Incorporating
the word "suggestion"
in the title is a good idea. It will be
up to the user to decide to go with
something near the suggested price or
come up with their own number. I haven't
seen Sedo's tool yet but to this point
in time I have never seen an auto
appraisal tool that didn't frequently
produce wildly off the mark
results. Some may make entertaining
parlor games but I haven't seen much
value beyond that, especially since some
novices take even laughable results
seriously.
Professional
domain appraisal? |
To
be honest, I have very little
faith in human appraisals
either (including my own). There
are too many unknowable variables involved,
not the least of which is how
motivated is the seller? How
badly might a specific buyer
want a given domain? With those
and many other other
considerations involved, I don't
think there is any way for anyone
to consistently predict what
individual domains will sell
for. Yes, appraisals can
have value for tax
purposes if the IRS
recognizes the appraisal company
as a credible source - but as a
reliable indicator of what the
name would sell for on the open
market - not so much.
Another
problem with paid human
appraisals is that there is a big
incentive for unethical
appraisers to give customers an inflated
value for their domain so
they will be happy and spend
more money for additional
"feel good" appraisals
that have no real value to
anyone, especially the mislead
customer.
In
real estate homes have enough in
common (and enough historical
sales data) to make recent
prices paid useful in |
appraising
homes that are currently on the
market. However most domain
names are unique in terms
of how individual buyers with
varying needs would value them. iReport.com
was worth $750,000 to CNN
but others with a use for
the domain might not have paid
more than $5,000. As is
usually the case, any
appraisal for that domain would
have been meaningless. |
Every week,
after we post our domain
sales report, people comment
on names that have been sold, often
saying things like "how could
that name go for that much?"
Or "I have names that are a hundred
times better than that and can't sell
them for a fraction of the price
that name went for!" Again it comes
down to what name did the buyer,
for whatever reason, decide was a name
they really wanted for their
business or domain portfolio.
Having said
all of that, if Sedo has improved
on the other models out there they may
have a tool that is good enough to
provide inexperienced sellers with some
guidance to consider and there
would be some value in that. I
think that over time the more successful
domain investors develop a
"feel" for pricing domains and
I think that is about as good a
handle as anyone can get on the ever
elusive "value" of a specific
domain name.
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