opinion Hand Registering Domains Is Not Domain Investing

[DN Playbook]

Admittedly, this may be somewhat a sensationalized title. But hand registering is only a bridge or gateway to investing in domains. This article discusses why. What are your thoughts? Looking forward to them. Here is the link to the article:

Hand Registering Domains Is Not Domain Investing

 

[Clover]

My answer: Depends

If you have the foresight of a trend (NFT, easiest example), then buying up the hand reg "NFT Market" would be considered an investment (it is still the action or process of investing money for profit, that you believe to be prudent ...hopefully)

I give an exception to trends. They pop up, they get registered ...a handful do well

Yeah I was gonna say, claiming something like in the title is just something someone would say to start a debate, and loose. Hand-reg domains can be just as good as any other, you just have to had got them at the right time.

 

[Henry Y]

I think the OP has a misunderstanding about investment. And this thread is actually about portfolio management, not about whether it is investing or not.

Hand registering domains is an investing because domainers want to earn profits by expecting the hand registered domains to increase values in the future, regardless of time period.

Domainers always adjust their portfolios by replacing worse domains by better domains, in an attempt to achieve higher expected returns and lower risks within their cost budgets. Letting a hand registered domain be dropped in 1 or 2 years may be an outcome of portfolio management.

 

[NameFu]

I think people are missing the point of this thread.

Nearly every professional domain investor, including Domain sherpas like Andrew Rosner, Michael Cyger and Rick Shwartz will advise against newbies hand-registering domains.

It's not to say you can't make money with hand registered domains, it's that 99% of new domain investors will LOSE MONEY by hand registering domains. If you don't understand this concept then chances are you are a newb and shouldn't be hand registering domains.

You are wrong. I've seen interviews where Rick Schwartz, Mike Cyger and Andrew Rosener have said that you can make great returns with hand regging. In fact Andrew Rosener is Brokering a domain I hand regged. You are thinking in a strict, formulaic way without reading between the lines. No industry works like that. Don't base your strategy on one liner gimmicks. Look at the whole playing field and think broadly at all of your options as part of your playbook. Millions in hand regged donains sell every year. Be dynamic in your thinking, fluid not stiff and ridged....

 

[HotKey]

Point is, if you don't have experience and knowledge you shouldn't hand register domains.

This is RULE #1 of domain investing.

I kind of disagree with this. Handregging as a newb can be a rite of passage, providing it leads one to domain investing betterment. It can help find your groove within the domainer realm.

And as far as rules, its better to lead with guides. The mindset of a "rule" can cloud newbs with artificial guarentees.

 

[NameFu]

I can see why you're still hand registering names. Best of luck to you!

Purchasing and regging and selling at wholesale prices. Probably doing similar to what you're doing only I'm. Not posting silly clickbait gimmicks on namepros...

 

[Jason Baudendistel]

Not to mention I've seen 20 year old aged garbage with no SEO but it's 20 years old! That's nice shouldn't be the primary factor in your decision.

Many hand registered domains may not worth it but there are many good domains still available for registration. But they have low resale value among resellers because of the stereotype that exists among many domainers regarding the domain age. They feel hand registered domains are worthless just because they are recently registered. They forget the fact that thousands of permutations and combinations are possible in the game of words. Forget the domain age and see domains just from their usage perspective and rate accordingly. Many great brand names, which are two worded, became 'brands' because someone saw some value in them not because of their age. Just think of many two word brand names that exists today and imagine how much a Namepros member would have paid for such domains if they were placed for auction at Namepros. Marketing place a big role. Not age. Hand registered domains appear cheap because they are available. "Diamonds still exist, just hard to find."

 

[tomcarl]

I have names I won at auction $xxx years ago still sitting for $xxxx and I have handregs that sold for $xxxx same year I reg'd them.

 

[boker]

You are prospecting. If you are so lucky then good on you. Would you hang on to those domains and give them to your children as an investment? I am not saying there is no money in prospecting.

But I would postscript that by saying you would be foolish to invest 1K in 100 hand regs. That is gambling because your are assuming a few will sell to make you a 4K profit. What basis do you have for that assumption? If you have expendable income then you can take that risk.

By assumption you mean the same as the guy who bought naturalbeauty for 65k and sold it for 10k a few years latter? How many aftermarket purchases do you have and will never sell? Don't try to convince somebody in something that you believe in, without telling all the facts.

Also, we have to separate the verb from the noun. I invest money in buying a dozen eggs. Those eggs don't make it an investment. The verb has a broad meaning but the noun is more specific.

That's some kind of gibberish?

This is more or less semantics. But if we view our reg's as investments then we should be informed as much as possible before we register them and have a good level of confidence that they will be an asset. Bottom line, don't blow your money. Whether it is .99 or 8.99. Know what you are doing. Hate to see domainers losing money and leaving the business.

You should hate to see people trying to convince others to invest in stuff, when they are not prepared to do so, only to have a few extra views to a book.

 

[twiki]

As I said, thats simply my view of things.

I like to think of an investor as one who spends more capital and intellect but less engagement in businesses, vs an entrepreneur. By engagement I mean sweat and effort.

Applied to domains it translates to acquiring quality domains with a large audience that are going to have good price tags.
Vs. grinding your way using hand regs of all sorts.

First scenario requires more capital, yields guaranteed results.
2nd requires more work, results can be satisfying, but vary (lots of failures).

After experience, Id get rid of the low xxx xxxx domains, just to save time and effort.

You spend $200 per domain.
5000 domain portfolio. $1.000.000 spent.
Quality domains, large audience (can be used in many categories/industries).

$5000 price tag at 1% str would give you 50 sales or 250k per year, 240k profit, 20k per month.

1% str, $5000. Bare minimum.

Finding 50 quality domains per year at 200$ to replace ongoing sales shouldnt be too hard.

I see domain investing as more capital, and intellect. Works if you know what you are doing.

Thats just my view, dont take it personal.

Okay, in such case it's your right to view things as you like, and I will not take things personal. We agree to disagree.

To be more clear why I disagree.

I personally have bets all over the board. I buy domains daily, sometimes as high as close to $1k. $200 are common. But these will take time to sell as you need that retail customer for them. I also get a lot of drops, closeouts, some auctions, make offers on Sedo and Gd etc etc. Also handregs. Everything and everywhere, so I'm all over the board. And this won't likely change soon. Nowadays, drops are still bread and butter but things are changing over time.

My point is, you're drawing some lines in the sand and you're okay to do so - as per your own opinion. I just don't see these lines there. To me, they are quite blurry and the 5K limit doesn't make much sense. With enough research you can handreg a domain that is worth 5-fig (I have some). 5K+ are rather easy to handreg IF you know what to do. And buying names for $200 doesn't necessarily turn you into an investor. Look at DC auctions - many of those domains sold there are heavily overpriced so there's no meat left on the bone.

You also need to understand that the biggest investors haven't paid $200 per domain. They simply regged or bought a ton for cheap and kept them for 15 years or whatever. That makes them NOT investors as per your definition, but given enough time, they become.

There are different types of investment, and regardless of what you think, if you buy domains and plan to hold them for a decade because you know they are indeed valuable, you're an investor not a dealer (buy/sell now).

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

I've been hand regged domains from when I've started, in 2015. My average cost with renewals and acquisitions was under mid xxxx a year and my average sales in a year was mid xxxxx a year. So, I'm making 10x on average every year. Also, at least once a month I'm selling some particular domains for 1000 times more than what I've paid for them. I've had around 500 domains roughly every year. If I scale up even 10 times my portfolio, I'm expecting the same for everything, so with around 5000 domains, I should invest 50k a year for renewals and acquisitions and make under 500k a year. Of course, that will mean to scale up my time spent in domaining as well. Do you have these kind of returns a year with high end acquisitions? Can you sell a domain acquired for xxx-xxxx for 1000 times more?

Thanks for sharing your experience and it's nice to know you're making some great returns!

To be frank, many of my high end purchases are still with me and most of my sales of from $xx/$xxx/$x,xxx purchases.

Yes, the return is great. Like I already mentioned that I spent around $25,000 and made almost $400,000 in sales which is healthy returns. However, the renewals, purchase costs of the ongoing acquisitions and holding time for the entire portfolio have to be considered as well.

 

[xbank]

I am making 100k a year and this year I planned to make it double, so I have a time till december so it's going very well, got 2500 names now the second milestone is to touch 5100 names, which makes the renewal cost 42500 usd a year and $1500 other expenses so it makes 4k a month in renewals and I am currently doing almost $6k a month in sales, so if I double the same way, it will make it around 12k-13k usd a month and the expense would be 4k a month, - around 8k usd in profit a month after paying renewals, not bad at all.

 

[karmaco]

Please do not use this thread to promote useless hand reg's. I am talking to you @xbank. Do you really think someone will buy any of them because you post them here?

He can talk about his perspective on a subject all he wants. Anyone can and you don’t own a thread. Its called a DISCUSSION not a LECTURE by you.

 

[Silentptnr]

Day traders are not investors. They are traders. And crypto is so new that people buy into it due mostly to hype. Whether something is an investment or is a short-term money grab or a complete loss doesn't determine whether you are an investor or not. Your can have a mix of investments, quick flips, and many losses. But just because I register asdasadsdas.com doesn't make me an investor. Decisions must be made on real world data, win or lose.

Real world data is not always reliable. Investing is not a science. If it were, everyone would be millionaires. Education is paramount, but I think there is always an element of luck in investing. I do believe there is a difference between short term investing and long term investing, but both are investing. Bottom line, I do believe hand registering domain names is investing contrary to the post title. If I register a name today and it sells a month later (which really does happen), it was still an investment even though it was gone in a month. I don't decline to sell if the price is right just because I just got the domain. Just so I can call myself an investor. I think your distinction is collector versus investor. A collector invests for appreciation and may or may not ever sell. An investor buys with the intent to sell for a higher price.

 

[HotKey]

@Cocoonbay The debate of profit margins from hand-regs versus profits from aftermarket acquisitions is a separate one. Investments are based on available data, the experience of the domainer and intent, IMO. If the domain in the mind of the domainer is not worth hanging on to or develop then it was a gamble. If you don't see value in it, then how can you expect someone else to. The fact is that it is so easy to register many domains, especially with the .99c offers floating around, that one can easily be tempted to register worthless names, not sell any or just a few for a few bucks, then give up feeling that domaining is a waste of time. There has to be thought involved, irregardless of quick profits. But just saying "I registered a bunch of new names, therefore I am a domain investor" is fooling yourself, IMO. There is more involved than just simply reg'ing a domain.

I get what you're saying, but I think you're quantifying domain investing with initial domain worth. Regardless of whether someone chooses how quick to drop or how cheap the domain was acquired for shouldn't really determine whether or not it was an investment. Really, even if one acquired the domain for free it could still be considered an investment.. even time put into it is something of an investment.

Most this stuff can get worn down to the point of the apples and oranges idiom unless we choose to consider that investing is investing, whether it be via time money or both or how much of it and the path taken to get to it. Proper diligence is always the better path, but it doesn't necessarily negate the trail-blazers whom look to the unknown. Even with a map, there's always unforeseen circumstances.

I am for smart hand-registration investments, not influenced by spur of the moment cheap registrar offerings. But if price was a determinant in that hand-reg, does it remove the investment factor? What does that say for registry premium pricing? Are we just going to assume that they know value from the get-go?

 

[lovely4ever]

2999 usd for all, all hand reggd recently .. some of my new hand reggs for today are:

FamousPlan.com
IntelDream.com
DualFarm.com
MightyAge.com
UpSavers.com
PlanCharge.com
PartnerNext.com
PlanCraze.com
Fundtize.com
FundGross.com
Zamaster.com
PlayerTrip.com
MartAction.com
EternaliQ.com
Defenday.com
Purtix.com
Purvix.com
Ofext.com
Ofrox.com
Safeck.com
ExcellentGo.com
Defendax.com
UpTales.com
SystemClan.com
WinFairy.com
OrderDream.com
IdealLaunch.com


and 50's more .. things going good for me touching 20k in sales a month with mostly hand reggs

Gongrats for your sales
i think what help in increasing your sales is that you sell at low XXX range .

.

 

[OhYeah]

It depends.

I sometimes hand reg names and trust me, I've sold lots of that. Hundreds.

The other thing to mention is that preowned domains perform better overall. But there is a business in manual regs, especially in forward-looking niches that you are 100% sure will be there. There are a couple I invest in and have a few tens of names which are being renewed as the niche grows.

Same here. Research is the key, just hand-regging a domain or buying it from auction doesn't mean anything. Auction name can suck, handreg can be great and vice versa.

 

[oldtimer]

My answer: Depends

If you have the foresight of a trend (NFT, easiest example), then buying up the hand reg "NFT Market" would be considered an investment (it is still the action or process of investing money for profit, that you believe to be prudent ...hopefully)

I give an exception to trends. They pop up, they get registered ...a handful do well

You might be right if you were able to have consistent number of sales every month to be able to maintain a large enough portfolio that you could make a living off of.

But in most cases the only reason that we are able to hand register a half decent domain is because soneone else didn't have the financial stability and the staying power to be able to hold on to their domains and had to let them drop.

Most domainers (including me ) are struggling just to break even because most don't have enough number of the kind of investment grade domains that would guarantee them a profit on a consistent basis.

Our hats should be off to the few lucky domainers who are able to make a profit on a consistent basis because it is a really hard thing to achieve.

IMO

 

[oldtimer]

It depends.

I sometimes hand reg names and trust me, I've sold lots of that. Hundreds.

The other thing to mention is that preowned domains perform better overall. But there is a business in manual regs, especially in forward-looking niches that you are 100% sure will be there. There are a couple I invest in and have a few tens of names which are being renewed as the niche grows.

We all know that you have a proven track record when it comes to making consistent sales, but in a way you are the exception since domain sales seems to be very sporadic and inconsistent for the majority of domainers.

IMO

 

[noneisnone]

@enterscope bad comparison from the start on your part ;D
i know guys that are holding tens of acers of land from 1980 with no price increase and some guys that bought 2 acres of land couple of years ago that got 500% price increase it is all about foreseeing the future )

 

[bmugford]

I largely agree with the premise of this post.

Sure there are exceptions to the rule, but with more than 160+ million .COM registered, the vast majority of what is left is garbage.

You might find a decent one here or there, especially in emerging fields. However, it is hard to build a repeatable business model on that.

I think a lot of people go down the rabbit hole of buying domains because they were available. They are usually available for a reason. You end up collecting more liabilities than assets.

Brad

 

[sbweb]

No. Many, if not most, register domains with the hope that someone else sees value in them and pull out their wallets. We're talking about hand regs still.

No. I am stating that investing happens when you see a clear value in a domain and are willing to hang on to it year after year when a fire sale does not occur.

Yep. With domains, like real estate, you have number of options to profit from them. Not just outright sale. When I write investment, I mean profit, not losses. So people who bought into stocks, crypto, etc, and then lost on those then it wasn't investment, it was junk. They speculated or rolled the dice just like hand reg'ing. Investment makes itself clear as valuation or returns increase over time. In the case of stocks or crypto, you can pull out early and minimize losses but then you don't see value in hanging on to them. Or, if you have understanding of the markets and can see the value, you may decide to storm the weather and hang on.

The bottom line is you have to have an understanding of the value of a domain. You have to see the way it can increase profit or material assets in a real world setting. You can play investing like you play slots at a Vegas casino but is that really investing?

But how do you know how someone else is thinking? What if someone sees value in 100 hand regs? They might seem worthless to you, but to someone there may be value there. For example, when I hand reg a domain, I not only look at resell possibilities, but also development potential. So it has value to me. Domain value isn't black and white, there's some subjectivity.

It sounds like you're trying to re-invent the meaning of investing to fit your narrative of "domain investing". Investing isn't guaranteed. Investing has risk no matter how safe it is.

 

[M.Rovert]

Why would it not be investing?
Because you do not "invest" more than a hang reg fee?
One can invest in reading, listening to podcast, looking for trends and making research. So it is not only money that one can consider as an investment. (time=money)
Say you reg a domain 4 months ago for the reg fee, because you saw some value in it, you would not consider that as an investment?
Four months later I see the value you saw before me and i spend "x" amount on it, and buy it from you, then yes that would qualify as investing?
Same goes for drops. Plenty of them go for way much higher amount on bids, that it was actually the asking price of the seller before it was left unrenewed. But that is investing (smart investing) ¿?
I dont really care the tag or name one decides to put on the way one gets or holds on to domains.
Same for any asset, like virtual land or any other NFT. How much Ethereum would you of payed for a Cryptopunk in 2017? or even 6 months back? or on a Bored Ape? CryptoPhunks have been delisted from Opensea and Rareble (now relisted on this last one) because Larba Labs sent a DMCA. Could that add value to that project? Maybe yes, maybe no? Nothing is certain on its initial stages, same as for domains.
In a nutshell, hand reg does not mean the opposite on investment by any means.

 

[elevator]

Look I completely disagreed with your point. All domains are once hand regs, can you show me any good domains that were not once hand reg ?
According to endglish dictionary:
An investment is essentially an asset that is created with the intention of allowing money to grow. ... Investment may generate income for you in two ways. One, if you invest in a saleable asset, you may earn income by way of profit.

It is not all investment that can yield interest or profit incase you invest on bad property or goods or whatsoever, it is not likely for you to make money from bad investment.

So such could be the case of bad domain names when you invest on bad domain names.
We have seen new or hand reg domains that sold big and we have seen some valuable names that sold at loss of capital.

Don't forget that brandable domains are mostly hand reg domains and companies like brandbucket and squadhelp and etc do registered many hand regs and they are making their cool money on daily basis.

What you can tell me that I will agree with you is that; before you can go on domaining busness or call it investment; you must know what makes up a valuable domains. So if you invest on valuable domain names, be it hand reg or old, you are very sure of making money out of it.

 

[lock]

All my names were hand registered oh well. Same logic means you need to wait for someone to delete perfectly good domains.

 

[NameFu]

I see nothing wrong with a mixture of purchasing and regging, especially for a beginner or someone with low funds. It's all investing if he/she can make returns..