As George Kirikos pointed out yesterday morning on Twitter, JB.com has changed hands. The domain name had been owned by Domain Capital for several years, and the company had been asking well into the seven figures to purchase it. I spoke with Domain Capital's Gregg Freeman, and he confirmed that the company sold the domain name. Gregg would not share the purchase price.

A Whois search reveals the current registrant's email address is @guta.com. I believe this would indicate George Hong's Guta.com domain brokerage helped facilitate the sale of JB.com. I presume the buyer is based in China, but we shall see.

There are quite a few companies and people that have JB as their initials. I am sure Domain Capital  spent time reaching out to prospective buyers, and I am a bit surprised that one of the larger companies did not acquire the domain name. I suppose a seven figure price tag may be daunting, but it's not like some of these companies and people couldn't afford it. A few prospective buyers could have been: (more…) → Read More

It is sad to see the devastation in Houston, Texas in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. People living in the fourth most populated city in the United States are facing serious problems as flooding has spread throughout the area, causing catastrophic property damage and loss of life.

In the wake of Hurricane Harvey, the owner of Houston.com (Domain Capital) is doing what it can to help the American Red Cross raise critical funds for victims of the hurricane. If you visit Houston.com, you can see a message letting people know how they can help those in need in Houston:

Help those affected by Hurricane Harvey.

Visit www.redcross.org, call 1-800-RED CROSS or text HARVEY to 90999 to make a $10 donation

I use a variety of tools to monitor domain names as they are bought, sold, and otherwise transferred. This morning, I saw that a large portfolio of three letter .net (LLL.net) domain names moved from GoDaddy's NameFind portfolio to Domain Capital. My guess is that the domain names were acquired by a buyer who used Domain Capital for financing.

The LLL.net list is quite extensive. In fact, I could only see approximately 500 domain names that changed hands due to limitations on my DomainTools domain monitoring account, and that includes other domain names that changed hands.

In looking through the list relatively quickly, I didn't really notice any patterns with respect to the domain names that changed ownership. For instance, some of the domain names have consonants, some have vowels, and some are a mixture. My guess would be that someone was able to work out a favorable end of the month deal on a portfolio of LLL.net domain names.

Because I don't know (more…) → Read More

Domain Capital is known primarily for its domain name lending business. People who either need to finance a domain name purchase or use their valuable domain name as collateral for a loan can quickly turn to Domain Capital to receive funding for their domain names.

I was chatting with Vince Harasymiak and Gregg Freeman at The Domain Name Conference a couple of days ago, and they told me about another type of deal that could pique their interest: buying the payment stream for a domain name deal.

I will illustrate this with a rough example (i.e. don't quote me on these figures): Let's say I come to terms with a buyer to sell a very good domain name for $48,000 and the buyer will pay $2,000/month for 2 years. Domain Capital may be willing to pay me something like (more…) → Read More

The New York Domain Investor get together was held at the Boat Basin on the Upper West Side last night, and we had a pretty good turnout. It's always fun seeing old friends, and it was also great to meet other domain investors for the first time, some of whom came from pretty far away, like Ohio, Florida, and New Jersey (kidding about NJ).

I want to give a special thank you to a couple of leading companies who helped sponsor the event:

There was an extensive spread of appetizers sponsored by WhyPark. This helped to keep the party going since many people came straight from work. Gregg and Vince from Domain Capital were able to attend the get together, and I want to thank them for taking care of the bar tab.

There's nothing like comped food and drinks to help keep a party going, and we all really appreciate the support of WhyPark and Domain Capital. It's great to do business with companies who support our industry's events. → Read More

I think domain names are considerably undervalued when compared to other business asset classes. Most companies would rather spend money investing in a quality piece of land rather than a category defining domain name.

As a domain investor, I would rather own the domain name Candles.com than buy a piece of land where I can build the biggest and best candle store. No matter how great this candle store is and where it's located, it still can't reach 1/100th of the people a domain name like Candles.com can reach.

I believe domain names are undervalued for a few reasons:

Many business owners still don't understand how the Internet works. You could give many business owners the best category defining domain name, but they would have no idea what to do with it or how to build a website. There is also still a tremendous amount of disparity in web development. I could put out a bid on a fully interactive website and you can bet I would get bids ranging from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands of dollars for the exact same → Read More