A poll for LLLL.com Investors

[-REECE-]

Just a small poll to better understand who our LLLL.com investors are. The poll is completely confidential. If successful, additional polls will be made in the future relating topics other than one's age to one's collection of LLLL.coms.

If we can better understand who our fellow LLLL.com investors are, we can better understand what socioeconomic factors are likely to influence their behaviour in this otherwise seemingly chaotic market. These polls will hopefully help everyone draw their own conclusions about when market entry and exit are best for them.

It would have been ideal to have more options, however, granted polls are limited to a maximum of 12 choices, these are the ones I felt were best for this poll. Those with fewer than 50 LLLL.coms are more than welcome to announce such here.

 

[ilcesco]

speaking about number of llll.coms owned isn't really a good indicator as long as you don't consider quality, imho.

 

[-REECE-]

speaking about number of llll.coms owned isn't really a good indicator as long as you don't consider quality, imho.

Most of the higher quality names gained considerably from the LLLL.com buyout. If I were to sell my 1500 LLLL.com for $7 next year and convince another 10 people with equally large portfolios to do the same, yes, I very much do think it could bring down the prices of every single LLLL.com.

That may sound farfetched, but there really are a good 10k+ bad lettered LLLL.coms set to expire over the summer -- and alot more afterwards.

If we assume that supply of bad lettered LLLL.coms influences buyer behaviour towards premium LLLL.coms, then we can conclude that it's in everyone's interest to not only make sure the buyout holds, but that cheap LLLL.coms are never on the market.

With a triple premium + Q fetching $20, it's not hard to justify paying $30 or so for a triple premium + J. If that triple premium + Q falls to $7, are you really going to pay 400% more just so you can have that J?

I don't know... We'll really have to see what happens, but I think it's in everyone's best efforts to analyze the entire LLLL.com market and not the small segment (eg. premiums, CVCV, VCVC, ...) they're invested in.

 

[srisri24]

voted. Nice poll.

 

[xman]

I voted

Interesting poll indeed

 

[johnnywj]

Voted.

 

[sparkplug]

Another one in the "N/A" boat... I turn 18 in a few weeks and have fewer than 50 LLLL.coms.

 

[AussieDomainer]

Yay! I'm one of 2 people so far under 25 that owns 500+ LLLL.com domains. I am 23 and also own 500+ L-L-L.com domains. Great poll Reece, keep up the good work

 

[domainer50]

I own none

 

[VURG]

Interesting.

Better to have categories:
Under 25
25-34
35+

The 5 year interval of 25-30 seems a bit short to me. (although ~40% of the vote is in this category)
Under 25 includes all ages below 25.

 

[PVFARKAS]

voted. around 75 @ 32 years young

 

[netklick]

Most of the higher quality names gained considerably from the LLLL.com buyout. If I were to sell my 1500 LLLL.com for $7 next year and convince another 10 people with equally large portfolios to do the same, yes, I very much do think it could bring down the prices of every single LLLL.com.

I seriously hope large buyers like yourself will not do that! I think it would be a great idea for large buyers to continue to buy and keep the floor higher.

With a triple premium + Q fetching $20, it's not hard to justify paying $30 or so for a triple premium + J. If that triple premium + Q falls to $7, are you really going to pay 400% more just so you can have that J?

I don't know... We'll really have to see what happens, but I think it's in everyone's best efforts to analyze the entire LLLL.com market and not the small segment (eg. premiums, CVCV, VCVC, ...) they're invested in.

I am trying to understand the whole Premium & all other stuff. How much would a domain like XAXM.com go fo?

Are you recommending here that even if the domain has bad letters, we should buy them and that it would be worth more than $20?

Thanks,
NK

 

[accent]

Most of the higher quality names gained considerably from the LLLL.com buyout. If I were to sell my 1500 LLLL.com for $7 next year and convince another 10 people with equally large portfolios to do the same, yes, I very much do think it could bring down the prices of every single LLLL.com.

Yet again I point to that graph at DYYO.com showing a steady decline of ~5000 LLL available every month over nearly two years. A dump of 15,000 bad letter names for $7 next summer would be sopped up quickly due to pent-up demand. The LLLL.com universe is 457,000 names - it is .com and is globally recognised as the shortest names readily available for a reasonable price (think mobile web). I think it will soon be a tiger.

Several factors made me believe that LLLL.coms were greatly under-priced. Now we are in a period where those who are happy to take a quick profit are selling, creating conditions that do not represent the long-term outlook for these domains. The quick sellers will soon have no domains left. The hold-til-I-have-to-renew sellers will, as you say, dump next summer/fall and the expectation of this may hold back prices a bit until they are cleared out. But I would not be surprised (with a steady economy) if bad letter LLLL.coms have a base reseller price of $40 next summer.

The economy is the elephant in the room, however, and a major stock market fall (I do not consider what we have yet seen to be major) could cause massive dumping, delaying the rise of the LLLL.com tiger.

To netklick -- Reese, of course can answer for himself, but I would not be too excited about buying at $20 for a possible $40 (+renewal fee) next summer. A good deal for bulk buyers, perhaps, but small investors can find better deals -either sift for gems in LLLL.com or look elsewhere.

 

[skylineleong]

Popular is 50-100; 25-30 years old..
22.50%

I have poll 50-100; 15-25 years old.........

 

[filter]

wow - great to see this kind of creative data-gathering and hypothesis testing!

I'm a "category 6" coLLLLector -> 30+ age, 100+ LLLL (almost entirely "line noise" WXQV etc)

still not sure about the logic behind the "October drop" hypothesis - given that most of us ponied up the $$$ to reg a bunch (in a hurry no less) in the last few months, seems reasonable to expect a significant portion of us calculated-risk takers will plan ahead to renew them. There might be a few "expected $100 for XYZQ now very disappointed and just letting them all drop" but that seems like the thin tail of the curve here ...

Also - the market is so much bigger than any of us, even all of the biggest investors posting on NP put together don't hold more than a few percent of the total 456,796 LLLL out there ...

hey - if you need to sell some, go for it. It's a drop in the bucket - and if it's a drop in the market, well that will be a welcome buying opportunity for some of the longer-term players - not a problem!

We're all going to be selling most of our holdings sooner or later, probably (but not necessarily) at a nice profit - depending on how long it takes for several hundred thousand end users to become part of the equation. The ebbs and flows of money changing hands between a few thousand resellers in the meantime are really just little ripples on the surface of a much bigger wave.

(And as accentnepal points out, there are a few big wave-making forces at work to keep in mind as well in the short term, such as the stock market etc ...)

Back to the poll and ideas for more data-gathering - would be interesting to correlate age with the "quality vs. quantity" dimension - ie, what is the highest $$$ amount you've paid for an LLLL ? (Hmmm - the answer for me is $39 - and I'm 39 years old!)

What is the average and total acquisition cost of your holdings? (For me, about 70 at reg-fee or less + maybe 40 aftermarket @ around $20 each)

Maybe the real question to ask is: when do you plan to sell ? Gets a bit dicey asking/answering that one ... but okay - personally, at least 25% of mine were purchased with intent of doing relatively quick flips (days/weeks/months at most) ... but I've been procrastinating pulling the trigger, actually continuing to buy a few more instead. While I'm looking for bargain "diamonds in the rough" or maybe a reasonably affordable "oooh shiny" semi-premium, I'm not anxious to buy many more "anti-premiums" - but neither am I anxious to sell any for less than $20.

Really should reflect a bit more carefully on my (seat-of-the-pants) "strategy" and expectations at this point I think! All in all I'm still reasonably close to my comfort zone - will be more inclined to buy than to sell if I see prices going down over the next few months. Not at all convinced that a big profit within a year is a sure thing though it seems like reasonable odds over the next 2 or 3 years, all things considered. (Or an interesting learning experience in the ups and downs of market hype and mass self-delusion at least!)

 

[sashas]

interesting poll. I wanted to know this myself. If most of the LLLL.coms were being held by 15 year olds, then I would've assumed them to be not a strong investment. But it seems that LLLL.coms are mostly held by people who can actually afford to pay the renewal fees for a couple of years. The 'poor man's LLL.com' idea seems to go out with this poll..

For the record, I own less than 50, and I'm 20.

wow - great to see this kind of creative data-gathering and hypothesis testing!

I'm a "category 6" coLLLLector -> 30+ age, 100+ LLLL (almost entirely "line noise" WXQV etc)

still not sure about the logic behind the "October drop" hypothesis - given that most of us ponied up the $$$ to reg a bunch (in a hurry no less) in the last few months, seems reasonable to expect a significant portion of us calculated-risk takers will plan ahead to renew them. There might be a few "expected $100 for XYZQ now very disappointed and just letting them all drop" but that seems like the thin tail of the curve here ...

Also - the market is so much bigger than any of us, even all of the biggest investors posting on NP put together don't hold more than a few percent of the total 456,796 LLLL out there ...

hey - if you need to sell some, go for it. It's a drop in the bucket - and if it's a drop in the market, well that will be a welcome buying opportunity for some of the longer-term players - not a problem!

We're all going to be selling most of our holdings sooner or later, probably (but not necessarily) at a nice profit - depending on how long it takes for several hundred thousand end users to become part of the equation. The ebbs and flows of money changing hands between a few thousand resellers in the meantime are really just little ripples on the surface of a much bigger wave.

(And as accentnepal points out, there are a few big wave-making forces at work to keep in mind as well in the short term, such as the stock market etc ...)

Back to the poll and ideas for more data-gathering - would be interesting to correlate age with the "quality vs. quantity" dimension - ie, what is the highest $$$ amount you've paid for an LLLL ? (Hmmm - the answer for me is $39 - and I'm 39 years old!)

What is the average and total acquisition cost of your holdings? (For me, about 70 at reg-fee or less + maybe 40 aftermarket @ around $20 each)

Maybe the real question to ask is: when do you plan to sell ? Gets a bit dicey asking/answering that one ... but okay - personally, at least 25% of mine were purchased with intent of doing relatively quick flips (days/weeks/months at most) ... but I've been procrastinating pulling the trigger, actually continuing to buy a few more instead. While I'm looking for bargain "diamonds in the rough" or maybe a reasonably affordable "oooh shiny" semi-premium, I'm not anxious to buy many more "anti-premiums" - but neither am I anxious to sell any for less than $20.

Really should reflect a bit more carefully on my (seat-of-the-pants) "strategy" and expectations at this point I think! All in all I'm still reasonably close to my comfort zone - will be more inclined to buy than to sell if I see prices going down over the next few months. Not at all convinced that a big profit within a year is a sure thing though it seems like reasonable odds over the next 2 or 3 years, all things considered. (Or an interesting learning experience in the ups and downs of market hype and mass self-delusion at least!)

Interesting observations Filter.
I think one big thing undermining LLLL.com value is the large number of such names for sale, both here at NP and DNF. If you look around, the For Sale section is full of LLLL.coms for sale, some good, some bad.
If LLLL.coms have to realize their peak value, they have to be 'exclusive', like the LLL.coms. At a time, you won't see more than 1-2 LLL.coms up for sale at the forums, and people sell them usually to fund other projects/purchases. This makes them 'exclusive' - buy it now, or never get the chance.

But if you have 100 LLLL.coms for sale everyday, then what difference does it make to me? I know if I get out bid on Hugr.com, a couple of days later, I can expect someone else to be selling Hubr.com. Meaning, I won't bid my maximum. Thats why domains reach such high values at the auctions - the desperation to own a quality name pushes the bidders. If you have so many names for sale, there is no desperation...

I have around 20 LLLL.coms, and only one of them is a hand reg. The most I've spent on a LLLL.com is $310, but I've spent 40 times more on a domain name. I'm still hesitant in shelling out 4k for a quality CVCV.com; I'd rather buy a low quality LLL.com for 6.5k. This market is still unstable and much of its fate will be decided by this time next year.

But its a good sign nonetheless knowing that the majority of LLLL.coms aren't being held by 15 year olds using daddy's credit card
:hehe:

 

[italiandragon]

Reece!

You made me feel old.....since I`m 31

 

[txmicomcn]

have already voted

 

[filter]

Sashas thanks for sharing your own info & enlightened perspective!

[...] I think one big thing undermining LLLL.com value is the large number of such names for sale, both here at NP and DNF. If you look around, the For Sale section is full of LLLL.coms for sale, some good, some bad.
If LLLL.coms have to realize their peak value, they have to be 'exclusive', like the LLL.coms. At a time, you won't see more than 1-2 LLL.coms up for sale at the forums, and people sell them usually to fund other projects/purchases. This makes them 'exclusive' - buy it now, or never get the chance.

But if you have 100 LLLL.coms for sale everyday, then what difference does it make to me? I know if I get out bid on Hugr.com, a couple of days later, I can expect someone else to be selling Hubr.com. Meaning, I won't bid my maximum. Thats why domains reach such high values at the auctions - the desperation to own a quality name pushes the bidders. If you have so many names for sale, there is no desperation...
[...]

Absence of desperation is a good thing IMO - helps keep the peaks and valleys of the fear/greed cycle at a manageable level - giving up short term windfall profit opportunity in the interest of enjoying a sane, steady reality-based market in the long run.

I'll be happy to see a "buyers' market" over the next year or two - I'd like to keep buying for as long as possible while prices remain on the sane side.

And the quick-flippers shouldn't mind too much if they can only command a 100% - 400% markup for low/mid-grade hand-regs. Percentage-wise it's a fair ROI after holding for just a month (or better yet, maybe even just a day for the intrepid independent drop catchers out there). In absolute terms it's $5 to $30 profit per LLLL for an hour or 2 of work (or play, if you enjoy buying and selling that much) ... So, not bad but maybe not so astoundingly lucrative to motivate continued large-scale selling at this stage in the market.

The big wave is moving like a tsunami - right now just a barely perceptable slow ripple in the deep ocean 100s of miles from shore. That "big wave" is driven by the small percent of LLLL finding end users large and small at whatever price every month. For instance, the one I spent $39 on (hi NameSlam) DZEB - bought as a gift for my young nephew (nickname == "Zeb") - you know I will make sure to pre-pay the next 10 years of reg fees for that one. Let's say that today that 1 LLLL taken off the market represents maybe 1/400,000 (?) of the reseller stock. Imagine that the "next" one to go represents 1/399,999 ... and so on. Roll that out several years, and eventually it's not going to be 400,000+ names on the market any more - we'll be looking at something a lot closer to 40,000 left trading between resellers - sooner or later - 5 years, 15 years - who knows. But whenever it happens, once the scarcity factor is within spitting distance of LLL territory, watch out. We're not going to be seeing any ZQYX anywhere even close to $39 any more ...

So ... thinking about it - I might pay reg fees on the bulk of my LLLL for the next 10 years or so and then (possibly, maybe, sort of) retire on the profit from selling off what I've still got at that point. That's the long view from where I'm sitting. (I'll keep funding my 401K as a backup too though!)

 

[sashas]

Sashas thanks for sharing your own info + informed perspective!

Absence of desperation is a good thing IMO - helps keep the peaks and valleys of the fear/greed cycle at a manageable level - giving up short term windfall profit opportunity in the interest of enjoying a sane, steady reality-based market in the long run.

I'll be happy to see a "buyers' market" over the next year or two - I'd like to keep buying for as long as possible while prices remain on the sane side.

And the quick-flippers shouldn't mind too much if they can only command a 100% - 400% markup for their low-grade hand-regs. Percentage-wise it's a fair ROI after holding for just a month (or better yet, maybe even just a day for the intrepid independent drop catchers out there). In absolute terms it's $5 to $30 profit per LLLL for an hour or 2 of work (or play, if you enjoy buying and selling that much) ... So, not bad but maybe not so astoundingly lucrative to motivate continued large-scale selling at this stage in the market.

The big wave is moving like a tsunami - right now just a barely perceptable slow ripple in the deep ocean 100s of miles from shore. That "big wave" is driven by the small percent of LLLL finding end users large and small at whatever price every month. For instance, the one I spent $39 on (hi NameSlam!) DZEB - bought as a gift for my young nephew (nickname == "Zeb") - you know I will make sure to pre-pay the next 10 years of reg fees for that one. Let's say that today that 1 LLLL taken off the market represents maybe 1/400,000 (?) of the reseller stock. Imagine that the "next" one to go represents 1/399,999 ... and so on. Roll that out several years, and eventually it's not going to be 400,000+ names on the market any more - we'll be looking at something a lot closer to 40,000 left trading between resellers - sooner or later - 5 years, 15 years - who knows. But whenever it happens, once the scarcity factor is within spitting distance of LLL territory, watch out. We're not going to be seeing any ZQYX anywhere even close to $39 any more ...

So ... thinking about it - I might pay reg fees on the bulk of my LLLL for the next 10 years or so and then (possibly, maybe, sort of) retire on the profit from selling off what I've still got at that point. That's the long view from where I'm sitting. (I'll keep funding my 401K as a backup though!)

I'm still doubtful of the xqyz.com names. These are the names I'm the most wary of. The other, premium ones and semi premium ones will remain regged and appreciate in value, no doubt about that. A majority of the CVCV.coms were regged by 2000. Most of the premium LLLL.coms were also taken more than an year back. If they were regged for so long, I don't see any reason for them being dropped. And I consider it a given that they will rise in value. Simply speaking, shorter names have to increase in value as the internet penetrates further and further into developing nations.


So essentially, its not a question of "Will the LLLL.coms increase in value and are they a good investment option?", but rather, "Will xqyj.com increase in value? Should I buy it for $10 right now?"

 

[italiandragon]

I'm still doubtful of the xqyz.com names. These are the names I'm the most wary of. The other, premium ones and semi premium ones will remain regged and appreciate in value, no doubt about that. A majority of the CVCV.coms were regged by 2000. Most of the premium LLLL.coms were also taken more than an year back. If they were regged for so long, I don't see any reason for them being dropped. And I consider it a given that they will rise in value. Simply speaking, shorter names have to increase in value as the internet penetrates further and further into developing nations.


So essentially, its not a question of "Will the LLLL.coms increase in value and are they a good investment option?", but rather, "Will xqyj.com increase in value? Should I buy it for $10 right now?"

sashas, I think you should consider that they JUST ran out only a month ago.

your "exclusive" point , is right but that`s why you can find LLLL.com for less than $100 now.

In 3 years time what will you find at less than $200?

I`ll be here to discuss it.