Here are some cases where new TLD registrants flipped new domains for a nice return.
It’s easy to come out and say new TLDs are a waste of time for domain name investors and that you won’t make any money with them. You can point to high initial prices and registry premiums to suggest that domainers are being cut out of the action.
The reality is that some people are making good money flipping new TLDs.
I want to be careful to not suggest that flipping new TLDs is easy money. After all, anyone can easily cherry pick sales from weekly reports or DNJournal to show that some people are cashing in on any type of domain name.
That said, I think it’s worth bringing some of these domain resales to attention to show that there are opportunities.
I’ve reviewed a number of new TLD sales from Sedo and DNJournal and verified they were indeed resales (not registrar auctions or direct registry sales) using historical whois records.
One big winner is Valery Otto in Monaco. According to historical whois records, this person was the seller buyer of two .estate domain names: Luxury.estate for $50,000 and NewYork.estate for $9,000. Both of these domain names were registered during the last phases of the Early Access Program. I asked Donuts what these domains probably were registered for, and the company said its estimated retail cost of each of the domains is under $200. [Update: Valery Otto was actually the buyer of the domain names, not the seller.]
These two sales are outliers in terms of public new TLD sales; the majority of aftermarket sales are in the three or low four figure range. But even lower prices represent healthy returns for assets held less than a year.
Below is a chart of more new TLD resales. I’m not sure how much the original registrants paid for the domains, but I inquired with Donuts and they believe the retail price of all of these was under $200 each, whether they were EAP, premium or regular price.
Again, the original buyers of these domains paid less than $200, meaning the profit (less broker fees) is close to the full sale price.
The HoldTime column represents the approximate number of months the original registrant held the domain name before selling it.
These are pretty good flips.
Monte Cahn says
Great to bring this up Andrew. As a matter of fact, we will have several more opportunities like this at the live and online auctions at NamesCon coming up in January. We have some of the very best new gTLD names being submitted by the registries as well as first time registrants. The pre-bidding for these will be open soon on SnapNames then many will be going on our Live auction on January 13th. The remaining premium domains will be available January 15th through Feb. 5th in our extended auction on the SnapNames platform.
More info about this coming out next week through NamesCon.
Monte
juloob says
Nice sales, thanks for report
Robbie says
So out of 3,500,000 active registrations , we maybe have 150 end user purchases maybe, that is being generous.
Largoo says
These guys probably made more money than you did on your precious .com’s 🙂
trevor says
Your probably the same dummy who was bidding $600,000 for music.mobi
Anticareer.com says
This is a very valid point. How much money was spent on gTLDS and how much money has come out for resales? How much money will be spent for renewals and how much will come out for resales? There’s only more and more gTLDS coming out. The demand is not increasing, but the supply sure is.
Fools gold for 99.9% of the population.
Who’s making the money? Registries and registrars. That’s it. Not even close to a discussion.
Onebrand says
It’s still new in the market. Its anyone guess what will happen in the future and how the general public accepts it. Anyway, thanks for the report!
Fat City Properties (@iFatCity) says
“I want to be careful too not suggest that flipping new TLDs is easy money.”
Glad you included this. This applies to domain investing in general, IMO. While some quick flips for good money do happen, more often than not, it takes a lot of capital, knowledge, and holding time for domain investments to pay off.
bul says
the kind of facts every wannabe domain investor should know. I see them buy a domain today and try to peddle it for sale tomorrow hoping to get rich quick. Good work @FAT
Jonathan says
It just shows you how bad they are (besides the very low regs) that you had to list sales that couldn’t even break $1000. It’s a good idea to sell these as quickly as possible before all the drops coming next year.
Robbie says
You people do not realize names like Games.Network that launched this week come with $1,000 annual premium renewals, many end users are clueless to renewals, take the push, come a few months later they go to renew they have $1,000 bill again.
FULL DISCLOUSRE
ad says
Looking at statistics chances of selling newTLD is almost equal playing lottery.
Andrew Allemann says
You might say that about all TLDs.
Robbie says
.country is having a special this week, register all the names you want for $2, flip for $4, and make 100% profit, easy money
Gramp Arsons says
Where is the $2 offer available from?
WQ says
For those against new gtld’s, how many non gtld’s do you own and how many are you selling each month? What percentage of your portfolio is getting sold?
My guess is that it’s less than 1%. Probably far less.
thelegendaryjp says
There are crucial differences in the origins of the dot com for example and why it is seen as valuable. These new extensions as a gigantic whole were created for one reason, there is a fool born every minute, a fool and his money are easily parted and so on.
I agree with the above, 99.9% fool’s gold except for the investors who have tarnished their names by becoming snake oil salesmen.
Joseph Peterson says
nTLDs are a divisive topic – that’s for sure. We have to contend with dizzying marketing spin, pseudo-registrations meant to inflate numbers and deceive customers, and a barrage of new costs and risks. So it’s no wonder that discussion tends to be polarized.
But when it comes to reselling nTLDs, I see no reason to argue. Domains of all sorts can and do sell. We don’t have divisive debates about gTLD versus ccTLD, English versus non-English, or Words versus Acronyms, do we? We can slice the name space an infinite number of different ways. Some slices sell better than others. But nearly every slice will see some sales. What about that is worth objecting to?
It’s just worth remembering that a single domain sale can’t really be evaluated as a profitable business model. A guy who sells Domain X for an immense profit may be paying through the nose to maintain a stable of similar domains that haven’t sold. And there will also be other people with domains / portfolios of similar quality who are still waiting for that profitable flip.
It’s a game of playing the odds. Concentrating on individual sales only makes sense if you’re a buyer looking up data for comparison or a seller setting asking prices. Inferences of other kinds — such as predicting sale likelihood — are dangerous. Equally true of nTLDs and established TLDs …
VenteSites.com (@ventesites) says
I am still waiting to see any of those new tlds domain name in search engine results….
serdar (@SQV) says
New TLDs are only a waste of time. Wait until the people who paid those thousand for them regret about the thing they do 🙂
Anyways, I will never invest on them. Not 10$.
kaleholdings says
I sold homewarranty.tips for $800. Part of the profit will cover the carry on a handful of other gTLD names I bought.
ChuckWagen says
“I want to be careful too not suggest” I know is a typo and you’re generally careful to not let those slip in. 😉
Andrew Allemann says
Thanks!
Phil says
Sold Coastal.cruises for 6k to Viking Cruise. Nice people good vision , good name for them.
Phil says
Chad posted a sale on http://www.gTld.link about Alanta.link
Don Kahone says
GTLD = Good To Lose Dollars
thelegendaryjp says
It honestly defeats the purpose a business buys a good domain, these names see zero type in and require huge marketing dollars. They are not bought because of what they are but because they will be used as a gimmick for a time. Sadly no matter how much money they spend on ads the global consumer will never consider typing that crap in.
WQ says
The vast majority of dot-coms being sold have zero traffic. Those that do have traffic have very little. End users don’t typically pay attention to type in traffic. Weak argument.
BT says
Some domainers making-out big on the buy side too: http://gtld.link/forum/newly-aquired-gtlds/1677-music-click-sells-for-500
Great topic Andrew. One of the biggest stories of the year nobody talked much about.
thelegendaryjp says
True not all dot com have type in traffic but let’s be honest, the good one’s do. Just because dot com sell without traffic is a weak argument for a gtld. When the world thinks of a company name, product or service to type in they chose dot com. Why, because the world goes to dot com, accept the fact over the last 25+ years that is the direction the world has been taught. Releasing XXX’s of dot whatevers on the world in a small time will change nothing. Challengers have come and gone before. The difference here is the dot whatever is now targeted to small niches to suck the fool dry of their money. Why try a dot info when we can create dot whatever and hit ever fool in every niche, ninjas, babies, turtles in a half shell.
My point remains the same, none will or ever compete with a dot com. Their purpose isn’t to change the world it is to fleece the world. Yes fleece the fool, many people will make money on this but not because they challenged the dot com and won or tried to change the norm. They win because there is a fool born every minute and those fools will renew because hope is a strong thing.
bt says
@jp u got it part right imo. The 25 year direction and all roads leading to .com is right, I’m still reging .coms, but now you’ve got some, good looking, low reg price ext’s competing. They look good, sound good, lots of them are coming at once, this isn’t like the .biz /.info days. I think some of these are better and gonna be good. There’s reg price names out there now that are 100k or a mil in com. All names that sell (all of them) get some traffic. If there was no traffic, nobody would have typed the name. They don’t have to get a lot of traffic to bring a sale. These new names are getting some traffic. Even a little is all it takes. For me it isn’t about fleecing fools or challenging com. There’s room for these new ext’s too. Some “com only” guys are freaked out about the value of their portfolios and try to talk the new stuff down. I don’t think that’ll work. Good stuff is good stuff. Whether it’s com or something else. There’s room for everyone.
Josh says
@bt I do not deny some end user trades will take place, yes some domainers will invest and see a return but the traffic those names receive imo cannot be natural, as dollars must be spent. I also agree there will some who can get a cheap gtld and make it work but my point is as a whole they will not do the trick.
Domainer Extraordinaire says
Some people are still selling Beanie Babbies.
ivan says
I don’t get here, why so many haters on the new tld? I got an offer for my newly registered .property extension. No need to hate on the gtld. it is new, buy 1 or 2 the best name that you think and keep it. Let us see what will happen on the next few year.
DNPric.es says
Many flippers can be found here: http://dnpric.es/stats/frequent-movers/
Now, need to filter out the list to include the new TLDs only…
Onebrand.co says
Only time will tell