Local.com Goes For $700,000 To Top 2005 Year-To-Date Sales List

by Ron Jackson
  

For the fourth week in a row every domain on our Top Ten hit at least five figures and several more in that range didn't even make the chart as the domain industry continues to flex the kind of muscle we haven't seen in years. GreatDomains claimed the #2 position with League.com at $48,000 and Afternic.com was right behind with #3 Marble.com at $43,000. 

Sedo.com and SnapNames.com owned the rest of the Big Board this week. Sedo placed four domains on the chart and SnapNames landed a trio of top ranked sales. Sedo scored with two .coms, a .info and a .de (German country code). They took #4 with Patenschaft.de ("godparenthood" in German) which went for �26,680 ($35,624) and #5 with ChaseBank.com at $30,000. SnapNames answered with a run of three straight domains, led by #6 NetPassport.com at $22,250 before Sedo came back to claim the final two openings on our new winner's list. 

Sedo anchored the chart with Musical.info at �10,440 ($13,936), the highest new extension sale so far in 2005. This was also the best New TLD sales week, top to bottom, that we have ever seen. For the first time, every domain on our New TLD list reached at least four figures and one that hit that level didn't even make the chart, also a first. We'll have more on that in our new extension section a bit later, but first let's look at the complete mainstream list featuring the highest sales reported in the week ending  Sunday, March 6:

As you can see above, SnapNames completed their trio of Top Ten entries with Meridia.com and GameStore.com each going for $18,750 to tie for the 7th position. Sedo's quartet of big winners included #9 Counterfeit.com, which looks like a good value to us at $16,000. 

Sedo also had all three of the five figure sales that finished just under the Top Ten. Those were Konzert.com ("concert" in German) at �9,999 ($13,347), Sumo.de at �9,860 ($13,162) and Patchwork.de at �9,280 ($12,387). Sedo has been doing well with Swedish domains in recent weeks and they scored again this week with Tickets.se going for �6,900 ($9,210). Restaurant-kritik.de ("restaurant critic" in German) served up another �5,250 ($7,006). Sedo's sales list also included Lennys.com at $6,000 and a trio at $5,000; VehicleRegistration.com, SINV.com and Org.net. You often here there are no bargains left in today's market, but the Sedo buyer who got Denial.com at $2,900 did well and the one who took Vacations.de for just �700 ($935) got an absolute steal.

The sales roster showed plenty of depth at SnapNames this week as well. $8,503 bloomed from Lillies.com, SubmittedPhotos.com snapped $6,602 and DailyMovies.com did $5,600 at the box office. Celica.com rolled in with $5,100 and the $4,601 from GreekMyth.com was fact not fiction. BookTech.com contributed another $4,200. Also notable were USTrademark.com ($2,150), USCopyright.com ($2,100) and UltimateElectronic.com ($2,050). Someone also got a decent buy on a three-letter .com, GNJ.com at $1,479. 

Plenty of people took a dip at Pool.com this week too. CruisePlanner.com was the first to port there with $5,100. That was followed by a large group bunched between $1,500-$1,700, including NepStar.com ($1,666), PokerSatellite.com ($1,605) and Piar.com (a misspell at $1,600). Two other high traffic misspellings, MovieSerfers.com (1,015 with the extension in Overture) and MovieSurffers.com (937 in OVT) went for $1,550 and $1,500 respectively. Another pair came in at $1,500; SailorMoonHentai.com and TurnkeyHosting.com. 

At Enom's Club Drop, AdultVideoGames.com attracted $4,100, Games2Play.net added $3,000 and Channel8News.com provided a $2,300 report. Shinwa.com and the misspelled BritenySpears.com (422 with extension in OVT) sold for $2,200 each and MusicWriter.com drummed up another $1,800.

Marble.com ($43,000) was the 800-pound gorilla at Afternic this week but not the only sale of interest. They added another $6,000 for TheSeed.com and $2,888 for FlashScreen.com. Afternic also reported a rare four-figure .cc sale, Profit.cc at $1,288. .cc is the Cocos (Keeling) Islands country code that is open to worldwide registration. Elsewhere, Brett Howard let In-LA.com go from his InDash.net portfolio for $3,500. A law firm made the purchase on behalf of a client who has not yet been identified.

 ****

To keep our Year-To-Date chart at a manageable length we raised the entry level again this week, setting the bar at $14,000. We do this periodically throughout the year and with major sales occurring so much more often this year than last, we expect the entry point to change more frequently in 2005. We know many of you are interested in following all of the high sales throughout the year, so this year we are going to add a special page at the end of each quarter listing all year-to-date sales of $10,000 or more. The first quarter report will be out early next month and we will post a link to it in the introduction to this chart at that time. Here are the biggest winners so far in 2005:

New TLD Section

New extension fans can pop the cork on a bottle of champagne this week. For the first time every domain on our New TLD Great 8 chart hit at least four figures, and one at that level fell short of the list (also a first). Demand for good words/terms in .info, .biz and .us continues to grow as those extensions steadily gain recognition. There are actually two reasons to celebrate this week because the #1 domain, Musical.info, set a new high water mark for 2005, going for $13,936 at Sedo. As they often do, Sedo dominated the chart, taking 7 of 8 positions.

GreatDomains prevented a Sedo sweep by nailing down the #2 slot with the $3,500 sale of Forum.us (the second best .us sale reported this year). Chris Zouzas purchased the domain and is planning to use it to bring back a .US forum similar to one he once ran at a different address.

This was a big week for .info with the extension taking 5 of 8 positions on our new list, including #3 Altabadia.info at $3,069, #4 Calories.info at $2,750 and #5 HolzPellets.info ("wood pellets" in German, a product used for heating) at $2,402. .Biz earned it's first of two chart trophies with #6 Optimal.biz at $1,334. Here's a look at the complete New TLD winner's list for the week ending March 6:

Fink.biz and Galicia.info anchored this week's chart at $1,201 and $1,134 respectively. Meanwhile, BBT.info became the first four-figure new extension domain not to make the chart after selling for an even $1,000 at www.Dot.us. Sedo sold a couple of others that would have made the chart most weeks in the past; Knaus.info at $900 and JacksonHole.us for $850.

As we did on our mainstream chart, we are upping the entry level on our Year-To-Date New TLD list this week, bumping the bar from $1,000 to $1,200. Though .info turned in a dominant performance this week, .biz is still making it a horse race for the most high dollar sales in 2005. .Info currently holds an 18-15 edge over .biz in the number of sales above $1,200.  Here is how they stack up through March 6:

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].

We truly appreciate the industry leading companies represented on our charts who share their sales information with us to help everyone in the business get a handle on current domain values. Individuals like Richard Meyer of the American Marketing Corporation also 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.

Copyright 2005 � DNJournal.com 
A Division of Internet Edge, Inc.
(copying of any material from this site without written consent is strictly prohibited)