I’ve looked through thousands of domains up for sale on Namejet, Flippa, and Godaddy every single day. I read through the broker newsletters. I read through all the sales results. And most importantly I talked to people behind the scenes to see what they were buying and what they were selling. And I’ve come to this. 2014 was a banner year for most seasoned domain investors. If you have been in this industry more than 5 years and have purchased short names and numerics, you made A LOT of money this year. The people that had million dollar profit years are all around you but with little fanfare and they want to keep it that way. It was a great year for you if you held the following types of names. With each type I’ll discuss where I see it headed in 2015 and which side I’m concentrating on in that area.
Sell Side= I am selling more than I am buying or accumulating. Most buys are for quick flips. Sell side does not mean I’m negative
Buy Side= I am buying every good priced name in this area I can afford. Only selling at great returns
Drone Names: It all started with 60 minutes doing a piece on Amazon’s fictitious delivery of packages using drones. Nobody picked up that the article was done Sunday night before Cyber Monday in order to drive sales. All they saw were the cool drones. The prices have been climbing ever since. A ton of hand regs and older names hit the market and the sales prices were all good enough to keep people hunting and selling.
Where I See It Heading in 2015: I think prices in the hand regs and low quality drone names go stagnant and the small handful of top notch drone names rise tremendously in value. No doubt drones are here to stay and will continue to be a part of lives, but the skies and the drone market will be crowded. I’m on the SELL side of this one
NNNN.coms Went Crazy: This could probably have its own article. The people that called for the top of the market looked silly this past year. The NNNN.coms moved to the point that good numbers were over $10K and the bottom was $4K which was the exact same level of LLL.coms at the time (that changed quickly). There is a buyer with the handle named ‘First’ that pretty much bought every numeric he could and can. Paying top dollar at the time and yet he is already way ahead just 6 months later. Every day seems to hit new highs for numerics with the best names with three 8s seeking $250K each. Not selling but seeking. Where I See it Heading in 2015: It has really no where to go up for one reason. You can’t find very many NNNN.coms right now. The supply is dropped to almost nothing because many of the NNNN.coms were bought and put into large portfolios. With only 10,000 names, every day another one is being purchased and put into use. Sellers are keeping their price high because they know that there just aren’t many to buy right now. I see prices going higher just don’t see an active market because so many domains will be held tight. I’m on the BUY side of this model
gTLDS I can’t leave these out. I think the year was rough. Little to no aftermarket for any of the names. Dot club seemed to be the only ones that could generate any positive buzz. Their stocks did poorly as well. Buyers tied up cash flow and realize they are either in for a long term hold or a non renewal. Where I See it Heading in 2015 I think it gets worse before it gets better. With all the price action in the above names, domain investors realized they may have missed out on some of the price increase while they were concentrating on finding new gTLDs. I think renewals will be half of registrations. BUT I alst think there is value in the names, it’s just going to take a while. And I am willing to build cash reserves through investing in other areas and then buying my way into the market later. I look at it like this. Instead of buying season tickets for $3000 a year, I skip the Athletes in Action and Morehead State games and buy scalped front section seats to the best 5 games and still come out ahead. I get to wait and see what the best 5 games are as well. I’ll be part of the gTLD party later, I just don’t know where the party is quite yet so I am going to keep moving until I do..
Full Article: http://domainshane.com/trends-domain-aftermarket-2014-see-2015/There are plenty of other sections and niches that are doing well. Too many to list but there are a few that I am bullish
