you want to get into the domain drop/catch game for expired names, that's another thread for later, with its own pitfalls and successes. maybe later.

so good luck.

Taboo awesome info,thanks for sharing

Good luck!:thumbsup

great post, thank you.

and do NOT typosquat.

i.e.

reserving yahol.com for yahoo.com traffic

even though others live by it, beware. you can do well without taking that route. to each his own.

taboo thanks man thats great info

FORUMS

i already mentioned:
dnforum.com

more:
http://www.domainstate.com/
http://www.namepros.com/
http://www.domainnametalk.com/
http://www.talkdevelopment.com/
http://www.domainpost.com/

I'm sure the last thing any of you need is more forums to read. lol. I'm not sure if GFY lets me posts other non-adult resources, so if I made a mistake, forgive me. because I just remembered that gfy has a domain division. right? -nic something?

Taboo,do you think that currently the average domain sale is a bit overpriced?

I know some big players of this industry lately spending a lot of money on domains with not such great branding future that receive few typeins. I don't see how puting a sedo or fabulous parking page they'll ever gonna breakeven on them....

Taboo,

Good post there!!

We started buying domains in 1995 when they were costly, $100.00 a pop.

I remember the good old days, 1 t1 line at work, on the linux workstation, submitting the email template to NSI trying to get the names I wanted.

I remember when baseball.com was about to delete, I stayed up for hours, kept submitting the form, etc and lost it by a few minutes, shucks I would of loved to develop that :) So, since I didbn't get that, sexx.com just dropped and I snatched that one. A week later the owner who lost it, wanted to buy it back, I said no, he was pissed. I didn't turn it on for like 6 months once I got it. As soon as I put it on a server, the server was overloaded and crashed many times, I guess from too many typos :)

I sold it a couple yrs later..

Soul,

just like realestate. Even if they don't develop these good names, they will sit on them, someone sooner or later will come around and make an offer I suppose.

everyone plays this game their own way, because every name is unique. some prices are too high "for me", but the buyers sense something, the market will rise again, who knows how long, maybe this will be the last time, or maybe this is the one that will last and never come done. Elequa aka FMA, Chena, and other big players are tapping into markets before the Fortune 100s have a chance to play. Chena's buying up spanish domains, juegos.com (games) and more. FMA buys everything: research.com, kiwi.com,etc. some ppl develop, some ppl wait and see. I bought up lots of generic brandable domains that i have a "desire" to build into competitive brands. i.e. Curious.com - I knew exactly what i was going to do with it when I acquired it. Also, another one that I can't discuss until the time is right, may be one of the best domains for the search engine industry/ resource site. no lie. I have already lined up partners in LA, VCs meeting in SV and going to contact a few web-active tech billionaires.

I prefer to develop, whether it's relying on ppc or building brands, sponsors, etc or AGGRESSIVELY looking for a partner/future-buyer.

i.e.

Harmony.com sold for $50K+
why?
everyone says music. maybe. I say DomainDeluxe bought it for traffic going to the dating site eHarmony.com, typos and/or potential buyout. if not, then there's another exit for them. smart move for a generic domain. many potential exit strategies. esp. eHarmony, which has nat'l ad campaigns, huge patent portfolio. i'm sure they'd set up a traffic deal in a heartbeat.

.

more from dnjournal this week:
""
Thunyan K. AL-Ghanim (Elequa) won an auction for FootballClub.com with a $5,488 bid. He also picked up Junior.net for $4,880 and WIL.net for $3,388. We don't consider sales to be official until the domains have been paid for and transferred, but with Elequa involved nothing is likely to derail these buys.
""


i really recommend anyone getting into this market or already in to check it out that site. so, yes, some prices are high, but keep in mind, Elequa bought every last 3-letter combo from .biz and .info - he singlehandedly create a marketplace for names that were collecting dust. He also develops his properties. and well. check out fma.com.. he owns dj.net (active) mp3.tv (active) and even sponsored F1 car with his domain(s). Plus he bought out all remaining 1 character .TV and I saw them at $10K a pop.

My 1st post!

I'm got some domains early on in the game I posted them here http://www.dcash.com/dcash_domains.html

what do u think I can get for the lot of them?

also, clearday.com sold for $60k this year.

and no one knows why. no site yet. just a smiley.

but perhaps it's the name of a brand new drug. who knows? too high for me, but someone had to have it.

:1orglaugh Thats true.

Remeber dictionary words. 10 letters or less. :thumbsup

I remember those days. I use to own some great ones that i could not afford to keep @ $100. some had no traffic or offers so i let them go and now they're owned by ppl that wouldn't let them go for under 5fig.

one was: autoauction.com

LOL. why didn't i keep that.

funny this is I used to own lots of domains used on these adult sites. I kick myself, but everything happens for a reason. including: Internextexpo.com LOL. I use to own 100+ "internext" domains but dropped them to reinvest the renewal fees into another similar and BETTER domain :winkwink: and wow... you live, you learn, but you can't keep them all.

and look who owns baseball.com now....

Why do you want to sell them? You can make money on those domains for a long time!

the guys that own baseball.com (lucky bastards) are reflex. they have a great portfolio:

MOTELS.COM
BASEBALL.COM
FLOORING.COM
WEBREGISTER.COM
CELLPHONE.COM
UNITEDKINGDOM.COM
SKIING.COM
plus a few more i track. i keep a list of what ppl own. its somewhere and its long.

Nice post, thanks for the info :thumbsup

with a name like motels ou would hope they hire a inhouse seo guy to index their names for SE, would just mean tons more traffic

yes, true. but some people sit and wait too long while their potential buyers spend money on someone else who approached them first. there's nothing wrong with picking up the phone and emailing a BIG company and saying, "HI! my name is BLAHBLAH and I own BLAHBLAH.com - How do I partner with your company? Please point me in the right direction." Some companies will buy your name and DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING with it. Why? To take it off the market so it doesn't fall into someone else's hands. and to add it to their IP portfolio.

What a kickass post Taboo! Thanks a lot for all the info

What resources would you suggest for the domain dropping game?
Would one get any success with home brewed Enom scripts? For half decent domains? Naturally it's better to use the domain dropping services for better domains.

What's your take on this?

Thanks again :winkwink:

Taboo, I see a lot of circulated domain news within your posts. From references to latest purchases, to comments in regard to some of the titans (Ele, Reflex). However, aside from the well known facts, that cannot be disputed - I see your info to be a bit misleading, and overly optimistic. Very subjective in my opinion, as I disagree with most of your points. :2 cents:

As you stated, to each his own.

Just trying to see where the market is for these domains. I had em since '96 and I will still have some good one even if these are gone.

welcome.

Hard to sell domains in such a large lot unless you have firesale prices. I say pull out your premiums, market those independently, and then group the crap together cheap and back-end market it to ppl who bought your premiums. greatdomains.com just started allowing domain LOTS for sale but no adult allowed. or try ebay. some highrollers frequent ebay domain auctions. :winkwink:

you have great names on the list. I assume they are all pointed somewhere, right? to matching sponsors?

Taboo,

I hear ya, you live and learn. Those 100.00 days were quite spendy :)

Damm, autoauction would of been sweet. Yeh I have talked with the reflex guys in the past, they sure do have some nice properties.

true Todd

Taboo, I can easily see me paying 50k for harmony.com, but as you said I don't see the picture at the moment behind clearday purchase.


Here's a possible scenario behind some of the domain sales:

Company A located in States/Europe/Australia/Canada buys domain X from Company B located in Antigua.
Same people behind both companies. Company A passes as expense the purchase of the domain. Company B receives money and pays the minimal taxes in Antigua. (Antigua is just an example,im not familiar with their corp tax rate,but many such countries have minimal one.)

Outcome: Company A pays less taxes at the end of the financial year. Domain gets some publicity and has a chance to be sold even higher even if the "real value" (if we can say that) is already much lower.

Dcash - You're in Coral Springs, :thumbsup I'm in Deerfield Beach. Anyway, email is on it's way. Hopefully we can do business. :Graucho

One way I always saw it is:

Only so many generic / dictionary / good easy .coms to be had.

Millions of business's around the world, supply and demand I guess. Sooner or later they will either approach to buy your / or the domain they want, or make up a bs domain, or use a different sub TLD, .ws, etc, etc

Only so many places to build in NYC, they will buy your land if they want it.??

so why dont you share some info with us? LOL. misleading? why? I'm not in the buying game anymore. I did not post any of my names for sale. I'm in development right now. I have plenty of domains and don't need much more. What are you concerned with? Their welfare? Or someone sharing the keys to the kingdom? lol.

overly optimistic? i told them to be careful the whole time. you mean about getting premiums cheap. yes, its possible. tell us which points you dont agree with and correct me. I'm still learning.

we're waiting. either contribute or don't. your choice. you afraid of competition?

Yes. But this happens within all industries. some for tax, some for PR, etc...

But I speak from personal experience regarding domain sales/buys. I've sold names to mainstream, adult, startups, VCs, Corporations. Licensed them. JV-ed them. Incubated & Developed for others. not a single domain said "FOR SALE" blah blah. I bought from ppl, companies, liquidations, bankruptcies, traded, etc... I won't discuss my sale/buy price and the actual domains in the same sentence because of ironclad NDAs.

anything is possible. I have solid contacts at most large registrars and drop sites. they call me to meet for lunch when they are in my area. they ask me for ideas, suggestions. they ask me why I stopped buying after July. lol. I know the game cause I played it well and I don't mind telling others how to not get burned.

I choose not to contribute for not only is the market already saturated as is, but just for the simple fact I am not here to hold anyones hand. You're kind & courtesy, kudos for your efforts. However do not discredit me as some filthy greedy domain monger because I will not contend with your 8-page essays.

If I choose to contest your thoughts, take it for what you will. Shit, if it makes you happy disregard me as a know-nothing. I choose not to elaborate, as the admiration of forum personalities means very little. Again, I disagree with you. With that said, I choose to not elaborate, nor add any validity to my claims. :Graucho

Taboo,

I want to thank you for what might be the most informative post I have ever read on GFY. Thanks for your insights and thanks for taking the time.

Let me know if I can ever return the favor

sales at bedroomgraphics.com

hope i'm not misleading anyone.:1orglaugh

but yes. perfect analogy. one of the domains I planned on building BLAHBLAH.com was bought because the company owned the "BLAH-BLAH.com" version. and they reserved it after mine. I did not approach them but in their minds, I was competition. In fact, i had already worked out deals for content, category sponsors, tech, etc and when they called me I said, "Not for sale unless you give me enough to walk away from the idea altogether and give me shares in your company." In the end, without ever meeting them in person, the deal was done, for shares in the company, shares in their parent company and substantial cash. in the beginning they only offered me $5,000. they paid far more than that. they had to have the best real estate for their business at any cost. build in the ghettos or build on Park Avenue.

hopefully, those days will return.

just checked out your site. maybe we can work out a barter deal. I put my younger brother thru design school (AI) and now he has no time to develop my websites because he's had so many job offers and sidelines. that's gratitude for you. thanks for your generous offer. i'll put together some goodies for you and we can trade what-you-do for what-i-do. cool. I might even offer you sweat-for-equity deals on my largest projects. you'll be thrilled to put it in your portfolio. will definitely contact you.

so besides not having one, what was your point?

buydomains.com?