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There have been some very strong end user domain sales that were reported during the past week, which proves that domains continue to increase in value despite the slowdown in the economy.
First, TopModel.com sold for $117,650 at SnapNames. Then, news came in that Rick Schwartz sold the category-defining domain RoomDividers.com for $75,000 to OrientalFurniture.com. Rick Schwartz also announced on his private board that he has a huge deal in the making that might even surpass the value of his widely reported Property.com sale. Today, the EroticShop.com auction at Sedo ended with a winning bid of €30,000 (~$43,000). And there have been some other solid sales of generic domain names lately.
These sales should offer a brighter outlook for the domain industry after a short time of falling prices and uncertainty, because they show that keyword domains will always have value and that they will be bought by end users with a vision increasingly often - end users who “get it” as domainers like to say.
In fact, I see a growing number of end user sales especially for good two- and three-word .com domain names like RoomDividers.com or EroticShop.com. Many have thought that RoomDividers.com was overpriced at $75,000, but considering that an antique room divider can sell for more than $1,000 apiece and taking into account that the domain buyer is used to spending money on online keyword advertising, I would say the price does not seem high at all.
Quite the contrary is the case, in my opinion. Generic domains will continue to increase in value and there will always be strong benefits of owning a high-quality domain name, ranging from positive effects on your company’s brand to a sustainable increase in your web site’s traffic resulting in a boost in sales.
This being said, I predict that we will be seeing a lot more deals for domains in the range between $10,000 and $100,000. There will also be high-dollar sales with prices above $500,000, of course, but I believe the market for mid-value generic domains will be growing the fastest in the months ahead.
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Just wanted to throw in the 2 cents about the future of the domain marketplace. I think it is going to improve quite nicely over the year to come with the potential expansion of the gTLD base.
I expect our current domain aftermarket pricing to remain fairly stable as the new domains hit the market. We will see copious (yes I used copious) amounts of new domain registered, developed and then sold in the aftermarket but pricing on existing .com, .net, etc will not be negatively impacted. So, have no fear, generic single-word .coms will still be selling for mega-bucks.