There are a number of top domain brokers that send out daily or sometimes weekly brokerage emails. While there are often good deals to be had, many of the names that are listed aren’t great deals for the buyer. Here’s how you may be able to score a great deal.
Go through your old emails and sort them by newsletter. Have a look at the oldest newsletters first and identify the domain names that would be of interest to you at the right price. Do a Whois search to see the current owner and do a Historical Whois search to see who owned the domain name when it was listed in the newsletter. If it’s the same owner, you know the domain name didn’t sell. You might also want to check to see if the domain name has been developed in the meantime.
Get in touch with the domain broker who emailed you to let him or her know about your interest in the domain name. Remind him when it was listed for sale and at what price. Let the broker know what you’re willing to pay for the domain name and ask that he or she be in touch with the domain owner to try and work out a deal.
From my experience, if someone tried to sell a domain name in the past but didn’t succeed, they might be more inclined to sell it in the future, even if it’s for less than their desired amount. Conversely, they may be in a better financial position now, so the offer might not be of interest at all.
You’re probably wondering why I recommend to go through the broker instead of reaching out on your own. First, it’s the nice thing to do. Second, the broker may know the domain owner and let you know their thoughts on your offer. Finally, the broker has a vested interest to get a deal done, so their pushing it might help close a deal.
Good tip. I’ve been archiving all broker newsletters I get since 2009.
Thanks for posting this Elliot. We at least feel like there is a goldmine of missed opportunities available in our newsletter archive. Ours are all available online on our website so no need to fuss with old emails. Sellers are only bound for 24 hours of each listing but that doesnt mean we can’t open up meaningful negotiations on unsold inventory.
To add to what elliot said about why it’s better to contact the broker than the domain owner via whois (aside from being just nice), we usually have better contact info on the domain owner than you will find in the whois and can get ahold of them quickly and will always get a response, rather than if you contact them directly with a low offer that doesnt even get responded to where you would have negotiated up a little had you been given the opportunity.
Yup, thats a great tip for a beginner, thank you.
Something to keep filed for tbe future.
Keep up the great detective work!