Chris Chena Pays $150,000 for Vuelos.com To Headline Another Big Week of Domain Sales   

by Ron Jackson
  

Chena's latest purchase led another impressive parade of high level domain sales with 15 domains hitting at least five figures. Sedo.com, who led all venues with four entries on the Big Board, laid claim to the #2 slot with a superb .de (German country code) domain. The new owner dispensed �50,000 ($61,747) for Medikamente.de ("drugs" in German). SnapNames.com picked up a trio of Top Ten trophies with #3 VegasRealEstate.com landing at $53,611 to set the pace for them.

.Net had a good week, claiming two of the top six positions, including #4 Lottery.net which sold at Enom's Club Drop for $40,000 and #6 NoblePoker.net which Jacob Fuller sold in a private transaction for $21,000. SendSMS.com was sandwiched in between the two .nets after selling for $30,000 at Sedo. SMS ("short message service") is a common acronym for text messages.

We have many more mouth watering sales to tell you about, but before we hit the domain buffet, let's take a look at the complete Top Ten list for the week ending August 14:

Sedo added to their star-studded sales list with #7 E-Mails.com at �15,500 ($19,144). SnapNames followed with strong back to back entries, #8 WebMeds.com at $16,700 and #9 CarForum.com at $15,750. There were actually 11 domains on our Top Ten this week thanks to a tie for the final spot at $13,000. Afternic.com took a share of the anchor position with Polyglot.com while WTK.com filled the bill for Sedo. Four more five-figure domains just missed getting a seat at the main table. SnapNames bagged two of those; VacationAlaska.com at $12,750 and eFront.com at $11,252. Afternic accounted for another with HomeRenovation.com at $12,000 and Sedo completed the quartet with Geld-Verdienen.de ("earn money" in German) at �10,000 ($12,351).

Sedo also scored with SeniorDating.com at $9,500, TJK.com at �7,000 ($8,645) and Andreani.com at $5,000. AAQ.com added another �4,000 ($4,940), Vorsorge.com (a word with several meanings in German including "precaution"), commanded $3,888 and SeriousFun.com threw a �3,000 ($3,705) party. Sedo has become synonymous with strong country code sales. Highlights from that category included Hardware.se (Swedish ccTLD) at �6,500 ($8,027) and Poker.in (Indian country code) at $2,650.

SnapNames tends to bank on .com and the king of extensions gave them a very nice stack of deposit slips. MichWorks.com produced $9,000, OfficeVista.com provided an $8,901 view and Wafers.com went for $8,188. Other treats included EarlyLearning.com ($7,988), LGP.com ($7,788) and Savant.com ($5,924). Conyers.com called in $5,400, AutoTravel.com arrived with $5,288 and ShowerGifts.com sprinkled $5,244. AppointmentBook.com registered $5,156, DrugEffects.com drew $4,380 and CareerMoves.com earned $4,088.

Also at SnapNames, Ballz.com rolled up $4,000, CasinoNow.com cashed in $3,950 and CellularDeals.com dialed up $3,766. Other winners included TargetVacations.com ($3,600), Teologia.com ($3,433) and SoftAir.com ($3,432). CuteBoy.com attracted $3,422, CelebrityMagazine.com featured $3,310 and $3,088 washed up from LakeLouiseAlberta.com. DestinFla.com added $2,888, GolfProfessional.com tapped in $2,800 and Baufinanzierung.com ("building finance" in German) fronted $2,777.  

StickyRice.com helped round out the SnapNames roster with $2,655, followed by TrafficCones.com at $2,622 and Uden.com at $2,600. ButtGalleries.com and ShopFlowers.com contributed $2,050 each. A couple of .nets also got into the act; Penguin.net at $3,788 and SCA.net at $1,626. 

Back at Afternic, UBRE.com kicked in $7,450, InVideo.com showed $4,000 and SelectLocations.com brought $3,750. VirginComics.com booked $3,333, iWall.com posted $2,500 and DivorceGuide.com separated the buyer from $2,200.

The beauties lounging at Pool.com this week included a couple of distance swimmers, CommercialRealEstateListing.com at $4,000 and MortgageMoneyLenders.com at $3,766. Pool was also able to depend on WebAdvice.com for $3,231 while MailingListManager.com sent $2,049. Close behind were LinkCharms.com ($2,010), Japanese geographical domain Omotesando.com ($2,000) and a pair at $1,850 each; Nexter.com and ChicagoMassages.com. Another twin bill at $1,738 each featured PremierMoviePass.com and AutomotiveBuying.com. CollisionShop.com did $1,605 in damage and LasVegasSecurity.com locked up $1,550. Outside the .com arena, Manna.org managed $1,385 and away from the Pool, GlobalBillboards.com sold LeatherJackets.net for $1,800.

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For the second week in a row, our Year To Date Best Sellers list gets four new members and one of them, Vuelos.com, takes a spot among the ten biggest sales reported this year. It now takes at least $40,000 to rank among the 60 biggest sales of 2005. Here is a look at the complete leader board: 

New TLD Section

.Info dominated the new extension action this week, easily taking the top spot on our New TLD chart and claiming six of the eight sales reported overall. With .biz and .us providing much stiffer competition this year, we haven't seen many .info romps like this in 2005, though they were commonplace in 2004. 

Degrees.info was the 4-letter extension's leader of the pack, changing hands in a private transaction for $3,800. The seller was Aaron Kluge of BrokeringDomains.com. The new owner is John DeMayo of JohnDeMayo.com. John has been collecting education related domains for some time so Degrees.info will be a perfect fit for his portfolio. 

The runner-up spot goes to Prestigio.biz ("prestige" in Spanish) which sold for $1,000 at Sedo, a venue that accounted for five of this week's reported sales. .Info answered with #3 Mortgage-Loans.info at �800 ($988) and #4 Motorcykel.info ("motorcycle" in German) at $900.

.US turns up at #5 with HFI.us going for $551 in a private sale. I just received a four-figure escrow payment for another 3-letter .us. The transfer should be completed shortly, allowing the domain to go on next week's report. Here is a look at the complete new extension list for the week ending August 14:

A trio of .infos anchored our new list, led by #6 Traitimmuathu.info, sold at SnapNames for $536. Someone got a very nice deal on #7 ICE.info at the NamePros.com domain forum where moderator -db- accepted $499 for the name. Shows you why it pays to read the forums! #8 AffiliateMarketing.info sold for �400 ($494) at Sedo to close the list.

Degrees.info joins our New TLD Year-To-Date Top 50 in the #21 position. It currently takes over $2,400 to make the list. Here are 2005's highest reported new extension sales through August 14:

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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