I would say there are three main things that define the value of a domain.
One are the obvious industry standard qualities of the name - length, radio test, extension, age, meaning, popularity, traffic etc, already listed above and there is a lot of info on this forum and others about those.
All of them plus sales data and statistics are used in the automated appraisal tools and I don’t think it is fair to discard them that lightly, especially for lower budget domain names. And imho those tools were developed to *help* domain owners sell more by making it easier for the end buyers to understand and trust the price (and they do help sell more, I believe it was mentioned by GoDaddy’s Paul Nicks unfortunately can’t find the video but since the introduction of the appraisal tool sales have significantly gone up, correct me if I am wrong anyone qualified). As in don’t just ignore them as something that is not useful for you, it was not meant to be used just by you. So I see those as some base and springboard for an idea of price and I am sure they will develop and improve in the future. If nothing else if you have an estibot or goddady appraisal for $2k and you want to sell your domain for $5k, at least you are starting to upsell your potential buyers from 2k and not 0 because they have something/someone that is not you telling them it is worth at least that.
Two - from Rick Schwartz’s blog (and pretty much all of Rick’s blog
) - Circumstances. Do you want to sell the domain today, tomorrow, next year or you don’t care and can wait no matter what until the buyer who wants to pay your price comes around? Keep in mind that buyer may not even exist yet - 20 years back would have never sold for $11 million, 10 years back it wouldn’t have sold for that either, it is now (well, technically 2016 but you get the point). In fact the domain owner held it for 24 years. Since 1992. Like you weren’t born yet
And I would add circumstances on the side of the buyer too - to continue with the Tesla example, would any CEO have paid $11 million for a domain, even if they have the cash? No. Ellon Musk is eccentric enough plus Tesla motors is limited to cars, they do and will do a lot more. So this sale alone can not influence many statistics, it is not really indicative of similar names either - will all invetors’ names now sell for millions? All 5 letter .com names? No. But it was the circumstances on both sides that made it happen. And those you can’t really predict with certainty, you can try to create them by thinking ahead whilst working as smart as you can with what you have now as resources.
Three - what is the value of the domain for whom? Is it for an investor or end buyer? Do they upgrade their name, need to expand or just looking around? Do they want the name for some side project they are giving a go or is it their baby, the thing they’ve been wanting to do their whole life? Everyone is like « don’t invest in new gTLDs » but Mike Kugler waited 2,5 years to Because he has a project, an idea he believes in and this particular domain is an essential part of it. So in that case, your domain that you bought for $100 might be worth $10k to one company/person, just that one and nobody else and it is your job to go find them. Or like said above - sit and wait for them to come if you have the luxury of time and the balls to trust luck.
And on top of all that I would add presentation - like with everything else, domains are no exception. If you want to sell you have to present well and those efforts and investment are proportional to how quick and for how much you want to sell your domain/s for. You have good names and time to wait? Just put them out there and wait (but still do put them out there because honestly I've seen cases where it is a real struggle to get hold of anyone about anything or make sense of anything, I get you don't care if it sells today or in 5 years but still, give it a chance!
). You want to sell now? Then you need to work on that now.
It does all come down to selling, you are either using the price to sell (so sell cheap) or you sell the price (time and/or skill).