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Double Dynamite! Sales at Pool and Sedo Soar Past The $45,000 Mark 


by Ron Jackson    


After a brief spring break
the buyers were back out in force this week! Pool.com and Sedo.com share top billing after moving a pair of 45K+ luxury models that finished just $49 apart. CarFinancing.com made the big splash at Pool, going for an even $46,000. Sedo was riding right on Car Financing's bumper and wound up collecting $45,951 (�25,000) for Hardcore.co.uk. That is a hefty hunk of change for a UK country code domain!


In addition to topping our weekly Top Ten, both of those sales were strong enough to bull their way on to our Year-To-Date leader board as you will see a little later in this report. That perfect pair was among a half dozen five-figure sales this week. Hormones are raging on college campuses at this time of year and maybe that's why we see Hormones.com in the #3 slot at $20,000 with TexasColleges.com right behind at $13,000. Chris Chena (the buyer of last week's #1 domain, Chena.com) was back in the checkout line this week with Hormones.com following completion of a private transaction. The TexasColleges.com sale happened at Pool where they spent the week raking in dollars faster than the ticket taker at a wet T-shirt contest. 

GreatDomains was also a hot spot this week. They enjoyed the warm domain weather so much they wound up occupying three lounge chairs on our Top Ten cruise deck. Barbecues.com gave them the #5 slot after going for $12,500. Sedo socked away the other five-figure sale after finding a buyer who didn't mind turning over $10,000 for Mind.com. Here's a look at the full chart for the week ending Sunday, April 4: 

Domain Name Journal's Top Ten 
Reported Domain Sales - Mon. Mar. 29, 2004 - Sun. April 4, 2004
Euro to Dollar Conversion (� to $) is Based on Rates in Effect Tue. Apr. 6

  Domain

Sold For

Where Sold
1.  CarFinancing.com $46,000 Pool
2.  Hardcore.co.uk �25,000 = $45,951 Sedo
3.  Hormones.com $20,000 Pvt Transaction
4.  TexasColleges.com $13,000 Pool
5.  Barbecues.com $12,500 GreatDomains
6. Mind.com  $10,000 Sedo
7. V9.com $8,000 GreatDomains
8. CRE.com   $6,000 GreatDomains
8. Physicians.org  $6,000 DNForum.com
10. Rojo.com  $5,555 Afternic

Keep in mind that these are the highest value sales that have been reported in the past week. This column is meant to be an educational tool, not a complete list documenting ALL high value domain sales. Such a list is impossible to produce because many sales are kept private at the insistence of buyers, sellers or both.

GreatDomains made short work of the second half of our chart with V9.com and CRE.com showing that unlike other products, you pay more for less when it comes to domain names. You would think they would give you some kind of discount when you only need 2 or 3 letters!  DnForum.com was the site of a very nice .org sale. Jarred Cohen came up with $6,000 to persuade Bryan Doyle to part with Physicians.org.  Another seller used Afternic.com to bag the final slot on the big board. Rojo.com ("red" in Spanish) changed hands there in return for a stack of 5,555 greenbacks.

Sedo celebrated the opening of their new American office in Boston by selling a boatload of domain names. I guess they didn't want to leave any cargo on board in case the citizens in their new hometown decided to throw another tea party at their expense! They moved three .coms, three .de's and a .co.uk at prices ranging from $2,500 to over $5,500. AtkinsUK.com led the way at �3,000 ($5,528), followed by a string of German country code gems; Gl�ck.de (which means "good luck") at �4,200 ($5,088), Kaufvertr�ge.de ("purchase contracts") at �3,400 ($4,119) and Mietvertr�ge.de ("rental contracts") at the same �3,400 price. Note that all three of these .de's represent domains with the newly recognized international characters. Other Sedo successes were Watchguard.co.uk at �2,200 ($4,054), Inhalator.com at �2,200 ($2,665) and MyBio.com at $2,500. And by the way. I was just kidding about them not leaving any cargo on board. Sedo has another one million domains where those came from!

Of course there is always a party at the Pool. The auction venue sailed away with $4,400 for EuropeanCruises.com, undoubtedly mapping their way with TravelGuide.org at $2,279. JXF.com threw $2,250 into the pot, while Motobikes.com kicked in $2,150 and NameBuyer.com called at $2,020. Pool also had the week's only significant .net sale, Relax.net at $1,850. Sounds like the kind of advice you would get at NetDoctors.com which went for $1,500.

Things just went nuts at Afternic last week. Specifically MacadamiaNuts.com at $3,688 and CashewNuts.com at $2,888. The popular auction site also dropped the hammer on CarryOnFilms.com at $2,791 and SecuredLoan.com at $2,500.

As you saw above, there were several nice .org sales this week. Your humble servant had one himself, sending a personal favorite, FamilyHistory.org, to frequent customer Rob Freeman of LeadingDomains.com for $2,000. The domain gets steady traffic which, at least for the time being, the buyer will direct to his new ancestry site at Surname.com

In the Pipeline: There is a big deal moving through the pipeline this week. Chris Chena has put $80,000 in escrow for a package of three domains that should be delivered soon. All are misspells of "download" but they generate a truckload of traffic. Chena said the trio of downlaod.com, dawnload.com and donwload.com pulls in 200,000 unique visitors every month!....A big one from last week's pipeline turned out to be a false alarm as we told you we expected would happen. A couple of jokers had driven VNShop.com up to $51,000 in a Pool auction, but the venue wound up tossing two bogus bidders out and sending the domain to a third party whose $1,120 bid was the top legitimate offer.... In another oddity at Pool, BlogHosting.com was bid up to $26,000 but again the price wound up rolling backwards. Last we heard it had settled at $20,500 on the closing day, but it still has not changed hands so no telling at what price or even if that one will land with a new owner.

Our Year-To-Date chart expands from 21 to 24 positions this week to make room for the two 45K+ sales reported above as well as an earlier $80,000 sale of Sedo.com. Though we had heard about that deal taking place, the buyer, Sedo, didn't fill in all of the details until they sat down with us for the interviews that led to our current Cover Story about the company. Now that we have the scoop, we are placing that transaction (the domain was bought from a private party) on our YTD list where it makes a strong 7th place showing. Here are all of the biggest reported sales so far in 2004:

Domain Name Journal's Year-To-Date "Terrific 24"
Highest Reported 2004 Domain Sales through Sun. April 4, 2004  
Euro to Dollar Conversion (� to $) 
Based on Rates in Effect When Sales Were Originally Reported by DNJ

  Domain

Sold For

Where Sold
1. Mercury.com $700,000*
(+ $400,000)
Pvt Transaction
2. Smoking.com $325,000 GreatDomains
3. Beef.com $150,000 GreatDomains
4.  Sexkontakte.de
"Sex contacts" in German
 �110,000 = $141,175 Sedo
5.  Truck.com  $101,000 Moniker / DomainSystems
6.  Kreuzfahrten.de
"Cruises" in German
�70,000 = $88,853 Sedo
7. Sedo.com $80,000 Pvt Transaction
8.  Boxen.de
"Boxing" in German
�56,500 = $72,509 Sedo
9. ClearDay.com $60,000 Moniker / DomainSystems
10.  FKK.de  �40,000 = $51,333 Sedo
10.  Busen.de
"Bosom" in German
 �40,000 = $51,333 Sedo
12. CarFinancing.com $46,000 Pool
13. Hardcore.co.uk �25,000 = $45,951 Sedo
14. Faces.com $38,700 Moniker / DomainSystems
15. Metropol.com �30,500 = $38,230 Sedo

16. 

Nackt.de
"Nude or Naked" in German
�30,000 = $38,081 Sedo
17. Spamzilla.com $35,000 MarketEvolver
18. CleanEnergy.com $31,950 Moniker / DomainSystems
19.  DiscountDrugs.com $30,010 Namewinner
20.  NewYork.info �22,000 = $28,086 Sedo

21.

XPart.com $27,981 Moniker / DomainSystems
22.  Messaging.com   $27,600 Pool

23.

NQ.com $27,000 Afternic
24. Beat.com $25,000 Moniker / DomainSystems
Unforgettable Footnotes:
Below are landmark sales where the price level (denoted by X characters) was released but not the exact price paid. This will allow us to note significant sales that are among the Year-To-Date leaders but cannot be ranked numerically due  to a confidentiality agreement that kept the exact price private. Date shown indicates when the sale was first reported in Domain Name Journal. High - Mid - Low indicates the range within the price category shown by multiple X's.
Woman.com (Feb. 10, 2004) Low $XXX,XXX Sedo
B�cher.de (Mar. 16, 2004)
{"books" in German)
High $XX,XXX Sedo


New TLD Section

Though the mainline buyers were back out in droves, it looks like new TLD customers are extending their spring vacation for another week. For the first time we have two vacancies on our new extension chart as only three sales were reported to us this week, all from Sedo. A very nice one, She.info, tops that group after going for $1,057. .Infos took the next two slots as well, with Boda.info at $544 and Oeko.info at $471. Oeko is an alternate spelling of the German term �ko. In English that would be the same as the widely used prefix "eco". We've already spilled the beans but here is how they look on the new chart:

Domain Name Journal's New TLD Top Five 
  Reported .info, .biz & .us Domain Sales  Mar. 29, 2004 - April 4, 2004
Euro to Dollar Conversion (� to $) is Based on Rates in Effect Tue. Apr. 6

  Domain

Sold For

Where Sold
1.  She.info �575 = $1,057 Sedo
2. Boda.info   450 = $544 Sedo
3.  Oeko.info  390 = $471 Sedo
4.  Vacant     
5.  Vacant    

With those two vacancies on the board it is a good time to bring up a point we have repeatedly stressed since beginning these sales reports six months ago. That is that the sales we are showing you are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to industry activity. We bring you the information that parties to the various transactions agree to reveal. There is an even larger body of deals being done that remain private at the participants request. 

To give you an example, a very reliable source (who has been on our chart as the seller of a five-figure domain) told us this week that he has put $2,500 in escrow for a .biz domain he is buying. If revealed, that name would obviously make our chart and more than likely be in the top position. However this buyer, who has given us the green light to report on his other deals, needs to keep this one private because he is still chasing some names that are closely related to the one he is buying. He does not want to alert competitors nor needlessly drive up his cost to acquire those names by publicizing what he had to pay to get the one in question. 

Though we would love to report them all, there are other valid reasons for keeping some transactions private. Fortunately, enough buyers and sellers are willing to go public to give us the data we need to give everyone in the industry a window on current market trends. Just as the Nielsen ratings corporation uses a sampling of TV viewers to gauge the popularity of television programs, a solid sampling of domain sales shows a lot about what kinds of domains are selling and what price ranges they are attracting. 

In the absence of other new TLD sales to report this week, we'll mention a couple of country code sales at Sedo (notable only because there are so few 3-figure sales in these extensions): 3G.cc went for $300 and AdultZone.ws fetched $230. Our Year-To-Date New TLD chart holds steady with eight sterling entries:

Domain Name Journal's Year-To-Date New TLD Elite 8 
Highest Reported 2004 .info, .biz & .us Domain Sales through Mar. 14 
Euro to Dollar Conversion (� to $) 
Based on Rates in Effect When Sales Were Originally Reported by DNJ

  Domain

Sold For

Where Sold
1.  NewYork.info   �22,000 = $28,086 Sedo
2.  HMS.info �9,280 = $10,492 Sedo

3.

Moscow.info $10,000 Sedo
4. RioDeJaneiro.info $9,000 Pvt Transaction
5. BDSM.info �5,500 = $6,947 Sedo
6. Reifen.biz
"tires" in German
 �5,500 = $6,894 Sedo
7. Vancouver.info �5,000 = $6,378 Sedo
8. Vacations.info $5,500 Pvt Transaction

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]. People like Richard Meyer provide invaluable help by sending us data for 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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