A large part of the hype imo, was connected to the very real possibility (now an actuality) that a very large ROI could be made easily by buying a name/s before the LLLL.coms ran out, or shortly thereafter. This has proven to have been worthy of said hype, as we see most LLLL.coms regged before November fetching ~ 2x regfee or more.
For a little over $10000, I was able to purchase 1546 LLLL.coms between August and November 2nd. To purchase those same 1546 LLLL.coms today would likely cost ~ $30,000 (if they were owned by a willing seller).
As far as the future is concerned, I guess what to do now really depends on how much you have invested in LLLL.coms...
I'm expecting a price increase of approximately 10% between now and January 2008. I'm fairly confident our min wholesale will have hit $15 by then (up from ~$10 now).
For many people, a 10% increase in the value of their LLLL.coms over 6 weeks would be insignificant.. I certainly wouldn't be looking to buy 1 or 2 LLLL.coms now so I could get a whopping 10% return in a couple months... :lol:
But... To us big holders, a small increase yields incredible results. A 10% increase in the value of my LLLL.coms come January would make me ~$3000. Don't know about you, but $3000/6 weeks is some pretty good cash
So it all really depends on where you stand... With many of the small timers getting out of LLLL.coms (they made their flips), logically, there will be less hype. Most of us bigger buyers are planning on buying more in the future (or right now) -- why would we hype it up and increase our costs in the process?
Like LLL.coms, we'll likely eventually see the majority of them in the hands of:
a) endusers
b) domain name investment companies (like BuyDomains)
c) professional domainers
An enduser isn't going to resell the name. A company like BuyDomains likely won't either - or at least, not for a long, long time, and a professional domainer will wait for the right offer to come around... The one thing these 3 have in common is that none of them need to hype up LLLL.coms... The enduser is just happy to have the name he/she wanted. The domain name investment company may very well buy more of these names if they have a positive experience with them and aren't looking to resell these to mini-domainers anyway -- hence no reason to hype LLLL.coms up. The professional domainer is just that... A professional. He knows very well what his stock is worth and will sell when he believes the time is right. No reason to hype up the market here -- if he's holding the names, it's because he anticipates future increases in the value of his holdings.
If you look around the forum, it's not too hard to see who's selling and who's not. I haven't seen many "selling 300+ LLLL.com" threads. IMO, people holding less than 300 LLLL.coms regged in 2007 should be coined as casual investors/name flippers*. These guys took a risk, but it wasn't all that great of a risk. They didn't "put their money where their mouth was" in other words.
*I'm not saying this to insult people from third world countries, high school students, college students, those of you who can't get a full time job, etc. Many of you are no doubt very serious about your holdings and treat them just as us larger holders treat ours..
But, for the most part, it isn't my asterisked friends doing the selling - it's domainers who make their money by hedging their risk through flips. Nothing wrong with that... But the time for flips has come and gone -- and so has this group of domainers (on to other things) for the most part.
Time to sit down, have some popcorn, and enjoy the show :tu:
