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Evidence continues to pour in proving a major rebound is underway in the domain name market. In addition to a new Year-To-Date chart topper, we see nine of the week's Top Ten sellers at five figures (or more) for the first time. At $9,330, the #10 domain just missed but that is still the highest figure ever required just to land a spot on the Big Board. |
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That domain has been in the news frequently since the original owner let PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) use the name for an educational campaign on Mad Cow disease. That caught the attention of USA Today, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and others, giving the domain a level of exposure that money can't buy. The 150K sale is the industry's highest reported sale of the year to date, just nudging out SexKontakte.de, a domain that went for $141,175 only a week ago at Sedo. After taking the top four spots on our chart last week, Sedo came back with another monster performance this week. They placed five domains on the Top Ten including second-ranked Nackt.de that went for $38,081. The word means "naked" or "nude" in English. You might recall that last week we expressed amazement that a 3-letter .de (German country code) acronym, FKK.de went for over $51,000. A reader from the Netherlands, Martin van der Groep, informed us that FKK stands for Frei K�rper Kultur, a term that means "nudism" in English. Martin also said the practice has its roots in Germany (which may account for the high values we're seeing for nudism related terms there). Nackte.de was one of three more .de's commanding top dollar at Sedo this week (.de took the top four spots last week). This time around, Mieten.de ("rent" in English) and HausFrauen.de ("housewives" in English) did the five-figure honors. The popular venue racked up still another five-figure sale with a .info - collecting $10,000 from a Dutch buyer for Moscow.info (the seller was from Canada). That's the latest in a long line of good news for the new extension. Just last night (Feb. 23), Thunayan K. AL-Ghanim (Elequa) registered the last 3-letter .infos that were still available. .Info has now joined the original three extensions, .com, .net and .org as those in which every one of the 17,576 possible 3-letter combinations have been registered. We'll have more on that in our New TLD section below. In the meantime, Elequa was also making news in the industry's Old World, as he was the buyer in a Pool.com auction for Messaging.com that ended at $27,600. That transaction placed third on this week's Top Ten chart. Afternic.com had the #4 domain, scoring a bullseye with 38.com in a $20,000 transaction. We'll add some more notes on this week's action, but first let's take a look at the Big Board showing the top sales for the week ending Sunday, Feb. 22:
The party never seems to end at Pool. The auction venue racked up three five-figure sales this week with Ultimate Search picking up HomeSource.com and WWU.com in a pair of 10K+ deals that complemented Elequa's big Messaging.com buy. Pool's other winners included SalesPeople.com at $5,850, WholesaleDVD.com at $5,334 and WholesaleMovies.com at $4,700. There's no doubt they also adore ItalianWomen.com after getting $3,555 for that domain to go along with $3,100 for CruiseLocator.com and $1,820 for DomainSearches.com. DomainSystems.com always accounts for some of the week's biggest sales. This week they racked up $7,999 for Maharajah.com and $7,100 for Hypergirl.com. In virtually any other week since we started these reports last fall, those would have landed in the Top Ten. That just underscores the rapid escalation we are seeing in the market. Also at DomainSystems, WordLogic.com made sense at $5,850, Cannibalized.com gobbled up $3,225 and Marketomatic.com shifted $2,144 to the seller's bank account. Sedo's five entries on the Big Board were not their only strong sales. They also rang up �6,000 ($7,611) for ProSoft.com and handled a �4,500 ($5,712) sale between two Frenchmen for Yatoula.com. Jetman.com also soared at Sedo, finally landing at �3,000 ($3,808). Afternic shared in the bounty too. In addition to their big 20K sale on our main chart, they watched BuyShoes.com stroll out the door for $5,000. Another Afternic buyer can now cry "woe is me" and really mean it after picking up woe.com for $4,000 and woe.net for another $2,000. We could all use more trouble like that! There was another notable sale in a private transaction between buyer Alex Lerman and seller Nametower.com. In that deal, Counties.com changed hands for $6,000. In The Pipeline: FAQ.net is still stuck in the pipeline this week. The domain went for $14,500 in an auction that ended at Pool Feb. 17. As of this writing (Feb. 24) the domain still has not been transferred to the high bidder. Pool also has CastingCalls.com moving through the pipeline after attracting an $8,700 high bid in an auction that ended Feb. 23. We are adding another spot to our Year-To-Date Sales Chart this week as we now have 16 sweet domains that have all gone for $20,000 or more in 2004. As the year progresses we are periodically adding more positions to the chart so we can show you the best of the big sales in one place. Here is how they stack up as we head into the final week of February.
It was a landmark week for .info. In addition to still another appearance among the big boys on our main chart, the new extension saw the last of its available 3-letter domains disappear into the portfolio of well-known developer/investor Elequa. He began buying up the remaining combinations shortly after the New Year began and, about 2,000 registrations later, he finally completed his spree last night (Feb. 23). With no more 3-letter .infos available for registration prices will undoubtedly rise. In fact they have been rising for some time. Sedo confirmed to us that HMS.info should come out of escrow there soon since the buyer has already paid �8,500 ($10,780) for the domain. It is currently just waiting for a registrar-to-registrar transfer to be completed before being marked officially done. There is also a four-figure 3-letter sale on this week's chart, coming in right behind the chart topping Moscow.info.
This writer was the seller of TOI.info. The buyer was represented by a major law firm, so I didn't know who had purchased the domain until yesterday when the WhoIs record updated to show it was global conglomerate Deutsche Telekom. It's the second domain they have bought from me in the past two months. Maybe they know I am a T-Mobile customer (cell phone service owned by Deutsche Telekom) and are throwing me some business in exchange for paying my bills promptly! With a teenage daughter racking up airtime, I need to sell them a few more to break even though (hint! hint!). One more note on the world's 3-letter domain king. Elequa now owns between 2,500-3,000 3-letter .infos (15-20% of the world supply) - even he doesn't know the exact number! He also holds over 2,000 3-letter .nets and more than 2,000 3-letter .orgs (representing about 12% of the total in each extension). Then, sitting at the top of the pyramid, more than 1,000 3-letter .coms! Since he does not sell domains you can see why the ones that do make it to the marketplace command such high premiums. Perhaps to celebrate closing out the .info 3-letter category, Elequa recently bought Party.com (though the price remains confidential on that one). I can't think of anything more appropriate to mark the occasion than that! With that big Moscow.info sale this week we have added another slot to our New TLD (Top Level Domain) Year-To-Date chart. Geographic domains, naturals for the extension, hold the top 3 positions and 4 of the 7 overall.
That does it for another momentous week in the domain industry. As always, we welcome all verifiable sales reports from companies, private sellers or individuals with knowledge of an important sale made through any channel. To contribute information and help make this column better, just drop a note to [email protected]. I would like to extend a special "Thank You" to Richard Meyer whose help is invaluable in bringing you these sales reports each week. Every Tuesday we publish the highest reported domain name sales for the previous week. On Monday our contributors send us their sales data for the previous 7 days. We then compile that information and write this report for Tuesday publication to give you the freshest sales report in the industry. We will close with this standard caution. These are not average selling prices - these are top selling domains. One of the biggest impediments to making sales is pricing domains at unrealistic levels. For most of us, pricing domains at the levels achieved on the Top Ten chart will leave us waiting a long time to make a sale! We hope you will use the information presented here as a measuring stick that will help you price your domains at levels that will put more money in your pocket more often! Editor's Note: If you wish to review previous Domain Sales columns, they are available in our Archive. |
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Copyright 2003
Domain Name Journal
A Division of
Internet Edge, Inc.