poll What time frame do you buy a domain for?

abstractdomainer · Aug 17, 2020

I was looking at a post reply from Abdul Basit and one of the important things he shared was that, when he buys a domain name, he has a 4 - 5 years time frame in mind.

Now given the time frame, he knows that he is going to invest the acquisition price + 5 years of renewal for that domain name, which considering the .COM renewals at $10, comes out to be something around $50.

Now, his acquisitions, domains and expected sale price could be very different from yours, especially considering the fact that you might be more of an outbound domainer and try to sell your domain names within 60 days of purchase (at max, before the expiry).

And so, just trying to gauge the time frame and renewal mindset versus the quick flip and scale up mindset that different investors may have.

NOTE

By time frame, I do not mean registering the domains at one go. Just having the hold time in mind and knowing that you are comfortable holding most of your domains for so many years.

abstractdomainer · Aug 30, 2020

Thoughts on this?

koolishman · Aug 30, 2020

For my top (per my calculation) domains, 5+ years. I am thinking of moving all such domains to one single registrar.

Having said that, all assets are for sale and depending on my needs I may sell before that also.

garptrader · Aug 30, 2020

Three $xXxX sales spring / summer 2020 - one acquired 2010 and the other two acquired 2012. All three sales were inbound - two direct to an EFTY landing page and one via Go daddy Auctions. Years ago I tried outbound but never found it to be a worthwhile use of time.

lock · Aug 31, 2020

Well you either have enough faith in it to own it and have enough foresight to see a profit in future. If you can flip names in month and happy with the turn over all good but if a hand reg it has been available decades anyone could have registered so if you aren't thinking long term with your registrations you will probably quit a lot sooner.

koolishman · Aug 31, 2020

lock said:
Well you either have enough faith in it to own it and have enough foresight to see a profit in future. If you can flip names in month and happy with the turn over all good but if a hand reg it has been available decades anyone could have registered so if you aren't thinking long term with your registrations you will probably quit a lot sooner.

This is from a reseller perspective, right. If you can find an end-user, ROI can be great. But name has to have some quality.

CraigD · Aug 31, 2020

Everyone has different goals. I started my portfolio because I required websites for a business, so the perceived timeframe of ownership was for as long as I had an interest in the business. ROI was not really a consideration but receiving offers for domain names is a fortunate bonus.

koolishman · Aug 31, 2020

CraigD said:
Everyone has different goals. I started my portfolio because I required websites for a business, so the perceived timeframe of ownership was for as long as I had an interest in the business. ROI was not really a consideration but receiving offers for domain names is a fortunate bonus.

I too started buying for personal projects. Some of which remained on paper only. So I sold some. Dropped many,

lock · Aug 31, 2020

CraigD said:
Everyone has different goals. I started my portfolio because I required websites for a business, so the perceived timeframe of ownership was for as long as I had an interest in the business. ROI was not really a consideration but receiving offers for domain names is a fortunate bonus.

And we were so much younger then and felt like we were going to live forever we just need to find some new young blood for our projects.

CraigD · Aug 31, 2020

lock said:
And we were so much younger then and felt like we were going to live forever we just need to find some new young blood for our projects.

Groan... I'm not sure if I have the energy anymore Bucko

lock · Aug 31, 2020

CraigD said:
Groan... I'm not sure if I have the energy anymore Bucko

I know how you feel we should have been Rock stars instead would have been more fun and would have partied less.

abstractdomainer · Sep 1, 2020

garptrader said:
Three $xXxX sales spring / summer 2020 - one acquired 2010 and the other two acquired 2012. All three sales were inbound - two direct to an EFTY landing page and one via Go daddy Auctions. Years ago I tried outbound but never found it to be a worthwhile use of time.

So now you invest and wait for the right end user to get to you? What category of names - brandables, 1 word, 2 word?

AbdulBasit.com · Sep 15, 2020

In my entire domain career, my target is to sell domains to endusers only. But in the early days, I used to sell for less ROI and couldn't hold for a longer period of time than I can hold now.

So it varies with person to person, patience, purchase price, ROI, cash flow, cost of living in your country, taxes or tax free domain income, etc.

koolishman · Sep 15, 2020

AbdulBasit.com said:
In my entire domain career, my target is to sell domains to endusers only. But in the early days, I used to sell for less ROI and couldn't hold for a longer period of time than I can hold now.

So it varies with person to person, patience, purchase price, ROI, cash flow, cost of living in your country, taxes or tax free domain income, etc.

True.

Cash flow is the issue now for lot of domainers( including me).

abstractdomainer · Sep 20, 2020

lock said:
Well you either have enough faith in it to own it and have enough foresight to see a profit in future. If you can flip names in month and happy with the turn over all good but if a hand reg it has been available decades anyone could have registered so if you aren't thinking long term with your registrations you will probably quit a lot sooner.

Agreed! Fair point! But you can scale up outbound, isn't it?

koolishman said:
This is from a reseller perspective, right. If you can find an end-user, ROI can be great. But name has to have some quality.

I agree! You have to know what is a gem to hold for 5 years and what to weed out!

AbdulBasit.com said:
In my entire domain career, my target is to sell domains to endusers only. But in the early days, I used to sell for less ROI and couldn't hold for a longer period of time than I can hold now.

So it varies with person to person, patience, purchase price, ROI, cash flow, cost of living in your country, taxes or tax free domain income, etc.

Fair point! Multiple factors there.

koolishman said:
True.

Cash flow is the issue now for lot of domainers( including me).

I think more than cashflow, it is the renewals!

koolishman · Sep 20, 2020

I think more than cashflow, it is the renewals!

If there is cash flow, no worries on renewals!

brandpainvestment · Sep 24, 2020

It depends upon the name and your in depth research in my opinion.

I will try to sell hand registration domains within 2 to 3 years.

Liquid domains within 1 to 2 years.

For Top quality domains like One word .com, LLL.com, CVCV.com, I will sit back, relax and enjoy the show (offers).

twiki · Sep 24, 2020

koolishman said:
I think more than cashflow, it is the renewals!

If there is cash flow, no worries on renewals!

If you have good quality domains, and hold them for 5 years or so, and sell for retail end-user value, then there is no worry anymore about cashflow.

People (inexperienced...) buy too many weak domains and this gets them into the bad cashflow loophole. Like it has been said, fish with a rod, not with a net, especially in first years.

( I admit I did this too as a beginner, but with a plan from the beginning - fail fast with a sacrifice budget, and learn as fast as possible. I was aware I'm going to buy crappy ones at first. Spent 15K in that but it as worth it. Made the money back from the lot.)

koolishman · Sep 25, 2020

twiki said:
If you have good quality domains, and hold them for 5 years or so, and sell for retail end-user value, then there is no worry anymore about cashflow.

People (inexperienced...) buy too many weak domains and this gets them into the bad cashflow loophole. Like it has been said, fish with a rod, not with a net, especially in first years.

( I admit I did this too as a beginner, but with a plan from the beginning - fail fast with a sacrifice budget, and learn as fast as possible. I was aware I'm going to buy crappy ones at first. Spent 15K in that but it as worth it. Made the money back from the lot.)

I too was a beginner once and lost money.

Another thing I noticed is that, not doing this as a full time gig/ devoting much more time will limit your earnings. You are able to research/ bid in auctions, peruse drop lists thoroughly when this is a full-time gig.

I am doing this in my spare time and realise that I will always be a so-so.

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