I have been a fan of Sahar Sarid since 2009 when I first started blogging. I respect him as much as anyone in the industry. He was the blog I read every time its been posted. But he and Theo of DomainGang are officially the Bears of the Chinese market. And I think they are wrong. Even more, I hope they are wrong. Ironically Sahar has made a ton of money from the Chinese increase in value so he has no need, or shouldn’t want a downturn in the market. I believe he is making a purely economic judgement. He may be right. If you base it on common economics he has to be right. Everyone who’s invested in the stock market is reminded daily because they have recently lost 20% of everything they had in the last few months.
But I will point out one thing. If the Chinese domain market collapses, domain names overall will collapse. The amount of end user purchases in our market is very very small. Our market is 90% driven by domain owners buying names from each other in hopes of selling it to more. The increase in other categories has been funded with sales to China. Godaddy, Sedo, Namejet and Flippa have virtually no end user sales. Those tens of millions of dollars are speculation. Nearly every purchase of one word dot or short dot com has either come from a Chinese investor or money that was probably made from the sale to a Chinese investor. Take that away and the money coming in, our market dries up and prices plummet.
I don’t think either Theo or Sahar wish for a market collapse. They are merely trying to warn people from putting all their money into the speculative market. But ironically the people that have the most to lose are the LLL.com and other short super premium names. Those are going to be the real drops in prices. Because those were at $5K to $15K. Now they are at $18K to $100K . That will be a hard fall. The guy that put a few K into LLLL.infos, he’s probably going to be OK. Just because he’s only going to lose a few thousand.
Again, I don’t think any of this will be a hard fall. If we are to see a pullback it will be a lack of buyers, a lack of hitting reserves. A simple can’t sell it for what you put in to it. But there will also most likely be a person that thinks its just a dip. That will happen a few times until their are a few more dips that take all the dip believers out. But this isn’t the stock market. We’re setting precident here and its going to be a fun ride setting it. I’ll talk to you at the end of the year to see if my LLLL.coms are worth less than today. Not to mention 88888888888888888888888888888888888888.com that I bought this week. That I can almost guarantee will be worth less. But I’ve already had $40 worth of fun talking about the purchase. Check back later on this one. Here are todays names. Click to see current prices.
CarbonSteel.com I worked in a carbon steel tube factory. A ton of dirty oily money in that business. 17 years old and I think it makes a good brand on its own
DanielFaulkner.com This one is over $1200. Not sure why its so expensive. Has some backlinks and a PR 4. Faulkner was a murdered policeman
ScrapBin.com 17 years old. I can think of a few good uses for this memorable domain
AcneDoctor.com Millions of teens around the world are looking to spend money on acne treatments
LifeIsMagic.com Sounds like a Doug Henning T-Shirt
TheThingy.com Funny brand for $12. Resale value is obviously questionable
XIXY.com Looks Chinese. That’s good enough for me
583.info I am not a buyer but glad to see any numeric getting bids like this. I like liquidity, wherever it’s at
BigBoxStore.com I hope this gets purchased by a small independent. Gets 1500 visits per month
OPLN.com This is a solid name. Great letters. The vowel is merely a discount
Zanada.com The nice version of Canada
AIVG.com, NUAY.com, FLXA.com, CUVB.com and SROZ.com There are a lot of lower end LLLL.coms on the board today. Buy a boat and let the water rise. Or something like that
StrengthPlan.com No bidders at $12 on this fitness domain
BottleFed.com Fun brand. Or just an anti-breastfeeding campaign. One bidder at $12
DNS.cc There is a group of premium LLL.ccs today. I think they are good investments. But don’t listen to me or you’ll go broke and have to start working at China King refilling the little magazines that show local real estate for sale
Call.cc This isn’t one of them. But still a very nice name
LLL.cc One of the better LLL.cc you can buy. Actually it is THE LLL.cc
RRR.cc And one more
818858.com Super 6N.com Starts, ends, and filled with 8s
03166.com Zero for the discount, 66 for the win
WXWZ.com The Chinese are going to eat this up. Or a middle aged man from the Midwest. One of the two will
Gif.cc You can get a lot of traffic with a Gif site. No money but tons of traffic
HTM.cc Not anywhere near the price of the triple repeaters but hanging in there
84244.com Lots of fours. Lower end of the market but the 8 keeps it off the bottom
BTDH.net, DKFR.net, BTDH.net, FTSG.net, QWXC.net A little something for all you LLLL.net buyers
Jason.cc Worth $100 as an email IMO
HotGirlNow.com Pretty sure I already saw this domain on the top of a Taxi in Las Vegas
RH28.com One bidder at $12. The 8 makes it worth more than $8 IMO RF18.com Also at $12
ISU.com Closes later tonight. Said it before. I think of Illinois State University
PetCareServices.org Dot org is ehh, but like the keywords
HFH.com I thought the opening bid was pretty close to value
Compliment.com Love this one. Such a pleasant name.
PFPD.com Repeating Ps. Flippa has had some of the lower sales in CHiPs, which is good for one side of the transaction
Clarification.com 18 years old. Perfect journalist blog or website. The listing and I have the same amount of description
8886988.com 8 months old and at $800. Gotta love domain investing
DowntonAbbey.com A little late on the sale now that its over
FOR OTHER GREAT NAMES FOR SALE MAKE SURE TO VISIT CAX.COM
5233.com Over under of $39,000
SWH.com All good Chinese letters and you know what happens when you have good Chinese letters. That’s right, Nat Cohen buys it
ILLS.com We all get them. I actually don’t like this one. Felt the pressure of all the bids to put it on the list
Meetz.com Dating site. We’re all thinking it
Vandelay.com Going to have to outbid George Costanza on this one. Mike S will buy this. The biggest Seinfeld fan I know.
ConfortSpa.com Because PainfulSpa.com just doesn’t have the same ring
YLR.org, YBW.org, ZLN.org There are more than 20 LLL.orgs today. These are my favorite three but there are probably others that are going to do better
988939.com A higher than average 6n. I’m a bidder
Have a name at auction and need more exposure? Send me an email. (if you have trouble with the contact form its shane@ this domain name) I Charge $10 per name per day. We may be able to help. If you have an auction you want to promote, email us for details.*All names chosen by me, Shane . (ie you click through and purchase a name you like) or an occasional paid listing. Everything I say is based on my own research or is opinion. Do your own due diligence. That means look it up yourself if you don’t think the stats or my opinion is correct. I hand choose my names but I am paid to make this list by both the auction houses, individuals that are auctioning names, and Godaddy affiliate links. Keep that in mind and only buy names that YOU think are good investments
Great selection, Shane!
Acnedoctor – this has a smell of money on it.
Lifeismagic – that’s a magic domain.
“Our market is 90% driven by domain owners buying names from each other in hopes of selling it to more…… Godaddy, Sedo, Namejet and Flippa have virtually no end user sales. Those tens of millions of dollars are speculation.”
Thank you Shane for acknowledging the elephant in the room.
I want to add to my rather cryptic comment so no one takes it the wrong way….. Although Shane is bullish on CHIPs and puts his money/domains where is mouth is. He’s also issued periodic warnings for those that are listening: Invest with your eyes wide open.
Everyone knows that a hockey stick rise in pricing for CHIPs is not sustainable. The million dollar question is how far will it go? Despite the many cautions from people like Andrew/Shane on Domain Sherpa and the newsletters by Giuseppe at GGRG.com, many newbies will chase the dream of get-rich-quick in the last leg up of this trend. Many will get stuck with no chair when the Chinese music stops playing. Nothing goes up forever. All markets have cycles. The best case scenario is that at some point there is a minor pullback and consolidation before further, (possibly more measured) upside. Maybe that has already happened. No one can say until we look back 6-12 months from now. Domaining is speculative. CHIPs are VERY speculative and that’s why the pros like Drew and Shane have a fall back plan that preserves their initial investment. IE their 4Ls are also brandables or their recent purchases are being ‘free-rolled’ on profits made from prior flips etc. There are many ways to skin the CHIPs cat but having a fall back – worst case scenario – plan to preserve capital, is key…….. So that’s what I meant by ‘thanks for IDing the elephant in the room.’ Some newbies may be unaware of that very real dynamic to our industry and I appreciate someone like Shane coming out and saying it. Peace! May we all prosper! 🙂
Domain Gang have been bear on the Chinese market for at least 6 months, especially Theo and in that time they have increased exponentially. No doubt they will claim they were right, when the inevitable correction comes. No asset increases in value in a straight line, whats more important is the trend and the trend for at least 6 months has been up and is very unlikely to drop to pre July 2015 levels. So on this one they have been wrong.
Some of the budgets I’ve seen posted for Chip domains, even non .coms, have been huge. I think some people underestimate the number of people and dollars that will be chasing domains this year. People forget how big China is.
Your right on.
China growth rate was around 6.8% for 2015, expected to be around 6.5 for 2016. US would kill for that. Our last 4th quarter 0.7. The total shipments for mobile phones for iphones was up 33% last quarter in China, total overall sales for mobile is off the charts. They need domains just like everyone else.
Then we got India coming up next, this is going to be competitive for many years world wide.
Myself I picked up about 40 LLNN and NNLL over past 3 months. but it will break me @25 each, if market goes down. But a 3 letter or 3 or 4 number would hurt dollar wise if that is all you where holding…
Some may have sold early last year and would like to see the “bubble” burst, rather than see their sold domains increase in value. I think that’s part of these bubble calls. I bet they want to be able to say “I told you so” so bad it hurts. Meanwhile inquiries and offers for my chip domains have all gone only UP in 2016.
There’s a lot to be said for both sides of the argument in terms of which way it’s going from here.
Average 4l.com chips have gone nowhere but down for months now which presents an issue for big chip holders who bought in pretty much anytime the last 3 or so months, whether to be patient and hold or to cash in now for a loss.
If the latter continues to happen in a serious way then we have a real problem IMO. The same applies to other spaces that have seen a correction for a sustained period now.
I think the coming 2/3 months will reveal a lot in terms of whether things are heading.
The India statement above is out of whack, every morning I wake up with dozens of offers between $1-$100 from India.
There budget compared to China is night, and day. They have a knack of wanting everything for nothing.
I have done 2 sales out of India per like 3000 inquiries.
Yesterday I commented at DomainGang regarding the LLLL.COM market and his article about Zhao Dan selling off his “massive portfolio of CHIPs.” http://domaingang.com/domain-news/chinese-domain-sales-massive-chips-domain-portfolio-on-the-chopping-block/
After my comment, DomainGang responded by saying that my portfolio doesn’t compare to Zhao Dan’s. I replied that my portfolio of LLLL.com CHIPs is 3X the size of Zhao Dan’s plus I own thousands more non-CHIP LLLL.com that are easy to see at modeldomains.com. I wrote that I have been a domainer for 20 years and have more experience in this area than he does or any of his expert friends. I stated that I have sold 30+ LLLL.COM domains over the past 13 months for prices ranging from $6500-$24000. I added that I have first-hand data (legitimate inquiries and actual sales) which shows increasing demand for LLLL.com domains from individuals/companies worldwide, not just from those in China. Of course, DomainGang didn’t post any of this.
Todd,
Thanks for sharing. I love to hear both negative and positive stories but of course I love the positive stories like yours. I would love for you to write a guest article sharing your experiences. Again, both positive and any challenges or opportunities you’ve seen. Let me know if that interest you. Sounds like you know what you’re doing.
88888888888888888888888888888888888888.com,
I can’t wait to see the build out. 🙂
It always quite before the storm, chinese new years means a slow down, give it 2 weeks and watch them FLY averaging out at $3K…
Always the bad news bearers are the ones who failed to get in GUARANTEED and like Todd said he still receives dozens of inquiries everyday just like me…
Good luck everyone, i’m with Shane on this one.
quote – ” he still receives dozens of inquiries everyday just like me”
That is interesting. My Inquiries are down drastically this week. Lets see if inquiries pick up this time next week. (Chinese New Year – Feb. 8)
I also noticed the quantity of general emails are slightly less this week.
(Anti-Spamware software catching more ??)