How does the past affect your domain decisions?
Last Saturday was a dismal day down here in Austin. The Texas Longhorns football team lost to Texas Tech in an amazing finish. If they won, the Longhorns would have toppled four top 11 teams in a row and been set up for a national title game. Instead, with just 8 seconds left in the game, Texas dropped an easy interception that would have sealed the game. Texas Tech scored on the next play to win the game. So now the Longhorns are 8-1 for the year and ranked 4th in the Bowl Championship Series.
Most people I talked to before the season began predicted Texas would lose three games this year: Oklahoma, Missouri, and either Oklahoma State or Texas Tech. So if you would have asked any of these people before the beginning of the season if they’d be willing to take an 8-1 start and #4 in the BCS, they would have jumped on it. But then expectations changed as Texas rolled through the schedule. No one is completely satisfied now, even if they would have been satisfied with this result before the season began.
I run into this from time to time with domain names. I’ll talk to someone who had an offer of $15,000 for a domain when times were flush. Now they hesitate to sell it for less than that, even though they doubt they’ll get a $15,000 offer again any time soon. And they need the cash now. It pains them to sell the domain name.
Or sometimes someone refuses to sell a domain name for less than what they paid for it, even though they know the value of that particular domain has decreased since they bought it…or that they over paid for it in the heat of an auction.
Consider the reverse, too. You know someone just bought a domain for $10,000 at auction, so you refuse to pay them $15,000, even though you would have offered $20,000 for the domain had you not known what they paid for it.
It’s hard to do, but when contemplating domain sales and purchases you should consider the future, not the past.
Jeff Schneider says
Hello Andrew,
I have been reading your comments for some time now. I respect some of your opinions, but I detect a tendency for you to talk down domain values in a stealth mode, subtle way.
There has never been a time, including the present, where the actual perceived value of Bona fide end users has gone down in value. If the name is what the end user deems they need, they will always pay a premium to auction based values, BOTTOM LINE !
Andrew says
Jeff, I’m probably not as bullish as other people, and certainly not the eternal optimist. If I’m doing it then it’s very subtle, because I don’t even recognize it myself 🙂
Russ says
This applies in good times too! Often I’ll hear from someone who got a good offer but is holding out for more, even though they need the cash and not the domain. As the saying goes – no one ever went broke taking a profit.
Josh Pacino says
Good dot com domain names only go up in value as the Internet keeps on growing. More people want to go online but the supply is short so it’s normal for prices to go up and not down.
Mike says
I won HFP.com in Sedo auction for $12.5k because nobody was paying attention. People knew what I paid, so I couldn’t get above $16k on the forums at a time when if you posted a triple premium at $18k it would be gone within the hour. People get too emotional in this business.
Domain Graph says
Being as domains are appreciating at almost 50% per year for LLL properties, and the dow jones is not appreciating at all, I think that every buyer/seller should keep these things in mind with domaining.
jp says
I can think of some domains that actually go down in value. Really though, its more like they hit a temporary high value. Think of JoeThePlumber.com, how much will you pay for that next year, then in 5 years from now. It was worth alot a few weeks ago. If he really got those offers, and didn’t sell, he may be kicking himself in the future.
dnbug says
11-11-2008 – I look back at 1999 and internet seemed so small, the pages were lame, connection speeds were 14,400, and internet hackers were on TV in a crime movie. Domains were plentiful, and not worth much but still had over-inflated appraisels for their day.
That was just about 10 years ago. I too will look back on today’s volume and internet climate as the years go on, the pay per click – Key word volume – SEO science along with software and affordable internet speed now running streaming video like television, still a little grainy. As we move towards the future… For the full story go to: http://www.DNBug.net