The domain name market is strong,who is more important to buy or hold a domain name?

The domain market has remained highly active in recent years, with substantial domain transactions consistently taking place. For domain investors, the question arises: is it more important to buy domains or to hold them? Below are insights from renowned foreign domain investor Elliot Silver on this topic.

Elliot Silver

Author Bio: Elliot Silver is an internet entrepreneur and the publisher of DomainInvesting.com. He is also the founder and president of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has sold seven-figure domain names over the past five years.

The secondary domain market has shown strong performance in the past year, with the last six months being particularly robust, as evidenced by the sales charts from DNJournal. Moreover, one must consider the number and value of private domain sales not publicly disclosed, making reported domain sales just the tip of the iceberg.

With the rapid development of the secondary market, acquiring premium domains has become highly challenging. As the prices of newly registered domains rise, even the purchase of new inventory becomes costlier. Personally, I prefer acquiring .com domains with one or two words, but I've noticed that registration prices for other new top-level domains (e.g., .IO and .CO) are also increasing.

In the past few years, I might have initiated negotiations at $5,000 to purchase domains I believed were valued between $50,000 and $100,000. I understood $5,000 might not be sufficient to close the deal, but if the seller's asking price was below $50,000, it was typically enough to start the bargaining or receive a response. Nowadays, most of my offers are well above the $5,000 mark.

For me, the current challenge is acquiring inventory in reasonable quantities, as wholesale domain market prices might be higher than ever before. I would not hesitate to spend a substantial amount to purchase a specific domain, but making these deals happen remains a formidable task. While I don't have the budget some of my colleagues and friends do, I've made six-figure offers on various domains recently, with no successful transactions. Hence, it's evident that acquiring premium domains has become more difficult.

On the other hand, holding onto cash is also a viable option. At times, we must anticipate the possibility of a dip in the domain market. If startups or companies face financial troubles, they might need cash and be willing to sell domains at prices lower than current rates. I believe this is inevitable, but timing is everything. I've contemplated whether domains registered in the last few years might end up in expiration auctions, but that hasn't occurred yet, so no one knows if the domain market will experience a downturn in the future.

The greatest satisfaction I derive from domain investing is closing deals. Negotiations are exhilarating, and successfully completing a transaction is even more thrilling. Whether it's a $500,000 deal or a $5,000 deal, the negotiation process has its ups and downs, with adrenaline pumping and nerves on edge. However, given the current frenzy in the domain market, a wise decision might be to cash out and wait for the right opportunity!