Property.com and ShoppingCart.com Sell For Big Bucks to Lead a Red Hot Week of Domain Sales   

by Ron Jackson
  

As the buyer of Property.com, Florida's Rick Schwartz (AKA The Domain King) certainly added a crown jewel to his already impressive collection. Schwartz was among several investors who had been negotiating with the domain's previous owner in recent weeks. He first proposed a deal involving a series of payments, but finally decided to put an end to the chase by ponying up the full 750K in one shot. Schwartz said he has a simple development plan in mind for the domain (real estate related of course) that he expects will return his money many times over in the years ahead. Schwartz already owned the plural version, Properties.com, as well as other related gems like eRealEstate.com, RealEstateForSale.com, ModelHomes.com and VirtualTours.com.

The week's second knockout blow was landed by Moniker.com/DomainSystems.com who handled the $285,000 sale of ShoppingCart.com to MonsterCommerce (a Belleville , Illinois company that is a leading provider of online storefront systems and shopping cart technology). This domain was the first to sell from the At Home Liquidating Trust portfolio. The Trust is the successor to Excite@Home and is charged with selling the assets of the bankrupt company, including 119 prime domain names. Moniker CEO Monte Cahn said his company will be handling the sales for all of those domains, including gems like Home.net and Stuff.com. 

Those two monster sales overshadowed a sensational week at Sedo.com that would have been the lead item in just about any week but this one. They racked up so many solid sales they were able to single-handedly claim half of the positions on our new Top Ten chart including a sweep of numbers 3, 4 and 5. The Sedo assault was led by #3 Counseling.com at $45,500, #4 Reveal.com at $40,000 and #5 HardcoreSex.de at �18,500 ($22,877).

SnapNames.com followed Sedo's lead and swept positions 6, 7 and 8 to assure another big week for the Portland, Oregon based drop catching service. Their headliner was #6 Loyal.com at $18,755. We have a ton of other terrific sales to tell you about, but first let's take a look at the complete Top Ten list for the week ending August 7:

SnapNames completed their run in the 6-8 positions with #7 DumbVideos.com at $15,501 and #8 Decide.com at $15,250. Sedo anchored the chart with #9 iStudio.com producing �11,000 ($13,603) and #10 Spod.com commanding �10,500 ($12,985).

Six more domains that cracked the 5-figure mark fell just short of making the A list. SnapNames had four of those and the other two went to Sedo. The SnapNames quartet included DSLSpeed.com at $12,450, StreetCustoms.com at $12,250, Transarc.com at $11,250 and Bloussant.com at $10,350. Sedo's tag team partners were Registro.com at $12,789 and Thumbprint.com at $10,500.

The sales list at Sedo sported a number of other winners led by a strong .net - Interact.net at $9,000. They also had an impressive .org sale, GoldenBridge.org at $5,000. Sedo's supporting case of .com sales included Experte.com at �7,000 ($8,657). The German country code version of that domain, Experte.de, topped our sales chart last week at �21,000 ($25,607). You don't often see a ccTLD topping .com for the same term, but as a German word, experte ("expert" in English) is a perfect match for .de.

Also at Sedo, BayBridge.com brought $8,333, Fakezilla.com caught $6,000, ChinaMall.com ran up $5,000 and Halon.com attracted �4,000 ($4,947). You can always count on Sedo to post a sale in at least one exotic country code. This week it was Hong Kong's .hk. Green.hk did the honors, earning a very respectable $3,000.

Back at SnapNames, ShortDresses.com peeked at $6,108, GDD.com sold for $6,100 and BondPrice.com returned $5,100. Dreadlock.com landed $4,722, LoneStarTexas.com tied up $4,288 and IndividualHealthPlan.com covered $3,576. PurpleOnion.com sliced $3,388, PsychicAdvisors.com channeled $3,311 and Echos.com heard $3,230. Others in that range were eType.com ($3,100), ElectronicComponent.com ($3,088) and InternetCardGames.com ($3,038).

Also popping at Snap were HollandVacation.com ($2,738), Jetsetters.com ($2,655) and GhostPhotographs.com ($2,633). JamaicaTravelAgency.com booked $2,555, BabyPlaypen.com gathered $2,538 and CanadianCoastGuard.com intercepted $2,449. UnitedDominion.com went for $2,438, NewYorkAutoDealer.com delivered $2,400 and SRS.net secured $2,350.

Travel agency names were in vogue this week. SnapNames sent WisconsinTravelAgency.com and PennsylvaniaTravelAgency.com packing for $2,300 each. AlzheimersDrugs.com and Love4OneAnother.com cuddled at $2,272 each. Also among the notables were FairTunes.com ($2,150), DomainNamePrices.com ($2,100) and BoyBBS.com ($2,060). Rounding out the SnapNames roster were Rssporn.com ($2,050), DenverFlorists.com ($2,038) and UniversityOfNewOrleans.com ($2,000).

In another nice sale at Moniker.com/DomainSystems.com (not that they needed another one after selling ShoppingCart.com), TailorMadeShirts.com went for $9,300.

At Afternic.com, OnTarget.net hit a $6,800 bulls eye. MegaVitamin.com produced a healthy $5,400 and Capsicum.com collected $4,600. DanceDepot.com waltzed away with $3,000, LucyInTheSky.com didn't come with diamonds, but the high bidder still paid $2,988. Afternic's other winners included HamptonRoadsTV.com ($2,500), Microdom.com ($2,288) and Net2Go.com ($2,200). 

Pool.com had a deep list of desirable domains this week, led by LetraDeCanciones.com at $5,000. TravelSouthAfrica.com arrived with $4,105, BuildEasy.com put together $3,200 and TeethWhite.com chewed up $3,088. DarkBeer.com chugged $2,850 and QuoteFetcher.com found $2,650 while ClassicTruckPart.com and HoustonWeddingPlanner.com hooked up at $2,605 each. 

Pool also found buyers for a boatload of those popular travel agency domains that dropped this week. Their haul included NYCTravelAgency.com and CaliforniaTravelAgency.com at $2,555 each and four more at $1,955 each; WashingtonTravelAgency.com, OhioTravelAgency.com, GeorgiaTravelAgency.com and ArizonaTravelAgency.com.There was also a pair at $1,905 each; VirginiaTravelAgency.com and AlabamaTravelAgency.com. 

In addition to all of those agency domains, Pool wiped off WaterproofPhones.com for $2,383, rang up $2,250 for RenoShopping.com, fetched $2,150 with FKJ.com and dropped the gavel on VirginiaAuction.com at $2,050.

HLK Enterprises, Inc. got a good buy on NetGaming.com at Enom's Club Drop, picking up the domain for $3,600. A big Club Drop auction for Lottery.net ended at $40,000 but as of this writing the domain was still at Enom awaiting payment.

In a notable private transaction, Griggs & Company joined with GoBuyDomains.com to sell the matching set of BridalGiftCard.com and BridalGiftCards.com for a total of $15,000. 

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The banner week in domain sales allow us to induct four new members in our YTD Top Sellers club. Property.com and ShoppingCart.com went straight to the VIP Room after landing among the top six sales reported this year. Here is a look at the complete leader board: 

New TLD Section

.Biz was back on the New TLD throne this week, resting comfortably atop our new extension chart after Manhattan.biz changed hands for $5,000 at Afternic. While it would seem to be a no-brainer to build a site devoted to New York City with this domain that might not be what happens. The new owners, International Business Investment, Inc., are based in Manhattan Beach, California.

Though .biz occupies the top spot, the next four positions on the chart belong to .info, including the runner-up slot which went to Piscine.info ("swimming pool" in French) at $1,500. Howard Hoffman of PPCIncome.com was the seller of that domain. Hoffman has done very well with .info domains in European languages like French and German. He was one of the first to spot the trend line showing northern Europe had the world's heartiest appetite for .info domains.

A French geographical domain, Nanterre.info finished at #3 after going for �800 ($989) at Sedo. A German term followed, StudentenJob.info ("student job") at �700 ($866). Both those domains changed hands at Sedo, as did #5 OnlineHotel.info at �690 ($853). Here is a look at the complete list for the week ending August 7:

The only .us on this week's list was JMM.us which changed hands for $350 in a private sale. That was also the last new extension sale reported to us, leaving the final two chart positions vacant.

Manhattan.biz joins our New TLD Year-To-Date chart this week, creating a three-way tie in the 11th position. Here are 2005's highest reported new extension sales through August 7:

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.

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