From $355 Purchase in 2005 to $200,000 Sale in 2014

by

Mike Berkens and his MostWantedDomains.com sold the domain youpay.com for $200,000.

The domain was purchased in 2005 for $355. The new owner is Inter-Mark Corporation out of Las Vegas, Nevada.

Congrats to Michael and good luck with the name to the new owners.

 

About Raymond Hackney

Raymond is a writer, domain trader and consultant based in Pennsylvania. Raymond is the founder of 3Character.com and TLDInvestors.com.

Comments

  1. George Kirikos says

    Congrats, Mike!

    It looks like the failure of new gTLDs to gain any traction amongst the public is giving new confidence to companies to pull the trigger on their .com acquisitions.

  9. RaTHeaD says

    kirikos is crazy. doesn’t he realize when dot .dropaduece becomes active… dotcom will die a quick but painful death. sorry… it took me a while to type this as they changed the keyboard between 1869 and 1871 and i still get confused sometimes. i’m hopin’ they’ll change it back but i’m not gonna hold my breath.

  10. todd says

    This is a perfect example of making sure you do as much research as possible when someone acquires about a domain. When you understand who the buyer is it is easy to throw out a number like 200 grand. Connect the dots for more money. If Mike was not able to connect the dots he would have probably asked less than 100 grand for this domain. Throw out a high number and see if it sticks and it did.

    http://youchat.com/

    http://onlinedomain.com/2014/01/04/news/uchat-com-sells-for-20000-while-archeo-domainsmarchex-sold-youchat-com-back-in-july/

    http://steverenner.com/

    http://www.ACESSE.COM/

  13. youngmill says

    buyer has money coming out of his ears, paid off marchex for youchat last year too. wouldn’t read too much into it. a sorry day for entrepreneurs if 200k is now the benchmark for a half decent name. Just as well we’ve the new names. But suspect seller knew this was a big fish

    > only possible by sitting on both hands.

    what a terrible market this is to be a buyer in. You have your great idea, want to get cracking, and instead are drawn into a dogfight before even getting started

    • George Kirikos says

      “what a terrible market this is to be a buyer in. You have your great idea, want to get cracking, and instead are drawn into a dogfight before even getting started”

      Except that your “great idea” wasn’t original, in that someone else thought up the domain name first and has priority rights. If your business model’s success depends on using a piece of property that someone else created and/or acquired before you did, then that might be “terrible” for you, but isn’t terrible for the free market. Strong protection for the property rights of domain name registrants is good for the market, not bad.

      If your “great idea” required building a farm on 11 Wall Street, New York, NY, USA, a property that is currently occupied, would you expect public sympathy when whining that the “terrible market” is preventing your idea’s success??

      • youngmill says

        The trouble is that what is being protected is a monopoly of sorts.
        If I’m outbid on a property I must of course accept that. But the property market is fair because I’m willing to pay the highest price, I’ll usually get the property. Seller knows there’s no point doubling the price because I’ll just find a nicer alternative.

        But each domain is unique, and it often pays to turn down a buyer even if his looks the best available offer, simply because he might pay even more. It’s an infuriating situation as a buyer and it doesn’t happen to the same extent in a market that’s working properly.
        What’s so unusual about the domain market is that the top bidder will often be willing to pay a multiple of anyone else. It’s more profitable to sell a quarter of inventory at five times market value, than the entire portfolio at market value.

        • Leonard P Britt says

          Type any keyword into Godaddy auctions or SEDO or Afternic’s search bar and you will get at least dozens if not hundreds of domains with that keyword. There are many alternatives to their ideal choice. Market value is determined by what price a buyer is willing to pay and what price a seller is willing to sell at. If a buyer isn’t wiling to pay a price they have many alternatives and if they aren’t happy with those in 2014 they will get hundreds of additional TLD alternatives.

  17. Michael Berkens says

    Hey guys that for the kind words.

    I chatted with the buyer and he gets the branding value of the domain.

    The sale follows my post of now about 2 years ago that domaining 6.0 is all about branding even in the new gTLD’s.