Domain Auctions

The auction of 2,600 real estate domain names that was suppose to take place on Thursday didn’t happen, and as you can imagine, I am not surprised. According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle,

“Interest in Thursday’s auction was high, according to both Harrison and King. In the days leading up to the auction, the Web site got 5,000 hits, and J.P. King had e-mails and calls from interested buyers. But the event fizzled.

Perhaps the names weren’t as valuable as they seemed. “Had we had premium names, like toys.com, there would have been an auction,” King said as waiters in the Fairmont cleared trays piled with sandwiches from the empty room.”

I do find it interesting that they quoted the Toys.com auction, as I mentioned in the comment section here a couple of days ago. It’s just too bad the parties didn’t realize this before thousands of dollars were spent on publicity and other expenses related to the auction. They could have asked a professional domain investor who could have told them this straight up.

I am still interested in the traffic and revenue numbers that Victor Lund, partner at WAV Group mentioned in the comment section of my blog. “As simple link sites they provide an abundance of income that far exceeds the cost. Harrison can sit on them as a cash cow for as long as he likes.” I followed up asking for revenue and traffic numbers, but there was no reply.

I would have liked to see a portfolio of domain names sell for millions of dollars, but clearly these aren’t as valuable as a few people might have wished.

Craig Harrison is selling a portfolio of 2,600 real estate domain names, many of which contain a city name + RealEstateListings.com.   The auction is scheduled to take place on Thursday in San Francisco and is being run by JP King Auction Company.I’ve seen quite a bit of paid press on the auction, and I also read an article this morning on a technology website geared towards real estate professionals.

In an article on Inman.com, WAV Group partner Victor Lund said,

Lund estimates that each of Harrison’s domain names could be worth anywhere from $100 to $5,000, depending on the demographics of the city name and the amount of traffic and advertising it gets today.

That’s a pretty wide range — it works out to between $260,000 and $13 million — but Lund said he’s willing to bet the entire package sells in the low- to mid-millions, depending on the buyer and whether the domains are sold in pieces or together.

Also quoted in the article is Brett Young, a real estate broker and software developer who said,

“This really is nothing more than a publicity stunt that falls short for anyone who has any knowledge about domains. I pity the person who sees this as a good investment.”

I would personally much rather spend the thousands of dollars (or even millions that was quoted by Lund) on one great quality generic domain name than on 2,600 lower quality domain names. In annual renewal fees alone, 2,600 domain names would cost close to $20,000 – and that’s at a discounted rate. This doesn’t include hosting, setting up, SEO-ing, and managing all of these websites, which would cost quite a bit of money up front.

What do you think will happen with this auction? They certainly have spent quite a bit of money promoting it considering all of the press releases and paid articles I read (including DNN). Because of the amount of press they have bought and generated for this auction, I am interested to see what will happen.