xman said:
Not really. OK, you got me going now....Bazaar sales of comparable domains is not such a definitive indicator of value IMO. If someone buys a domain in the Bazaar for $30, obviously they think it's worth more than that and intend to sell it at a higher price. So almost by definition domains are (often) worth more than their recent sale price, at least in the mind of the buyer. The mantra "a domain is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it" is not strictly true, because that depends on which "someone" you connect with. You connect with a Bazaar someone and sure this YULM.com is worth $20-40 or whatever, not worth the time it takes to arrange the transfer. But once you connect with the right buyer it could be worth a decent amount of money.
I'm not so much interested in estimating a recent sales price (that's easy, just go to namebio.com) or a slam a $xx reseller valuation for every domain - I'm more interested in trying to figure out the commercial potential in a name.
So in answer to your other questions, I have developed my system to try to estimate both a reseller value and a potential end user value, and then put the appraisal in the right ballpark hopefully reflecting both of those values. Usually this would obviously be somewhere in the middle, but depending on current market conditions this may lean towards one or the other.
Any appraisal, human or machine, is prone to making mistakes, but I've found that my system keeps me in check because it is objective and does not falsely fall in love with a domain name, and on the other hand it may sometimes reveal some hidden value in a name that might not have been obvious to me.
There are numerous incidences where a name had just been appraised here as regfee or low $xx then soon sold for mid and even high $xxx. So while NPr member appraisals are precious, they too can be off.
A domain valuation for YULM.com by my system of USD 337 is therefore a starting point for human assessment; effectively it means that in current market conditions this would not be an unrealistic expectation for a sale to a motivated buyer. A true end user could pay much more, maybe even $x,xxx and a reseller much less, probably low $xx as everybody here quite sensibly suggests.
The nice thing about my system is that once you use it a lot, you start to do all this analysis automatically in your head and you develop an understanding of what that value means. And when inevitably the system is off now and then, you'll know why it's off.
I hope I managed to clear up my appraisal system's background a little bit.
If you are concerned that my system is overoptimistic, let me show some commercial HUMAN appraisals by GoDaddy as compared to my system:
yahooshop.biz
GoDaddy: $218.00 - $632.00
My system says yahooshop.biz $22
wikiwallstreet.com
GoDaddy $118.00 - $342.00
My system: $0
zyr.net
GoDaddy: $3,900.00 - $10,140.00
My system: $1,492
bizpco.com
GoDaddy: $48.00 - $134.00
My system: $0
Anyway, so that's just to show that my system is not that prone to overestimating value. Besides, GD's appraisals have quite a range which always helps...more likely that they guess right from time to time....
Good luck!
Josh
. For me it's basicly pronouncable, but im not sure what it is if you have english/american as a native language.
