International domain brokerage company GUTA.com will soon be releasing their Premium Domain Sales Observation report for 2018. GUTA, who maintains offices in the U.S. and China, has been a long-time leader in bringing together buyers and sellers of high end domain names from both the Eastern and Western hemispheres. Company Founder & CEO George Hong gave me an advance look at some of the highlights from the upcoming report that I can share with you.

As most of you know, most sales made at the ultra high end of the market are made under non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), so it is hard to get a clear picture of how much activity is occurring in that rarified atmosphere. While most of GUTA's sales are subject to NDAs and their own privacy concerns for their clients, the GUTA report features sales summaries that offer a good deal more insight than we get from the publicly reported sales alone. 

For example, 2-letter .coms represent some of the most valuable real estate on the Internet. GUTA tracks 2-letter .com sales carefully and brokered eight sales from that category themselves in 2018 - sales that helped them close the year with total sales reaching 8 figures.

George Hong 
Founder & CEO, Guta.com

The GUTA report says 48 2-letter .com sales were made in 2018 with 16 of those purchased by end users. Chinese buyers acquired more of those than investors/developers from any other country - with 19 of them moved into the hands of buyers located in China. GUTA said 12 of those were let go by sellers in the U.S.  GUTA also noted that seven of the eight 2-letter .com sales they brokered themselves saw U.S. sellers sending their names to Chinese buyers - meaning GUTA accounted for more than half of all U.S. to China 2-letter .com sales. They added that six of their eight 2-letter .com sales reached 7 figures.

The charts below that will appear in the final GUTA report further illustrates movement of 2-letter .coms in 2018. You can click on the image to see a larger version of this graphic.

GUTA reported seeing several undisclosed one-word dictionary domain sales in 2018 that sold for six figures and at least one - a 3-letter word - went for 7 figures. 

While they don't trade at nosebleed levels, 4-digit numeric domains are another one of the more popular categories in the aftermarket. While only a couple of dozen sales from that group were reported in 2018, GUTA alone brokered 86 4-number domain sales according to their report - another good reminder that publicly reported sales represent just a fraction of what is happening in the aftermarket. 

GUTA attributes much of their success to collaborating with other brokers and partners to get deals done. Three different brokers worked with GUTA to close 7-figures transactions in 2018. If you will be at NamesCon in Las Vegas later this month and are interested in working with George and the GUTA team as a broker, buyer or seller, you can connect with them there (you can see our show preview article here). George will also be speaking at NamesCon in a Domain Sales Optimization Strategies session that is scheduled for Monday, January 28th.