In my opinion, For at least the last several years, domain name auction prices have seemingly become inflated. Domain names I was buying for $100 or less seem to sell for $500+ at expiry auctions these days. Hardly a day goes by when there are good domain names available to buy for the minimum bid. It still happens, as I will share later today, but single bid auctions are much more difficult to find these days.
It’s not just one auction platform that has seen this. Pretty much every platform has seen more domain names sell and for higher prices, including GoDaddy Auctions, NameJet, DropCatch.com, and Park.io. It’s not necessarily a bad thing either, although it has made the process of acquiring good domain names for reasonable wholesale prices more difficult.
I believe there are quite a few factors, some being transient, that have led to this expiry auction price inflation. My hypothesis is that several factors, listed below, have contributed to the higher auction prices we have seen including: