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discuss Appraisals 2018 What do they mean? How can they help?

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ThatNameGuy

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I own about 1,850 domains of all kinds that appraise for a little over 1.5 Million dollars. I use a combination of appraisals from Go Daddy and Estibot to value my portfolio. What I find hard to believe is that I just found another company, Nokta Domains, that if I were to run all my domains through their appraisal program, I'm sure my portfolio would appraise for a little over 3 Million dollars.

I asked the question in the title of this thread...What do they mean? It's my opinion they mean very little, but I do find them good enough to rate or score my domains compared to others. Generally, the higher the appraisal from someone like GD, the better the domain:xf.wink:

So how can they help?...if you're lucky enough to be able to meet and speak with a lot of end users, appraisals can be a powerful enough tool to help close a deal. How do I know? I'll tell you...but you know what I'll have to do if I tell you:xf.wink:

Seriously, I was just telling someone who sent me a DM that end user "domain education" is, and will be the key to my success in this industry. I'm employing sales strategy and sales technique that have proven successful for over 100 years, and selling domains is absolutely no different than selling houses, auto's, boats, computers, B2B or B2C products or services. Common sense, and Sales and Marketing 101 is by far the best teacher.

How do you see industry appraisals helping you to make better buys?... better sales? Thanks, and have a great week. Cheers!
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
If we take a look at the stock market, when demand dries up for a stock, the market maker will start to gradually mark the price down until buyers start to appear again - that's a well-functioning market.

Appraisals, however accurate and state-of-the-art they may be, and we know they seldom are, are a static representation of the intrinsic value of the domain that does not take into account recent trends, seasonality, and above all, current market demand.

Having said that, it would be nice to see my portfolio appraised at over a $1M :)
 
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If we take a look at the stock market, when demand dries up for a stock, the market maker will start to gradually mark the price down until buyers start to appear again - that's a well-functioning market.

Appraisals, however accurate and state-of-the-art they may be, and we know they seldom are, are a static representation of the intrinsic value of the domain that does not take into account recent trends, seasonality, and above all, current market demand.

Having said that, it would be nice to see my portfolio appraised at over a $1M :)

W3Names, your portfolio probably already does appraise for over $1M. Try here: https://www.noktadomains.com/ They claim to use over 200 data elements by which to appraise a single domain. Most of my .com domains appraise for 3K to 5K with Nokta Domains. However, appraisals are all over the place from Estibots program that appraises most two word domains at zero to GD who might appraise the same domain at $1,500. Go figure. Thanks for chiming in, and good luck.
 
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There is no evidence that appraisals are helping domain sales.
If they were - we would be seeing a lot more reported sales.

Even end users who are naïve enough to deem appraisals remotely relevant just don't care. The name either fits their (usually low) budget or it doesn't.
It's no surprise that Godaddy is offering its own appraisal service, because they definitely want people to register more domains with them, thinking they are buying valuable assets that will make them rich one day. From the POV of the registrar, every registration is a win regardless of domain quality.

I am a domain buyer too, and if somebody tried to sell me a name based on estibot or whatever I would laugh. Either he doesn't know how to value domains, or he thinks I am a fool.
And it is a double-edged sword: an end user could counter with an appraisal from another source, but tilted towards a lower value, to your disadvantage. In general automated appraisals tend to massively overvalue domain names, but sometimes the opposite is true as well.

They exist for ego boosting, driving registrar sales up, and pushing domainers deep in debt :)

You just cannot trust a magic figure that comes from a bot, if you don't know how it's been computed, the factors and the algorithms in play. It's more or less as worthless as horoscope.
It's better to look at reported, comparable sales. But many sales are one of a kind, so even comps are of limited usefulness.
Bottom line: selling domain names is more art than science.
 
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There is no evidence that appraisals are helping domain sales.
If they were - we would be seeing a lot more reported sales.

Even end users who are naïve enough to deem appraisals remotely relevant just don't care. The name either fits their (usually low) budget or it doesn't.
It's no surprise that Godaddy is offering its own appraisal service, because they definitely want people to register more domains with them, thinking they are buying valuable assets that will make them rich one day. From the POV of the registrar, every registration is a win regardless of domain quality.

I am a domain buyer too, and if somebody tried to sell me a name based on estibot or whatever I would laugh. Either he doesn't know how to value domains, or he thinks I am a fool.
And it is a double-edged sword: an end user could counter with an appraisal from another source, but tilted towards a lower value, to your disadvantage. In general automated appraisals tend to massively overvalue domain names, but sometimes the opposite is true as well.

They exist for ego boosting, driving registrar sales up, and pushing domainers deep in debt :)

You just cannot trust a magic figure that comes from a bot, if you don't know how it's been computed, the factors and the algorithms in play. It's more or less as worthless as horoscope.
It's better to look at reported, comparable sales. But many sales are one of a kind, so even comps are of limited usefulness.
Bottom line: selling domain names is more art than science.
There is no evidence that appraisals are helping domain sales.
If they were - we would be seeing a lot more reported sales.

Even end users who are naïve enough to deem appraisals remotely relevant just don't care. The name either fits their (usually low) budget or it doesn't.
It's no surprise that Godaddy is offering its own appraisal service, because they definitely want people to register more domains with them, thinking they are buying valuable assets that will make them rich one day. From the POV of the registrar, every registration is a win regardless of domain quality.

I am a domain buyer too, and if somebody tried to sell me a name based on estibot or whatever I would laugh. Either he doesn't know how to value domains, or he thinks I am a fool.
And it is a double-edged sword: an end user could counter with an appraisal from another source, but tilted towards a lower value, to your disadvantage. In general automated appraisals tend to massively overvalue domain names, but sometimes the opposite is true as well.

They exist for ego boosting, driving registrar sales up, and pushing domainers deep in debt :)

You just cannot trust a magic figure that comes from a bot, if you don't know how it's been computed, the factors and the algorithms in play. It's more or less as worthless as horoscope.
It's better to look at reported, comparable sales. But many sales are one of a kind, so even comps are of limited usefulness.
Bottom line: selling domain names is more art than science.

No need to get in a xxxsing contest with you Kate or is it Jen?. You have your followers, and I have mine. I've already had investors join my team due to my understanding of the appraisal joke, and ironically your understanding of the appraisal joke and mine are similar.

Before I exit this conversation, it appears great minds think alike. I'd like to thank you for confirming my idea about pairing nTLD's with .coms whenever possible. And I guess I should thank you for confirming my thoughts about domain appraisals:xf.wink:

I'll leave you with this:: "Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. -Winston Churchill The point here Kate, with your help, I'll be smiling all the way to the bank. Thanks a Billion:xf.grin:
 
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I'm employing sales strategy and sales technique that have proven successful for over 100 years, and selling domains is absolutely no different than selling houses, auto's, boats, computers, B2B or B2C products or services. Common sense, and Sales and Marketing 101 is by far the best teacher.

You do realize that if you keep making threads like this, talking about your strategy and sales technique, you'll keep getting questions about what actual sales you've made? That's common sense right? How about you get some sales you're willing to share, THEN post them and the technique behind it.
 
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They don't mean anything. Automated appraisals are worthless.

Brad
 
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I've sold domains for 4 and 5 figs that these worthless appraisal tools valued at 0.

Stay away from these useless appraisal tools. GD values 90% of domains between $1k-2k even if it something ridiculous like ilovechocolatecake.com.
 
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They don't mean anything. Automated appraisals are worthless.

Brad
Thanks Brad...you and I and Kate think a whole lot alike:xf.wink:
I've sold domains for 4 and 5 figs that these worthless appraisal tools valued at 0.

Stay away from these useless appraisal tools. GD values 90% of domains between $1k-2k even if it something ridiculous like ilovechocolatecake.com.
Dave Thanks...you're on board with me too. Why do you think my portfolio appraises for between 1.5M and 2M:xf.wink:....Great Minds really do think alike:xf.grin:
 
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Why do you think my portfolio appraises for between 1.5M and 2M:xf.wink:

Because they're not very good and even more of a struggle with new gtlds. As an example:

appraisals for vacations.horse:
Sedo - $24,999
GoDaddy - $2,245

I can get vacationshorse.com for $8 at GoDaddy.

Do you see the issue?
 
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Meh, GoDaddy's Appraisal tool is worth it for the comparable sales alone. I see comps on GoDaddy that I don't see on Namebio. Eg. for nycpainters.com I see chicagopainters, melbournepainters and adelaidepainters, none of which appear on Namebio. Plus even if the actual figures are garbage, I see decent correlation between appraisal amount and name quality for my (.com) portfolio.
 
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Because they're not very good and even more of a struggle with new gtlds. As an example:

appraisals for vacations.horse:
Sedo - $24,999
GoDaddy - $2,245

I can get vacationshorse.com for $8 at GoDaddy.

Do you see the issue?
Meh, GoDaddy's Appraisal tool is worth it for the comparable sales alone. I see comps on GoDaddy that I don't see on Namebio. Eg. for nycpainters.com I see chicagopainters, melbournepainters and adelaidepainters, none of which appear on Namebio. Plus even if the actual figures are garbage, I see decent correlation between appraisal amount and name quality for my (.com) portfolio.
You make a good point Andy, and I even get some pretty good ideas for other domains from GD's comparable sales. Thanks
 
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Why do you think my portfolio appraises for between 1.5M and 2M:xf.wink:....Great Minds really do think alike:xf.grin:
I don't believe it.

But let's assume for a minute each of us could get a somewhat 'accurate' appraisal for all names in our respective portfolios. It's not *liquid* value. Domain names are very illiquid assets and cannot be readily traded like stocks or other financial instruments. Certain types of domains like premiums, LL/LLL.com etc have liquidity and a reseller market. These names can be sold for cash in a relatively short time frame. But we are talking about a super-tiny portion of all registered domains in existence.
The vast majority of registered domains simply have no resale value, or it is very low.

Until an end user actually shows up with checkbook open, the resale value is somewhat theoretical, although some names are clearly better than others.
 
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GD appraisals are much better than the others as they back their appraisals by similar past sales. May be helpful for keyword domains only.
 
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I don't believe it.

But let's assume for a minute each of us could get a somewhat 'accurate' appraisal for all names in our respective portfolios. It's not *liquid* value. Domain names are very illiquid assets and cannot be readily traded like stocks or other financial instruments. Certain types of domains like premiums, LL/LLL.com etc have liquidity and a reseller market. These names can be sold for cash in a relatively short time frame. But we are talking about a super-tiny portion of all registered domains in existence.
The vast majority of registered domains simply have no resale value, or it is very low.

Until an end user actually shows up with checkbook open, the resale value is somewhat theoretical, although some names are clearly better than others.

Kate said about my portfolio appraisal, "I don't believe it".....are you insinuating I'm a liar? Here's a quote from NamePros member Dave from this thread, "GD values 90% of domains between $1k-2k even if it something ridiculous like ilovechocolatecake.com."

My .com's, of which I own about 500, or 30% of my portfolio, "average" $1,250 apiece. Then there's my .golf portfolio of around 125 names that "average" a little over $1,700 apiece. Then to provide you with one more example, take a look at the two .fans names I hand reg'd on the thread "Your Reg of the Day" yesterday.....they appraise at GD for $2324 and $1,862 respectively. Then check out the comparables for these two names Kate......are you still insinuating I'm a liar?

I certainly won't hold my breath for an apology:xf.frown:
 
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No, what I'm saying is that I don't believe the 'appraisal' is accurate/relevant/useful. At all. We are all millionaires then.
Automated appraisals are even more pointless in new extensions, because they don't enjoy the end user demand and liquidity that .com and established extensions can muster.

Only two reported sales for .golf. What are the odds you will sell just one, let alone dozens of them ? :xf.smile:
You seem to have a fascination with numbers. I prefer numbers that are backed up by cash.
 
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@Kate you're really down on automated appraisals eh?
 
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Kate...spin it anyway you want, but your "I don't believe it" comment was in response to my comment, "Why do you think my portfolio appraises for between 1.5M and 2M....Great Minds really do think alike"

As for the reported .golf sales. Have you not read here how I plan to market .golf names to the 60M plus golfers around the world? Here are some of the demographics about golfers that you should take a look at: https://www.statisticbrain.com/golf-player-demographic-statistics/

Kate...I know you have a lot more experience than me in some area's of business, but I have a lot more experience than you in other areas. I suggested a truce with you and some of your comrades last week, but somehow that trial balloon deflated....sorry, I tried:xf.frown:
 
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@Kate you're really down on automated appraisals eh?
Domains don't sell because they have nice appraisals so why even bother ? :)

Kate...I know you have a lot more experience than me in some area's of business, but I have a lot more experience than you in other areas. I suggested a truce with you and some of your comrades last week, but somehow that trial balloon deflated....sorry, I tried:xf.frown:
A truce for what ? Have you been at war ?
 
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I only wish I could get the GoDaddy Appraisal for my entire portfolio (I would take it in a heartbeat). I understand that a majority of the appraisals are way more than what I will be able to get in real life. But their Appraisal tool does have some value -- they provide some good comps of sales I don't see at Namebio (as someone else mentioend in this thread).

I actually used the GD Appraisal Value along with their Comparable Sales in order to close a deal. It has worked for a couple of my sales. So it can be used to help close a sale. Of course if the GD Valuation is lower than my personal valuation, I don't mention the GD Valuation Tool at all to the prospective buyer.

Regards,
DN
 
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My point exactly DN...thanks so much for your input.
 
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@Kate so you don't even like GD for comparable sales? Why do domains sell?
 
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Comps are certainly useful. Resources like DNJ or Namebio are essential.
Because some patterns tend to repeat, for example certain keywords may be sought after. But many sales are one of a kind too. Just because a specific name sold doesn't mean that variations of that name, or the exact same domain in a different extension is going to sell.
Domainers are making too many assumptions.
 
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zje dot com (domain I sold) estibot valuation: $62k / GoDaddy instant appraisal: $16k, choose one :xf.wink:
 
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