It's Hard to buy good name now.

[GeorgeQuang]

Hey everyone, i'm just a rookie. I started investing in Domain late - 2017, so i just have a small portfolio ( about 400 domains). Recently, i realized that it's too hard to buy a good name now. Why ?
1> GoDaddy Expired Auctions : as you know, HugeDomains gets 40% -50% good domains, 20-30% will belong to big players ( who has big pocket - huge capital to burn), and the rest belong to us. You can see some names below with their prices.
ensureit.com $175
searchmind.com $295
deyde.com $215
ablepower.com $425
aceadvisory.com $117
innovacenter.com $120
bellecreative.com $127
crownalliance.com $127
corptex.com $273
2> Dropped List : nowaday, we can't find many high quality domain names on dropped list because of the increasing of Drop Catching systems.
- With individual domainers: they prefer to pay 59$-79$ for the name that they think it good enough than wait and reg it on Dropped List.
- With Domain Companies: they have their own Registers, so that they can catch expired names quickly. And the rest in Dropped list almost are junks.
3> Auctions : people now become crazy in bidding war. They are willing to pay more and more money for a name that has bids despite its quality. If you want to get a good one, you must pay more 30-40% than before.
Domain's price now is crazy.
So what do you think ?

 

[fatter]

I agree with op its extremely tough to make a profit today with dropped domains auctions,. I have never bought a domain I only reg them, I keep a small portfolio, so I can always be in the black, in fact some of the names I let drop over the years or sold to low at auctions I could have made another 50k, but I decided to keep a small portfolio. There are plenty of niches to invest in but you have to be one of the first ones on the bandwagon to make a good profit. Just a brief analysis is I had mountDenali.com for years till I let it drop, then president Obama decided one day to change the name from mount mckinnley to mount denali, the indian name, it was always mount denali park, I didn't realize the president could change the name so quickly. I have about 20 of those stories over the years so for every hit I have 10 misses. Not to go on forever, but my main point is keeping a small portfolio means its easier for me to stay in the black, I have seen thousands of businesses go out of business because they overshot in there expansions, This year I expect to have 40 names tops.I do this for side income and not as my primary job, if it was my primary job I would have lost my(beautiful) wife of 38 years, declared bankruptcy and lost my home and everything else.
Joe T

 

[frank-germany]

Or

I agree with op its extremely tough to make a profit today with dropped domains auctions,. I have never bought a domain I only reg them, I keep a small portfolio, so I can always be in the black, in fact some of the names I let drop over the years or sold to low at auctions I could have made another 50k, but I decided to keep a small portfolio. There are plenty of niches to invest in but you have to be one of the first ones on the bandwagon to make a good profit. Just a brief analysis is I had mountDenali.com for years till I let it drop, then president Obama decided one day to change the name from mount mckinnley to mount denali, the indian name, it was always mount denali park, I didn't realize the president could change the name so quickly. I have about 20 of those stories over the years so for every hit I have 10 misses. Not to go on forever, but my main point is keeping a small portfolio means its easier for me to stay in the black, I have seen thousands of businesses go out of business because they overshot in there expansions, This year I expect to have 40 names tops.I do this for side income and not as my primary job, if it was my primary job I would have lost my(beautiful) wife of 38 years, declared bankruptcy and lost my home and everything else.
Joe T

Or..
you would be fatter ...

 

[stewmath]

I am struggling to get good names nowadays as i dont have the capital to pay vast sums for mega good names

 

[Kuffy]

I always seem to be able to find a usable name for a project. I've just bought a second hand van, and I intend to convert it into a camper over the next year of so, and I thought that I would run a blog on the project, there are loads of these sites, but they seem to be popular. I managed to find OffgridCamper.com on an old drop list, so I reg'd that. It's not a great name, but it's a perfectly usable name for a project like this. The availability of usable names that can be picked up for reg fee makes it difficult to charge much for names like these.

Sometimes I wonder if it would be better to offer a name finding service, and thus avoid the cost of holding a large stock of names.

 

[fatter]

I always seem to be able to find a usable name for a project. I've just bought a second hand van, and I intend to convert it into a camper over the next year of so, and I thought that I would run a blog on the project, there are loads of these sites, but they seem to be popular. I managed to find OffgridCamper.com on an old drop list, so I reg'd that. It's not a great name, but it's a perfectly usable name for a project like this. The availability of usable names that can be picked up for reg fee makes it difficult to charge much for names like these.

Sometimes I wonder if it would be better to offer a name finding service, and thus avoid the cost of holding a large stock of names.

There used to be a site that paid 50 bucks if you suggested names that users regged,based on there business model, after about 10 suggestions I stopped doing it. But I believe you are right a memorable name is usually available for reg fee. On a side note it cracks me up when I see email addresses used, like [email protected] ever try and email people with the craziest emailaddress most of the times there fullname and a number or two are available but they choose a name that only someone with a photogenic memory could remember. These same people come up with domain names and see nothing wrong with them.
JoeT

 

[Templr]

be a bottom-feeder
cuz as Clint Eastwood said as Josey Wales...."maggots gotta eat too"

Classic!
The only maggots I've got are on the end of a hook.

 

[dr manos]

GeorgeQuang said: ↑
3> I read the article that mentioned " ICANN will shut down over 800 registers to avoid Catching domains so quickly" in May -2017, but now i still can not hear any news about this. I hope they will do it, so that the Dropped List will contain more quality domains like it used to be.




What has, number of registrars that dropcatch, to do with the quality of the dropping list.
Drop list will be the same.

Quality of the drop list, that is more and more poor (regarding old gtlds and cctlds) depends
on number of registrars that send their expired names to auctions before redemption period so will never drop.
And day by day more registrars do it in order to get more profit.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Although it's getting harder compare to past in terms of buying quality domain at cheap but it's more difficult to sell a quality domain.

Before a domain of XYZ quality you used to get for $500 has gone up to $2,000. The difficult part is you are paying additional $1,500 for every domain of that quality and holding it for no fixed period (which is always the case) makes an investor more impatient as more money is involved and return isn't coming with flow.

Also one thing I have noticed for least couple of years or so that domain prices have gone up in auction houses but endusers have not started paying the prices what the domain actually deserves for. That's bonus frustration

 

[jideofor]

Money is truly needed to stay afloat in this business

HD is frustrating everyone... if not, selling domains could have been much easier.

 

[Kuffy]

Aren't HD pushing up the price of domain names?

 

[jideofor]

Aren't HD pushing up the price of domain names?

certainly.. i really do not like that company one bit

 

[GeorgeQuang]

Although it's getting harder compare to past in terms of buying quality domain at cheap but it's more difficult to sell a quality domain.

Before a domain of XYZ quality you used to get for $500 has gone up to $2,000. The difficult part is you are paying additional $1,500 for every domain of that quality and holding it for no fixed period (which is always the case) makes an investor more impatient as more money is involved and return isn't coming with flow.

Also one thing I have noticed for least couple of years or so that domain prices have gone up in auction houses but endusers have not started paying the prices what the domain actually deserves for. That's bonus frustration

Yes, it's true. The cost of investing in this industry is increasing day by day, but the end users won't pay for the extra fees.
And let's imagine, if you have 500 quality names , which you must pay at least $100 in Expired Auctions for each, so total cost is : $50 000 and there are no guarantees that you can sell them fast, maybe must hold them for a long time.

 

[GeorgeQuang]

What has, number of registrars that dropcatch, to do with the quality of the dropping list.
Drop list will be the same.

Quality of the drop list, that is more and more poor (regarding old gtlds and cctlds) depends
on number of registrars that send their expired names to auctions before redemption period so will never drop.
And day by day more registrars do it in order to get more profit.

Oh yes, but running their own auctions platform is too difficult ( as you can see, DynaDot's expired Auctions contains almost junks, just 5% of them are quality enough to invest).
So the registrars have another choices : sending their domains to the 3rd party like TuCows is doing : sending their expired domains to NameJet ( they sent to GD before).
But for registrars that don't have more expired name everyday, i think it's better to them to let them dropped than trying to sell them at Auctions.
And the game will back to 2000s, if ICANN can shuts down over 800 registrars as they said.

 

[Dominic Belley]

And let's imagine, if you have 500 quality names , which you must pay at least $100 in Expired Auctions for each, so total cost is : $50 000 and there are no guarantees that you can sell them fast, maybe must hold them for a long time.

That is for sure.
A smart thing a domainer should ask himself before buying a domain is " Do I need the money ? "

If the answer is YES : Buy a liquid domain. You will be able to quickly recover the money when needed.
If the answer is NO : It opens the door to buy non-liquid domain and you feel comfortable with the fact that you might not recover that money for several years.

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Yes, it's true. The cost of investing in this industry is increasing day by day, but the end users won't pay for the extra fees.
And let's imagine, if you have 500 quality names , which you must pay at least $100 in Expired Auctions for each, so total cost is : $50 000 and there are no guarantees that you can sell them fast, maybe must hold them for a long time.

Also not all domains will sell in most of our lifetime. So those extra cost will always be there.
As the prices are increasing, the return on investment will go down overall. But every now and then we will be seeing sales which are very much attractive due to which many domainers jump into this game thinking they can also buy a name at $10 and sell it for 5K.

 

[mpls]

...
That's right but you need money to buy food, drinks and pay bills. Patience does not make more money in short-term
...

Yes, everybody need money now to pay bills and food now. And renewals.

Become a full time domainer you need a lot of money. It is possible you can stay 2 or more years (like me) without any sale.

You can have sales in $ XXX range (success it is a sale, but you can pay only a dinner at resturnat, how can you live?), max XXXX range (you can stay "secure" for 1 or 2 months).

At the end, newbie, please, don't left your work until you'll have money to stay 2 / 3 years secure, if you want to became a full time domainer.

And this rule is valid also for LL coms owner, high value domains are hard to sell, you can stay 2 / 3 / 4 / ... years before sell an LL com.

While you're waiting how can you live? With a job.

A job.

 

[GeorgeQuang]

Yes, everybody need money now to pay bills and food now. And renewals.

Become a full time domainer you need a lot of money. It is possible you can stay 2 or more years (like me) without any sale.

You can have sales in $ XXX range (success it is a sale, but you can pay only a dinner at resturnat, how can you live?), max XXXX range (you can stay "secure" for 1 or 2 months).

At the end, newbie, please, don't left your work until you'll have money to stay 2 / 3 years secure, if you want to became a full time domainer.

And this rule is valid also for LL coms owner, high value domains are hard to sell, you can stay 2 / 3 / 4 / ... years before sell an LL com.

While you're waiting how can you live? With a job.

A job.

It's true, buddy.
For newbies, Domaining should be a Investing Tools like bonds, stocks, gold, Bitcoin.etc. than a job. Because it takes lot of time to learn, try and fail to get experience. But the most important factor is it costs lot of money. The fairy tale about buying $9 domain on Dropped List and flipping for XX XXX is in the past.

 

[mpls]

It's true, buddy.
For newbies, Domaining should be a Investing Tools like bonds, stocks, gold, Bitcoin.etc. than a job. Because it takes lot of time to learn, try and fail to get experience. But the most important factor is it costs lot of money. The fairy tale about buying $9 domain on Dropped List and flipping for XX XXX is in the past.

Yes, this is the truth.

I'm an enterpreneur, a software engineer, a consultant and, AT THE END I'm a domainer.

Domains could be an hobby (or an investment) until you make sales in 6 figures, (5 figures min.).

When you'll have $ XXX,XXX you can start to thing to quit your job and spend all your time in domain industry.

Until that moment you've to find alternative ways to live.



P.S. These statements are valid if you live in a country where you need at least 2k / 3k every SINGLE month to live, if you live in a country where salaries are $ 300 a month you can live with domaining.
In my country with $ 300 a month you pay a parking for your car, or a dinner at resturant.

 

[GeorgeQuang]

Yes, this is the truth.

I'm an enterpreneur, a software engineer, a consultant and, AT THE END I'm a domainer.

Domains could be an hobby (or an investment) until you make sales in 6 figures, (5 figures min.).

When you'll have $ XXX,XXX you can start to thing to quit your job and spend all your time in domain industry.

Until that moment you've to find alternative ways to live.



P.S. These statements are valid if you live in a country where you need at least 2k / 3k every SINGLE month to live, if you live in a country where salaries are $ 300 a month you can live with domaining.
In my country with $ 300 a month you pay a parking for your car, or a dinner at resturant.

In my country , with $300 you can live well and pay bills It's an advantage, but also have problems with English abilities, Gov policies .etc.
But the most terrible thing is : i work from 8:PM to 5:AM oh dear @@ and i sleep when people start their workday

 

[Arca]

Reseller competition and prices for names at NJ/GD/drop are constantly increasing. That trend is probably not going to reverse anytime soon.

In 2018, we'll miss how cheap names were in 2017.

A lot of people who are struggling with fierce competition at venues like GD, NJ and dropcatch are probably going to be priced out of the reseller market after some time, or only be able to replenish their inventory with very limited quantities of quality names due to high costs.

Large portfolio holders and corporates are going to dominate even more than they're doing now, while part time/hobby domainers are going to find it increasingly difficult to make money. Right now, working hard, moving as many names as possible and taking the opportunity to take money of the table whenever an end-user materializes, and reinvesting in more and better names, in order to be able to keep up with prices in the reseller market is imperative for future success in domain investing. Competition is fierce, but there are still lots of opportunities for buying good names at decent prices if you work for it consistently. Domainers who do not manage to keep up with these developments are largely going to get left behind, as reseller prices are only going to increase further in the coming years.