Mingle.com Meets Banker.com In the 40K Club Atop This Week's Sales Chart

by Ron Jackson  

With many of the domain industry's movers and shakers busy at the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. 2004 conference this past week, I was curious to see if sales over the past 7 days would dip a bit.  As it turns out, there was no reason to worry. We still had 7 five-figure deals reported, with one of the highest completed at the Delray Beach, Florida trade show. That was Banker.com, purchased by Rick Schwartz for $41,000  in an auction conducted at the conference. 

While domainers mingled in Delray, GreatDomains was busy selling Mingle.com for $45,000 to claim the #1 spot on our new Top Ten. Enom's Club Drop swept all of the remaining positions in the first five with an impressive run including Boaters.com at $17,607, Mathgame.com at $11,107 and HometownRealty.com at $10,807. Club Drop software architect Chris Ambler obviously had his program tuned to perfection this past week.

For the second straight week we saw a .org go for five figures. Last week it was Erickson.org at $10,500. This time around it is Medicine.org which went for $10,503 in an auction at Pool.com. Incidentally, for those interested in chasing drops through the upcoming Open Listing Service (OLS) announced by Pool, I'll have full details on that program in an article we will be publishing later this week. I interviewed Pool President Taryn Naidu at the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference to get a complete rundown on how it will work. 

There is one other bit of information I wanted to pass along from the trade show. After starting our sales reports a year ago at this time we received occasional complaints that the high numbers reflected on our charts gave too many people the impression that their domains were worth more than they really are. Some went on to say that the charts gave an unrealistically high view of the overall market. Then we started hearing from major players in the business who had just the opposite complaint - that the reported numbers made the overall market look weaker than it really is! 

Obviously both sides can't be right. We have always pointed out that the sales reported to us are just a fraction of those that occur. The prices from many sales are never released because of non-disclosure agreements (NDA). In most cases, NDA's are used for sales at the high end of the market, so we have tended to agree with the faction that says real market activity is considerably stronger than what our reports reflect. That view was reinforced at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. when someone who works in brokerage with a major company told me he was aware of three unreported transactions in recent weeks that all went over $1 million! We have been chronicling a booming market all year and the evidence indicates it is even stronger than many realize. 

Now back to this week's reported sales. The Medicine.org deal ranked #6 on this week's list and was the only non .com domain on our new chart. Pool captured a second entry on the big board, while Sedo.com also claimed two positions and Afternic.com accounted for the other slot. It was a nice week for the New TLD's too, with 4 four-figure sales including a big one at Moniker.com/DomainSystems.com that was among the 10 highest new extension sales this year. We'll have more on that in our New TLD section a little later, but right now let's take a look at  the complete Top Ten for the week ending Sunday, Oct. 24:

As you can see Sedo.com rang up the week's final five-figure sale, Dial7.com at $10,204 and also anchored the chart with 118888.com at (�4,100) $7,526. That's the first time I've seen a six-number domain in that range (or perhaps in any range)!. Of course, when you see something like that you know it has to have a special meaning. In this case the number is related to directory assistance in the UK. It was purchased by a company that already operates TheNumber118118.com. Pool's second chart entry was #8 Seitensprung.com at $9,054 and Afternic scored with LiveSupport.com at $8,500. 

As always there was a lot of action below the Top Ten as well. At SnapNames.com, Arin.com commanded $7,201 while WhaleTail.com (920 with the extension in Overture) went for $6,600. SpyMedia.com was close behind at $6,101. In a very strong 3-letter .org sale, SnapNames got $5,608 for ICM.org. They also sold a pair of 3-letter .coms, GDF.com at $4,100 and PJB.com at $3,600. In other deals World1000.com went for $3,552 and eMailing.com sold for $3,144.

Enom Club Drop's success was not limited to their three entries on the big board. They added $7,010 for Useful.com, $5,807 for DieselShoes.com and $5,007 for AllTravel.com. Elastic.com and OficeMax.com (high traffic misspelling that scores 590 with the extension in Overture) each attracted $3,709. They also had the week's highest reported .net sale, Scour.net at $2,909. Other winners from Club Drop included GoldKey.com at $2,730, FreeCreditRatings.com at $2,437 and Fukk.com at $2,330.  Phernermine.com (a misspelling) went for $2,230, while Temo.com brought in $2,107 and PlayFreeSlots.com added $2,015.

At Pool.com MoneyManagers.com banked $5,100, followed by Phetermine.com at $4,750 and Sapporo.com at $4,500. Subscribers.com brought in $4,100 with another $3,600 going into the collection plate for FirstBaptistChurch.com. DKShopping.com sold for $3,250, TravelRates.com attracted $3,100 and LastMinuteFare.com added $3,042. BoxingClub.com also landed a solid punch at $3,001 a buck ahead of BordersBookStore.com at $3,000. Other sales included Siamese.com ($2,360), MilitaryDating ($2,100) and MovieScreensaver.com ($1,960). In other extensions, Finances.net returned $1,700, Seafood.org was a $1,579 catch and another $1,330 bubbled up from Aquarium.net.

Sedo's selection of sales is usually salted with a wide variety of country code extensions but this week .coms ruled the roost. TradeFairs.com led the way at $7,000. Catmate.com lapped up �2,888 ($3,684) and Infojour.com added �2,790 ($3,559). Others included LinkGain.com at $3,090 and Archiver.com at $2,500. There also was one solid British country code sale, LondonDirectory.co.uk at �2,750 ($5,048). 

At other stops, DotcomAgency.com checked in with $3,600 from SlovakiaHotels.com, BackingMusic.com drummed up $2,325 and NoisyNeighbours.com raised a $2,206 ruckus. Back at Afternic, DuneCapital.com and LDSI.com commanded $2,500 each. Elsewhere the owner of UltimateMagazines.com parted with one of his many magazine properties, ActionMagazine.com for $1,200.     

*****

Our Year To Date chart gets a new member this week with Mingle.com entering at #35. (Editor's Note - Nov. 16, 2004: Banker.com was originally on this YTD list, but there was a temporary delay in completion of that deal. As a result it was moved to the YTD chart published Nov. 16 when the ownership transfer was completed). Here is the complete rundown of big winners so far in 2004: