domain CommercialToResidential . com

[MatiasG]

Hi guys, what do you think of CommercialToResidential . com ?

I can think of this:

1) Upside: the work-from-home trend and the shop-from-home trend have been accelerated by Covid-19. More and more real estate that is currently commercial will need to be refitted for residential use, and so many companies will specialize in this niche.

2) Downside: too long

But I'm new at domaining, so no idea if this is correct. Also if you could tell me an approx valuation, that'd be great.

Thanks!

 

[twiki]

That's not how a business in that line will name (domain) themselves.

Sorry but I see a very low xxx only on this domain. I'd flip it for $100 if I made the mistake.

 

[MatiasG]

I totally agree, @twiki, that this is not how a business would name itself. But actually, I purchased it because, as a domainer newbie, this is one of the things that I'm finding more puzzling:

Why generic phrases or words that no business in that line would name themselves keep selling for such big sums?

We can find many examples of this in both 1-word domain sales and 2-word domain sales, and, even sometimes although more rarely, in 3-word domain sales.

Example with one-word domain: whisky.com.
Whisky.com is completely generic and impersonal, and no big whisky company would call themselves or their website like that.
And yet It sold for $3.1 million to one of the largest whiskey companies in the world.
And yet despite selling for that sum, it remains virtually unused (there is still an informational website on that domain similar (or maybe the same) to the website run by Michael Castello, the investor who sold the domain 6 years ago.
And I'm not surprised they haven't used it commercially, because it really doesn't sound good to go to a website simply called "whiskey." It sounds "off brand."
So I'm not surprised they didn't use it, what puzzles me is why people/companies pay such huge sums for such domains just to own them for strategic purposes. If they were really that valuable they would put them to use and make a ton of money out of them.
No big company buys prime real estate on 5th avenue and then leaves if empty. But with super premium domain names, it happens all the time. Maybe because at the end of the day they really aren't that monetizable?

And the same happens with generic-sounding 2-word domains. I'm sure that if I were as lucky as to possess something like seldrivingcars.com or artificialintelligence.com I could sell them for a lot of money. And yet neither of them could be used to name a business. They are too generic. They could be used for informational websites. But most informational websites don't make huge amounts of money. Why those big prices then?

So my open question is: why do generic-term domains and generic-phrase domains that are not particularly brandable keep selling for such huge sums?
Is it just some strange type of bubble that has lasted for decades?

I know there are a few exceptions of some of these generic-term/phrase domains that had been used by their buyers in a profitable way, but most of them seem to remain completely unused or at best very marginally monetized.

 

[TheBaldOne]

@MatiasG - Think marketing, think leads, think orders for products, think about a company preventing it's rivals from getting the name. People do type in 'Whisky.com', and a huge purchase price actually recoups some of its costs by making it into the news.

Imagine you are 'Whisky producer or wholesaler 'A''. By buying the domain name you get several benefits.

• When people type into the address bar they get to your site (whether you are using the domain Whisky.com for the name of the site or redirecting the domain name to 'WhiskyComapnyA.whatever'
• Your brand becomes known as the company who own Whisky.com - prestige
• You prevent, or at least very much hinder, your competitors in their marketing campaign.
• Your advertising campaigns become cheaper because you have direct access to Whisky.com which should make your marketing costs less than those of your competitors.
• Every so often the domain will be mentioned in the press, which is free advertising.

The above is just a potted version of the power of the right domain name and its pulling power with the public and therefore the commercial value of the domain name.

Then you have business investors who are not in the whisky business but have invested in the domain in the belief it will increase in value because of the above. (And this often happens.) It is property companies who buy most property on 5th Avenue and then rent them out, i.e. business investors not retailers.

Hope this helps explain a little.

 

[TheBaldOne]

'CommercialToResidential.com' actually could be used. There is going to be an upswing in commercial property being converted to residential property - do you see the connection?

With the downturn in the High Street and the shortage of housing this is one aspect whereby you may have hit on a trend you didn't realise exists in the housing market. Imagine listing properties in towns that are being converted from commercial units to residential, whereby the interior can basically be custom designed to the clients requirements, especially in towns and cities whereby the centres have social activities seen as attractive to potential home owners.

Just saying you might have got a sleeper there.

 

[twiki]

'CommercialToResidential.com' actually could be used. There is going to be an upswing in commercial property being converted to residential property - do you see the connection?

With the downturn in the High Street and the shortage of housing this is one aspect whereby you may have hit on a trend you didn't realise exists in the housing market. Imagine listing properties in towns that are being converted from commercial units to residential, whereby the interior can basically be custom designed to the clients requirements, especially in towns and cities whereby the centres have social activities seen as attractive to potential home owners.

Just saying you might have got a sleeper there.

I agree, however there is an issue of noise to signal here. The noise is too much for this domain. Chances are it'll never meet its buyer, and the newbie domainer will give up if he had a lot of these when facing the renewals pain.

This is why I think flipping it quick is probably a good idea. Or keeper, if the portfolio is kept small.

Edit: When I appraise a domain, I don't only put in the retail value, but also mix with the chance of selling. If chance is low, a market rate / quick flip makes much more sense. Hope this explains it.

 

[Dream Domains]

No value.

 

[TheBaldOne]

@twiki - I agree with your point.

It is perhaps the most painful part of the learning curve of becoming a domainer, that renewal costs come around what seems so quickly, and then having to make a decision whether to renew or not. Flipping is not an ideal situation, but it is also part of the 'game'. (I know as yesterday I had a meeting that convinced me that a plan I had started to develop only weeks ago now had to be shelved in favour of something much more lucrative, simple answer was to just flip the domains I had obtained in the past few weeks. So even after more than 15 years in the business I still have to decide the best thing to do is flip domains. Best to make a small profit than no profit at all by not working on selling the domain/s and then dropping them.)

 

[MatiasG]

@twiki - I agree with your point.

It is perhaps the most painful part of the learning curve of becoming a domainer, that renewal costs come around what seems so quickly, and then having to make a decision whether to renew or not. Flipping is not an ideal situation, but it is also part of the 'game'. (I know as yesterday I had a meeting that convinced me that a plan I had started to develop only weeks ago now had to be shelved in favour of something much more lucrative, simple answer was to just flip the domains I had obtained in the past few weeks. So even after more than 15 years in the business I still have to decide the best thing to do is flip domains. Best to make a small profit than no profit at all by not working on selling the domain/s and then dropping them.)

It makes sense. Just one question: I keep hearing the term "flipping" but I'm not sure what it means exactly. By flipping, we mean to sell a domain for about 1/10 of its estimated end-user price, is that correct?

 

[twiki]

It makes sense. Just one question: I keep hearing the term "flipping" but I'm not sure what it means exactly. By flipping, we mean to sell a domain for about 1/10 of its estimated end-user price, is that correct?

Quick sale for some extra cash.

 

[MatiasG]

I agree, however there is an issue of noise to signal here. The noise is too much for this domain. Chances are it'll never meet its buyer, and the newbie domainer will give up if he had a lot of these when facing the renewals pain.

This is why I think flipping it quick is probably a good idea. Or keeper, if the portfolio is kept small.

Edit: When I appraise a domain, I don't only put in the retail value, but also mix with the chance of selling. If chance is low, a market rate / quick flip makes much more sense. Hope this explains it.

Thank you. The noise to signal concept is very interesting. Yes, now I see that the likelihood of meeting an end-user buyer in the near future is probably very very low.

How do you flip domains? Just by setting a very low price or you also need to post that domain on some particular marketplace used by flippers?

 

[twiki]

Thank you. The noise to signal concept is very interesting. Yes, now I see that the likelihood of meeting an end-user buyer in the near future is probably very very low.

How do you flip domains? Just by setting a very low price or you also need to post that domain on some particular marketplace used by flippers?

You got the term wrong. Flipping just means you buy something and then sell it without waiting a very long time. Used mostly by those who find things cheap and then sell them on Ebay etc.

It can be a low price but it also can be a high price if you spotted a gem. Just having it sold soon for a profit, either big or small.

 

[MatiasG]

You got the term wrong. Flipping just means you buy something and then sell it without waiting a very long time. Used mostly by those who find things cheap and then sell them on Ebay etc.

It can be a low price but it also can be a high price if you spotted a gem. Just having it sold soon for a profit, either big or small.

Makes sense, thanks!

 

[MatiasG]

'CommercialToResidential.com' actually could be used. There is going to be an upswing in commercial property being converted to residential property - do you see the connection?

With the downturn in the High Street and the shortage of housing this is one aspect whereby you may have hit on a trend you didn't realise exists in the housing market. Imagine listing properties in towns that are being converted from commercial units to residential, whereby the interior can basically be custom designed to the clients requirements, especially in towns and cities whereby the centres have social activities seen as attractive to potential home owners.

Just saying you might have got a sleeper there.

Agree, @TheBaldOne, I registered CommercialToResidential.com for that reason. Because I thought the upswing in commercial property bein converted to res could make this kind of domain desirable in the near future.

But it is also true that the domain name is not that great. A bit too long. And as @twiki says a bit too much noise to signal for end-users to actually think of it and actullay type it in the Godaddy box and find my for sale there.

I also registered at the same time ConvertCommercial.com. But I think it has the same pros and cons. Too much noise to signal... But let's see. I'm selling both at $299 so let's see if somebody is interested in either of them over the next 12 months.

And I was even tempted to register Residentializer.com (because ResidentializE.com, the really good one, was of course, already registered), but I found it a bit ugly in the end and maybe not that "sexy" for construction companies who transforms commercial into residential as it sounds like a cleaning product or a bug killer or something like that with that "ER" sound at the end.

But hey, it's still there to register if anyone thinks it's a good domain. Actually I kinda love it in the sense that it's a one-worder and unlike the two domains I registered, probably some end-user will type it in the Godaddy search box sooner or later. But I must stop buying domains because I'm a newbie and haven't sold yet a single domain. So I must not buy any more domains until I make at least one sale!

 

[TheBaldOne]

@MatiasG - Just listened to BoJo's speech and read the write ups. It seems that there is going to be a huge change on regulations with regard for conversions of commercial to residential property. Perhaps this could alter the prospects for your domain CommercialToResidential.com.

 

[MatiasG]

@MatiasG - Just listened to BoJo's speech and read the write ups. It seems that there is going to be a huge change on regulations with regard for conversions of commercial to residential property. Perhaps this could alter the prospects for your domain CommercialToResidential.com.

Just read it. Thanks for letting me know. Let's hope they do the same in the US!