Should I make offer directly to domain owner in this case?

[kayache]

Network Solutions Domain Grace Period ends in 10 days, and on that 10th day a "Pre-Release" auction begins at Namejet. Namejet shows 35 bidders already. Should I contact the owner and try a direct buy before grace period ends? My fear is that the owner will simply renew and keep or resell for high price. I also fear that other buyers could contact owner and swipe it before auction.

Questions for experienced domainers - with 35 bidders 10 days before pre-release auction, is it likely that other domainers have contacted owner? I'm not in the domain name business, just somebody that want to buy and use this domain, so getting this specific domain is important to me.

 

[hawkeye]

I'm not in the domain name business, just somebody that want to buy and use this domain, so getting this specific domain is important to me

Then pull out the stops and go get it. Either contact the owner and try to buy it, as cheap as possible, or be prepared to 'pay' for it, be it thru the owner, or by hitting the 'new bid' button as often as necessary. The simple bottom line you have to ask and answer yourself is - 'how bad do you want it'!

 

[4better]

Well said by hawkeye. Agree with him.

 

[catchmesleeping]

Right - it really makes you wonder sometimes how so many great domain names just expire. Often times the whois information is completely out of date and the phone numbers don't work anymore - so you really need to work to find the person to contact.

The other problem with contacting someone directly is that, you basically let them know how valuable their domain name is. If someone phoned or emailed me offering $500 for a domain name I was letting expire, I'd really look closely to figure out if it might really be worth more.

 

[dna]

Great names expire when people die.
And they can be really hard to contact.