If you’ve bought any quantity of short dot coms, especially LLL.coms then you most likely have dealt with Oliver Hoger. He is one the largest buyers and sellers of these types of domain in the world. He and I have discussed value of short names and their future and we both agree that we feel there is still upside to short.coms. Oliver was nice enough to explain why he thinks LLLL.coms are one of the undervalued classes of short domains. (and in thanks I listed some of the LLLL.coms he has for sale at the )
by Oliver Hoger
Four-letter .coms. Why are they so valuable? Why is the market heating up and showing no signs of slowing down?
If a company spends tens of thousands of dollars in advertising to get their customers to their website, the last thing they want is to lose business because the customers made a mistake writing in the website’s domain.
To put it simply, LLLL.coms offer the very best alternative to a company that would otherwise have a domain name begging for typos. These domains offer a shorter, more memorable alternative.
If you have been following the market closely or from far, you know that the niche market for short .com domains has gone up drastically in the last year. To be more specific, the market for LLL.coms and LLLL.coms has been rising and isn’t showing any signs of a correction.
Now let’s try to use a simple formula to evaluate the true value of four-letter .com domains using three-letter .com sales as a reference.
Looking at all sales for LLL.coms in 2015, we see an average sale price over $36,000/ domain.
If we look at the number of possible LLL.com combinations, we have a total of 17,575 (26*26*26).
Using this same metric, we can see that there are a total of 456,976 potential LLLL.com combinations.
By simply dividing the number of total four-letter .com combinations by the number of total three-letter .com combinations, we can see that the number is 26 times more.
With this theory, if we take the average sale price of LLL.coms and divide it by 26, we can valuate that the average sale price for an LLLL.com should be over $1,350.00 for Any letter combo and the QUADS which are E R T I O P A S D F G H L C B N M easy over $3000+ Also the Chinese market is very hot letters: Q W R T Y P S D F G H J K L Z X C B N M From the low end selling from $1000-3500 each right now .
This would lead us to believe that despite the sudden growth of the four-letter .com market, this niche market is seriously undervalued and there is still massive room for continued growth! Easily go over $2500+
The Return selling to an end user also also allot more 10x-30x and much easier to sell!
Here are some no reserve auctions on Flippa that may present excellent investment opportunities:
Famd.com
Hiks.com
Faws.com
Otoi.com
Joid.com
Well, FRANCOIS from Domaining.com & Catchy.com is selling the LLLL.com at $80,000 USD …
That’s true I have seen some selling $xx,xxx to few in the $xxx,xxx to endusers.
I ask for enduser price $7-20K
There allot of money to be made the more you have more you would sell.
Also enduser can afford LLLL.com more than LLL.com have seen enduser telling me this.
Oliver.
What kind of logic is that? If that’s the case then why are LLLL.com selling on GoDaddy auctions daily for under $200. He should be scooping them up since they are all worth at least $1,350. Free money for him.
If you could find me quad premium LLLL.coms at under $200 daily, I think we can do business together! 🙂
If two same Picasso original paintings exist, their price would be much less than a half of the single original. Saying that, LLL.com names should be 50+ more expensive than LLLL.com names and LL.com should be at least 50+ more expansive than LLL.com names. So at the end we see all short .com domain names undervalued?
That logic is very flawed from an economics point of view. It assumes the buying power and pool of funds is constant, ignores demand fluctuation, and alternative investment channel performace in the 2 main markets (US/China)
Not saying they arent going up. Im just saying the argument above is flawed.
Agree with the others here that the logic as to why the domains are under values is beyond flawed. It sounds like the thesis came first and then he was looking for a way to demonstrate it afterwards. The reality is that the only way to value these names is on the comps as they are now and while rising, they are nowhere near $1500 as an average. Remember that scarcity value is not linear. The more scarce something is the higher a premium it will command.
Wow…LLLL.Coms are undervalued
Then there are five for sale on flippa at the end of this LLLL.Com “promo”
GENIUS!!!!!!
Yeah, pretty flawed as people have already pointed out:
“Looking at all sales for LLL.coms in 2015, we see an average sale price over $36,000/ domain.”
Then why didn’t you do that for LLLL.coms as well and get that average.
Hey Jonathan,
The LLL.com market has been ‘hot’ for many years now and with time, the prices now reflect the real value of the LLL.coms.
The author’s point was to show that the LLLL.com market is only now starting to heat up so taking the average sale price of the LLLL.coms would be counter-intuitive.
Just my two cents.
I agree that premium LLLL.coms are currently undervalued. Depending on the combo of letters of course. I think if you have either a quad western or quad asian combo you should be looking at around $1,000 USD+ resale price and $5,000 USD+ end user of course depending on the name.
LLLL.com is coming very better and better!
As the saying goes, there are 3 types of people in this world. Those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what happened. I would make the case that Oliver is one of those who “makes things happen” and has been doing so for many years.
I agree that an opportunity does exist in LLLL.com’s at the moment for the saavy investor. LL.com and LLL.com’s have almost priced themselves out of the market at this point in time. As a broker who makes a living in the secondary market for domains, we see the nature of supply and demand on a daily basis and like a good investor, timing is everything.
I think what Oliver says makes a lot of sense, especially when we see a lot of end users turning down LL, LLL and LN because they are too expensive. On average, domain investors from China are willing to pay a a much higher price for premium domains than companies, who can rarely justify spending more than $20k on a domain.
There is an increasing demand for LLLL at wholesale and the floor prices are getting higher and higher. Just have a look at the wholesale sales of the past 2 weeks of premium Chinese Quads. The average price per domain is $900.67, and I excluded from the data any four letter pattern like ABAB, AABB, ABBA, AABC, ABBC, etc.
These are all four random letter combinations. I also excluded all the CVCV, VCVC or just pronounceable. If these domains are the bottom range for premium LLLL, I think there might be significant upside if someone buys smart.
xgwk.com $269.00 6/18/2015 NameJet
ztfs.com $420.00 6/18/2015 DropCatch
wdgp.com $520.00 6/18/2015 NameJet
ydjp.com $729.00 6/18/2015 DropCatch
rbcd.com $776.00 6/18/2015 NameJet
qxsk.com $1,000.00 6/18/2015 GoDaddy
gptz.com $1,088.00 6/18/2015 Fabulous
qpnw.com $710.00 6/20/2015 GoDaddy
xpnw.com $737.00 6/20/2015 GoDaddy
mdlq.com $743.00 6/20/2015 GoDaddy
zpnw.com $760.00 6/20/2015 GoDaddy
wpsy.com $787.00 6/20/2015 GoDaddy
bzqs.com $340.00 6/21/2015 NameJet
hjcn.com $763.00 6/21/2015 dropcatch
bjxt.com $5,100.00 6/21/2015 GoDaddy
pkrz.com $305.00 6/22/2015 flippa
pbqd.com $405.00 6/22/2015 NameJet
xcgh.com $446.00 6/22/2015 NameJet
mkkf.com $452.00 6/22/2015 NameJet
bsnk.com $489.00 6/22/2015 NameJet
wtlc.com $1,100.00 6/22/2015 NameJet
crdt.com $1,875.00 6/22/2015 GoDaddy
cmpz.com $390.00 6/23/2015 NameJet
rpdg.com $541.00 6/23/2015 GoDaddy
sbgd.com $666.00 6/23/2015 NameJet
htsq.com $870.00 6/23/2015 GoDaddy
hnzk.com $1,225.00 6/23/2015 GoDaddy
dbzc.com $1,486.00 6/23/2015 GoDaddy
hptb.com $401.00 6/24/2015 DropCatch
rcdh.com $631.00 6/24/2015 NameJet
hlgj.com $1,481.00 6/24/2015 GoDaddy
qdmt.com $1,493.00 6/24/2015 GoDaddy
cslm.com $1,495.00 6/24/2015 GoDaddy
drhf.com $360.00 6/25/2015 NameJet
wsdy.com $403.00 6/25/2015 4.CN
rnnj.com $425.00 6/25/2015 Flippa
tprn.com $730.00 6/25/2015 GoDaddy
bqlr.com $730.00 6/25/2015 GoDaddy
byqx.com $762.00 6/25/2015 GoDaddy
nldb.com $766.00 6/25/2015 GoDaddy
bgys.com $1,475.00 6/25/2015 GoDaddy
cxhg.com $1,525.00 6/25/2015 GoDaddy
wkpq.com $600.00 6/26/2015 GoDaddy
mcdb.com $635.00 6/26/2015 NameJet
dbnr.com $810.00 6/26/2015 GoDaddy
djkf.com $820.00 6/26/2015 GoDaddy
wmjs.com $910.00 6/26/2015 GoDaddy
mdcw.com $1,059.00 6/26/2015 DropCatch
kwds.com $1,525.00 6/26/2015 GoDaddy
qpcf.com $343.00 6/27/2015 GoDaddy
nyjg.com $499.00 6/27/2015 DropCatch
gjnw.com $335.00 6/28/2015 GoDaddy
nxbs.com $335.00 6/28/2015 Flippa
njsn.com $600.00 6/28/2015 NameJet
rspz.com $737.00 6/28/2015 GoDaddy
mhwx.com $900.00 6/28/2015 GoDaddy
lkhn.com $400.00 6/29/2015 NameJet
wckb.com $565.00 6/29/2015 NameJet
wzsq.com $679.00 6/29/2015 DropCatch
srcn.com $703.00 6/29/2015 4.CN
kyjj.com $709.00 6/29/2015 DropCatch
wccg.com $1,500.00 6/29/2015 NameJet
ytwj.com $420.00 6/30/2015 NameJet
ktyx.com $838.00 6/30/2015 4.CN
syzf.com $1,354.00 6/30/2015 4.CN
wysf.com $1,525.00 6/30/2015 GoDaddy
kdcz.com $1,626.00 6/30/2015 4.CN
cnmw.com $5,550.00 6/30/2015 GoDaddy
qslm.com $1,009.00 7/1/2015 GoDaddy
sptn.com $707.00 7/1/2015 GoDaddy
cdkn.com $660.00 7/1/2015 NameJet
hcln.com $540.00 7/1/2015 NameJet
bsrp.com $520.00 7/1/2015 NameJet
qrsd.com $500.00 7/1/2015 NameJet
mqjb.com $461.00 7/1/2015 GoDaddy
sblh.com $408.00 7/1/2015 NameJet
I got about 150 llll.com’s for sale, looking for $300 plus for each.
email me: [email protected]