When I first started getting serious about domain investing I was inspired by a guy named Reece Berg. Reece was the king of the short domains. He specialized in LLLL.coms and LLL.coms. He tracked every sale and had more detail on the LLLL.com market than anyone in the industry. His actual blog was called LLLL.com (since retired and sold) He essentially came up with a price guide. I followed his blog and watched the market go from hi to low along with the economy. My big problem..I put my money into a bunch of smaller domains instead of buying one or two LLL.coms. But we all have stories like that. So the recent auction at Flippa of RNR got me to thinking. We see LLL.coms getting great prices lately. But if you bought them in 2005, 2008, 2010 what have the returns been? So I started with a few LLL.coms that recently sold and looked at looked to see if they had any sales history. If I found any I listed them. I also took some old posts and sales results from Reece and compared prices to today’s results. The info is below.
RNR.com
$24,710 2010
$35,000 2014 Media Options (assumed sale since it’s for sale at Flippa)
$46,000 Unsold on Flippa
OUJ.com
$6350 Aug 2008,
$4253 Dec 2012,
$10,100 Sept 2014 (Namejet)
IKT.com
$5400 Jan 2006
$16,000 Sept 2014 (Namejet)
QOF.com
$5701 Oct 2008
$7610 Sept 2014
FVZ.com
$5100 Aug 2008
$8100 Sept 2014 (final bid but reserve was not met)
EIV.com
$5000 Dec 2008
$7101 Dec 2010
$13,000 Sept (final bid but did not meet reserve)
MRQ.com
$6001 Jan 2009
$12,100 Jul 2014
COA.com
$17,500 Jan 2010
$30,100 Aug 2014
CFF.com
$9500 Aug 2011
$30,100 Aug 2014
IAS.com
$27,000 Feb 2011
$27,300 Aug 2014
It’s not a very big data group but the returns have been all over the board. Almost all returned 100% in the last 6 years with some returning much more. Pretty comparable to the stock market. (Apple was trading at an adjusted $12 back in Dec 2008 to give you some comparison) Below are few articles Reece wrote that show how the short domains moved up and down with the economy. I know you can’t go back in time but you actually can and it’s fun to go back and read about the prices and thoughts about where everyone thought they were headed. I’ve also listed some of his LLL.com recaps.
Domainers are feeling what Main Street investors are — a lighter wallet as of late. We’ve seen LLL.coms fall a full 50% from a minimum wholesale of $7600 in June to about $3800 today, with very few domaining segments have done much better, many having done far worse still. The economy as a whole is of course struggling, uncertainty is higher than it’s been in quite some time, unemployment keeps rising, the dollar has appreciated considerably against many currencies over the past few months, etc… Yes, there are plenty of reasons we can explain away about how and why this has happened and all things considered, it really isn’t much of a surprised when you look at how the rest of the economy is struggling as a whole.
Now it’s not all bad news I have to report here. On the positive side, prices are remaining much more constant in the LLL.com market around the $4000 mark. The minimum wholesale fell quite quickly from $7600 to $5000 between June and August, falling at about half the speed another $1200 more to $3800 by the end of November. Since then — 13 days into December, the LLL.com market has held fairly stable at the low end.
We’ll have to see what the future holds for low end LLL.coms, however it’s very comforting to see the rate of decline having slowed down so much. The November – December period is typically a bad period for selling domains. Provided the economy doesn’t get a whole lot worse, we might expect to see a bit of appreciation once we’re in the New Year. At the very least, it seems probable that 10%+ monthly declines are a thing of the past.
June 2008
MEV.com €10000 Sedo
UMX.com $10100 Sedo $10,100 June 2011 (Sedo)
CWL.com $6800 Sedo $6800 Jan. 2011 (Sedo)
YMA.com $20000 Sedo
OYY.com $7750 Sedo
QLI.com $10600 Sedo
QHI.com $13500 Afternic
HLU.com $17500 Sedo
TFV.com $13000 Sedo
VWH.com $11500 Sedo
CWI.com $15500 Sedo
AOV.com €7100 Sedo
HNJ.com €5500 Sedo
RYY.com $7124 Bido
IQD.com $7612 NameJet
XKD.com $7100 NameJet
HJR.com $12000 Sedo
FUQ.com $8100 Sedo
ANM.com €15100 Sedo
BIY.com $7400 Sedo
JUA.com $7600 Sedo
WVF.com $10000 Sedo
XEI.com $9100 Sedo
GAE.com $40000 Afternic
VTP.com $40000 Afternic
NDP.com $40000 Afternic
JOK.com $40000 Afternic
NWN.com $22500 Sedo
WWB.com $12000 Moniker
JULY 2008
RLU.com $10432 Sedo
QVK.com $6730 Bido
FQV.com $6305 TDNAM
MPU.com $8802 NameJet
VRU.com $10000 Afternic
NUJ.com $8001 Sedo
OOH.com $55000 RickLatona.com
MJN.com $39162 Sedo
KNU.com $9450 Sedo
UTQ.com $6000 Bido
DQF.com $6750 Namepros
LJL.com $9300 Sedo
NST.com $20200 NameJet
bzh.com $16000 SnapNames
eob.com $14000 Sedo $8763 Feb 09 DnJournal
wmr.com $9600 Sedo
wja.com $8000 Sedo
zqx.com $6100 Sedo
VQU.com $6551 Bido
TQB.com $6750 Sedo
UNQ.com $6600 Sedo
ASJ.com $15300 Moniker
AUGUST 2008
GIW.com $12300 Sedo
zze.com $8500 SnapNames
zzl.com $7501 SnapNames
tyv.com $7750 SnapNames
JTR.com €60000 Sedo
IKH.com $6600 Sedo
IGX.com $6900 NameJet
TJD.com $12600 Afternic
YXL.com $6700 Sedo
EQW.com $5211 Sedo
FVZ.com $5100 Sedo
OUJ.com $6350 Sedo
WZU.com $5200 Sedo
XAG.com €3933 Sedo
Nun.com $18501 Sedo
OLU.com $5002 SnapNames
TQB.com $6680 Sedo
Sources DNSalePrice.com and the now defunct blog of Reese Berg formerly at LLLL.com
September 2008
ZNJ.com $5299 NameJet
iqx.com $6250 NameJet
QWI.com $5469 Sedo
WQI.com $5800 Sedo
GIW.com €13500 Sedo
BWE.com $10100 NameJet
mdj.com $6900 Sedo
ZXW.com $5000 Private Sale
VWX.com $5000 Private Sale
ZZL.COM $7250 SnapNames
ZQR.com $5144 Sedo
ZZE.com $6349 SnapNames
MCC.com $195000 Rick Latona
EFS.com $55000 Rick Latona
NAP.com $47500 Rick Latona
Yii.com $7100 Sedo
wnf.com $7100 Sedo
vyk.com $8000 Moniker
tlg.com $16400 NameJet
QOF.com $5701 NameJet
October 2008
ACU.com $52500 SnapNames
EAJ.com $7300 NameJet
UGD.com $7100 NameJet
VXG.com $4988 Sedo
XAG.com $7000 Private Sale
pym.com $8250 SnapNames
ynn.com $6750 NameJet
RMN.com $26545 Sedo
YTT.com $6626 Namejet
EVT.COM $10500 Sedo
HDJ.com $7100 NameJet
qav.com $4700 Sedo
wxq.com $4610 Sedo
DQF.com $7600 Fusu
ZQR.com $4620 Sedo
JIZ.com $10500 Sedo
VGZ.com $5250 NameJet
ZUD.com $10011 Sedo
My take away from all these little snippets is that although the returns were nice, I actually made the right move in putting my money into the stock market back in 2009- 2011. It would be hard to prove that it was safer but it certainly was more liquid and more data to analyze my investments. But it really proves one thing. LLL.coms are due for another move up and two, it’s a crap shoot like all other domains. It all comes down to finding the right buyer and good names have more chances to find the right buyer.
November 2008
RMX.com $13027 SnapNames
Eha.com $12555 Sedo
DNW.com $11500 Namepros
WBJ.com €6000 Sedo
VLX.com €8100 Sedo
QBZ.com $4625 Sedo
ABL.com $50000 Sedo
TAO.com $32550 Afternic
ZQR.com $4200 Sedo
DMG.com $34000 SnapNames
TJQ.com $4100 Sedo
OAI.com $20000 Sedo
QXZ.com $4595 Sedo
EZW.com $16190 Moniker
RYE.com $27500 Sedo
GXX.com $7116 Sedo
It is insane to spend so much money on 3 letters .com when you can spend a few hundred $ on 3 letter .tel and redirect your difficult to spell website to your easy to remember .tel. Simple, inexpensive and very quick
RNR = Royal Naval Reserve – nice one