I don’t know think I personally know anyone who operates any of the various niche domain price guides, and I don’t think I’ve visited one in a couple of years, but do the owners/publishers own names in that niche? If they do, wouldn’t it be a bit biased to publish pricing material, where their financial holdings would be impacted by a change in price?
For example, if I own a whole bunch of names that begin with 123, and I start a price guide called “123Name Prices,” wouldn’t it be silly for others to read my price guide and consider it an authoritative source, when the value of my names could be impacted by what I publish? When it comes to domain values, I trust my gut and my own personal instinct. When I really need to look for comps, I look at the DNJournal Sales Report as well as DNSalePrice.com, which has an archive of most public sales dating back several years.
I am all for people building websites about smaller niches within the domain industry, but I think people should ask questions when looking at a niche price guide to ensure there is no bias whatsoever. Do the publishers own names in this niche? Do the publishers review all reported sales (looking at escrow/bank statements)? Are ALL public sales taken into consideration – even those that aren’t reported but occur on a public platform (forum, auction, aftermarket site)?
If there is any way a domain price guide could be biased, the person who is relying on it for accurate information should ask those questions before quoting the source.
Potential Bias of Domain Price Guides
Domain Market Resting
With the most recent TRAFFIC auction not performing up to my expectations considering the quality of the domain names at auction, I think the premium domain sales market is taking a temporary breather. Sellers still have high expectations for their domain names and buyers are reluctant to pay those prices, causing a stalemate. While there are still areas of growth persevering in niche markets, the overall market is resting.
Previously, domain owners could expect their premium domain names would sell for anywhere from wholesale to end-user prices at an industry conference live auction, but that hasn’t been the case for the past two main industry events. In many cases, buyers aren’t willing to pay the premium asking prices right now, and the sellers are reluctant to lower their reserve prices, causing a stalemate in the market. While this might be a cause for concern for those who are heavily invested in domain names, it could develop into a good buying opportunity, so liquidity is important.
While $10 million in domain sales
TRAFFIC Live Auction Nets $4.3 million
I don’t think the results were particularly strong for tonight’s TRAFFIC West auction in Las Vegas, but it resulted in $4.3 million in domain sales. There were some great names up for auction, but in the end, most of them didn’t end up selling.
The silent auction continues for the next few days, and the names that didn’t sell will be available to purchase. The full auction sales list can be found at TheDomains.com.
Australian Beach Domain Name For Sale
I am looking to sell a geographic .com domain name for the Australian beach resort town, Trinity Beach. The domain name I am selling is TrinityBeach.com.
Domain Name is now Sold.
Reminder: New York Domainer Dinner
I wanted to remind those of you in the New York area that we will be getting together for an informal dinner on Tuesday, February 26th at 7pm. There are 18 people who have confirmed so far, and a couple more have verbally confirmed to me but haven’t responded to the Evite I sent out.
If you are interested in attending the dinner, please drop me a note and I will send you the Evite. This promises to be a fun networking event for people involved in the domain industry. I am looking forward to seeing and meeting you in a few days!
Whizzbang's TRAFFIC Presentations
If you are like me, you wish you could have been at the TRAFFIC conference in Vegas, but due to other circumstances (final stages of development for me), you couldn’t make it to Vegas. Michael Gilmour was kind enough to make his TRAFFIC presentations available for those of us who couldn’t attend the conference. If you have a chance today, I recommend downloading his presentations from his blog. Michael is a numbers guy and really knows the business well.