Ah yes, domain squatting. It’s so frustrating when the perfect domain name is registered by someone for the sole purpose of selling it to you at an absurd price.
Domain names cost around $30.00 per year to register. The exact price varies a bit depending upon the suffix (.com, .net, .org, etc) you choose (also called the TLD – Top Level Domain).
When someone owns a domain, they can sell it for any price they like but each year they hold it, they have to pay that registration fee. The longer they hold the domain name, the more cost they’ve incurred.
Don’t ever pay the asking price for a domain name
A client recently asked us to help acquire a .com domain name from a domain name broker who was selling it. The broker stated the price of the domain would be $2,388.00 and that they could only guarantee that price for 7-days. Our client told us that if we could get the domain for $1,500.00, they’d be happy. That’s quite the markup – a $1,500.00 pay-day for a $30.00 domain name? We can do better than that.
We contacted the broker and told them we were interested in purchasing the domain name for $800.00 and that we were not authorized to spend more than that. The broker responded by offering a 25% discount if we complete the purchase that day. The offered sale price was now down to $1,791.00
This is where we let the broker sweat it out a bit. The 25% discount was offered on a Friday and we ignored their response until the following Monday.
On Monday, we told them that we couldn’t offer more than $800.00 and included some screenshots from free domain name valuation tools that showed a value range between $110.00 and $439.97.
The broker responded immediately that they would talk to their managers. 3 hours later they sent a link to purchase the $2,388.00 domain name for $800.00.
We this sort of thing play out all the time. Domain name brokers ALWAYS start with an absurd asking price. In reality, you can expect to purchase the domain name at a fraction of the advertised price.