« It’s too late to make big money in domaining… I wish I had been around in 1995, 2001 or 2005 ».
That’s a very common complaint heard among today’s domainers. Who wouldn’t want to reach back through time and join the forefathers of domaining when they were just laying the foundation for their future domain empires?
In 1995, the Internet was just beginning to attract mainstream attention. In 2001, the dot com crash liberated tens of thousands of top domains. And as recently as late 2005, you could have registered tons of LLLL.com domains and sold them early this year for big bucks.
So, is it really too late?
Not at all. Just ask Michael B., a Bangkok-based Danish journalist, who snapped up the following LLL.com domains on Afternic last week:
ZLI.com – $500
PQT.com – $571
LLJ.com – $603
WJA.com – $735
RLU.com – $900
Michael paid a total of $3,309 for these domains. But their actual market value is in the mid five figures!
Who sold these domains at such a low price? iREIT, a « next-generation Internet media company that acquires, develops and monetizes high-quality domain names and web properties ».
Last week, iREIT listed a small part (10,000+) of its portfolio on Afternic. NameBio reported on the fact this Monday, but by then most bargains were already gone.
Was iREIT aware of these LLL.com domains’ market value? Probably not. Someone at iREIT for whatever reason made a decision to sell these domains (and quite a few others, such as say.org and gut.org) at a very low price.
That’s not a one-time event. In fact, it happens all the time. Not everyone values their domains as much as domainers and potential end-users do. Many individuals, companies and even large corporations let valuable domains expire (or sell them for peanuts) simply because they no longer have any use for them.
As a domainer, you just have to be at the right place at the right time. That might be called « luck » by some, but in reality it boils down to hard work, actively working your market, keeping an eye on prices and trends, and having sufficient liquidity to make sure you can grab a bargain before someone else does.
It takes just a couple of deals like this to be able to retire. Michael could sell these five domains for $50,000 any day of the week. If he finds a few comparable deals in the future and keeps reinvesting his profits he’ll be a domain millionaire in no time.
source DailyDomainer