During the past few years, I have spent additional time and money growing my domain name portfolio. In some cases, I found niches that did well for me and hand registered dozens or more related domain names. In addition, I made a greater effort to acquire inventory-quality domain names in expiry and drop catch auctions. The results have been decent, but I am now more mindful of portfolio bloat.

One thing that I hoped wouldn’t happen but sort of expected was a drop in STR. Had my STR kept up with the rate of acquisition, that would have been fantastic. It would have been unexpected – but I would have been very happy. I can’t say for sure if it’s the market conditions or I am not buying the absolute best inventory, but my STR is down a bit in the last 6 months. It’s not at the point of urgency, but it’s a concern on my radar.

A couple of months ago, I struck a deal to sell a .AI domain name for just shy of $15,000 paid over 36 months. Wisely, the first payment and downpayment totaled a little more than $2,300 before the commission fee. Unfortunately, the buyer opted to not continue with the payment plan after the first month, and the domain name was returned to me.

Having a downpayment was helpful to me because Atom.com required that I add years to the renewal to ensure it won’t expire or need to be renewed during the term. The additional renewal fee at Namecheap cost me nearly $300.

When you submit a domain name for sale on Atom.com, it allows you to enter your desired price or click the “Get Price” button for a price suggestion. When a domain name is approved as a Premium listing, Atom will provide an approved price, with bracketing that allows sellers to adjust the price. Seeing a big number can feel good and make you think you are sitting on a huge opportunity. Sellers should not blindly trust that number.

Here’s an example of why you shouldn’t entirely rely on Atom’s pricing suggestion for the asking price. I submitted a .AI domain name I recently acquired, and the Atom “AI Value” is $35,500. This seems great considering I acquired the name for less than $250. However, I can see the same keyword .com domain name is listed for sale for less than $20,000.

I am in the process of transferring some Atom-listed domain names to the Atom.com domain registrar to take advantage of the Atom Edge program. In addition to the names I already transferred, I am starting to transfer domain names at auction-connected registrar accounts I need to consolidate.

In looking at my NameBright account, I searched for Atom nameservers to make this process a bit easier. This helped me identify domain names I have pointing to Atom already. I requested the auth codes and started the transfers.