its not really that complicated, in hindsight is quite obvious:
saltandpepperhome.com - a successful business was running on saltandpepperhome.eu and they wanted the .com
wavewholesale.com - at some point wave broadband decided that it will be a good ideea to split the business and have the wholesale as a standalone operation. They've used business.wavebroadband.com until now but they wanted the .com
thingstodonearme.com - with almost 100K searches and $2.5 CPC it's obvious that people are interested in this so why not own the .com
it's easy to get frustrated but it's better to analyze, understand and try to replicate success if you can.
the guy that registered SaltandPepperHomes.com didn't analyzed or understood, IMHO, he just tried to replicate.
a better registration will be todaynearme.com because it's exactly what Mike has done at a smaller scale and it's a better looking domain. the search volume and CPC is not so impressive at the moment but it may rise, people are looking for weather, nail salons, open houses, things and fun things today near me so you may have a shot.