WOW!
I'm really amazed by the valuations I see in this thread! 3-Letter domains have been soaring in value over the years, and I personally find many of the above lower appraisals to be extremely on the low side.
From what I've seen, here's the minimum wholesale for 3 LETTER (all letter only and regardless of letter quality) as of today:
.com = $1000
.net = $200
.org = $70
.info = $50
.biz = $20
.us = $7
Letter quality and acronym usefulness play a large role in sales prices for these domains. A 3-letter domain such as anr.com is worth much more than xqv.com, but even so the latter would still be worth $1k easy.
In my own appraisal methods in evaluating a domain, if I can find a 3-letter domain below the numbers I have posted above, that's an absolute buy if I have the money. I pretty much buy any 3-letter .com, .net, .org, .info I can find below these minimum values (which is rare to impossible now adays) if I have funds available.
For a point of reference, here's my same chart (which is derived from what I see in the marketplace) from a year ago (I keep this chart updated every quarter to aid me in evaluating domains for purchase):
1 Year Ago (From late March 2004) Minimum Wholesale Values for 3-Letter:
.com - $750
.net - $100
.org - $30
.info - $15
.biz - $8
.us - Reg Fee.
I think you can see how these domains have yielded a great return over the last year and bare in mind that these are MINIMUM WHOLESALE VALUES! It's very rare to find a 3-letter domain selling at bare minimum or below (sometimes people don't know what their names are worth and sell too cheap).
And what other investment classes have had such a good track record over the last year? And further, I didn't even mention that one can make money with parking these domains too (because many get decent traffic due to their short length and acronym possibilities).
Hope this helps!
Andrew