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It's almost as predictable as the sun coming up in the morning. Since the domain market began its current bull run at the beginning of 2004, any time there has been a brief lull in the action (as we experienced last week) things quickly returned to full throttle the following week. That pattern was repeated again this week.
Last time out the top sale was under $24,000 and only 9 domains on our Top 20 chart hit five figures. This week, the top sale was over $150,000 and every name on the Big Board broke the five-figure barrier, as did five more that didn't make the chart!
Things could get even hotter next week. An auction for Jasmin.com closed at $310,250 Monday (Feb. 20) at SnapNames.com. When that deal is finalized it will be the highest price ever paid for a domain at SnapNames and will likely be the top dog on our leader board next week. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. There is a truck load of big deals to tell you about that were completed over the past seven days.
The big winner among those was NHS.com, a premium three-letter combination that went for $151,300 at Moniker.com/DomainSystems.com. The seller told us he received also ABC.us as part of this deal. Moniker enjoyed a huge week, claiming four of the first seven positions on our new Top 20 and five spots overall. They also rocked the house with #3 Airways.com at $80,815, #6 MagazineRacks.com at $30,000 and #7 KinkyGirl.com at $25,000. You might recall that two weeks ago, Moniker sold the plural version of the latter domain (KinkyGirls.com) for $65,000. The same buyer took both names.
SnapNames.com also had a superb week, ringing up seven five-figure sales, with six of those landing on the leader board including #2 Looks.com at $86,650. That domain was purchased by Anything.com, a company that has built one of the best portfolios in the business. SnapNames put two other domains on the top half of the chart, #8 VirginMobilUSA.com at $21,251 and #10 VirginMobil.com at $19,000.
With SnapNames leading the way, expired name auction prices just keep hitting new highs. The activity has caught the attention of the Wall Street Journal where reporter David Kesmodel is currently working on an article about the drop catching business. Kesmodel asked us to pull some information from our sales database to illustrate how fast the expired domain auction market is growing.
We found that the total dollar value of reported sales from drop catching venues only (this doesn't include aftermarket sales sites like Sedo and Afternic) soared from $4,225,775 in 2004 to $11,474,497 in 2005 (an increase of 266% in one year). The number of auction transactions that topped $10,000 jumped from 83 in 2004 to 179 last year (a 216% jump in reported high dollar sales).
Last week, there were more non .coms on our Top 20 than .coms, but the king of extensions was back in top form this week, claiming 18 of the 20 chart entries. A pair of .co.uk's prevented .com from sweeping the chart and one of those was a doozy. Andrew Shorten and Jarrod Gall sent #4 Lyrics.co.uk to Shaun Pilford of Brain Wave Holdings, Inc. and his partner Ron Sures for $80,000. The new owners from Canada now hold the #1 country code sale of the year, easily outdistancing the previous leader, Ich.de (sold for $48,451 in the first week of January).
Two of the week's biggest sales were made on Ebay. Xedoc Holding SA of Luxembourg acquired #5 ProSports.com for $75,000 and Sean O'Brien of Ohio's Columbus Web Solutions Ltd. sold #9 Whistles.com to Hong Kong's Modern Empire Internet Ltd. for $21,087.
Last time out the top sale was under $24,000 and only 9 domains on our Top 20 chart hit five figures. This week, the top sale was over $150,000 and every name on the Big Board broke the five-figure barrier, as did five more that didn't make the chart!
Things could get even hotter next week. An auction for Jasmin.com closed at $310,250 Monday (Feb. 20) at SnapNames.com. When that deal is finalized it will be the highest price ever paid for a domain at SnapNames and will likely be the top dog on our leader board next week. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. There is a truck load of big deals to tell you about that were completed over the past seven days.
The big winner among those was NHS.com, a premium three-letter combination that went for $151,300 at Moniker.com/DomainSystems.com. The seller told us he received also ABC.us as part of this deal. Moniker enjoyed a huge week, claiming four of the first seven positions on our new Top 20 and five spots overall. They also rocked the house with #3 Airways.com at $80,815, #6 MagazineRacks.com at $30,000 and #7 KinkyGirl.com at $25,000. You might recall that two weeks ago, Moniker sold the plural version of the latter domain (KinkyGirls.com) for $65,000. The same buyer took both names.
SnapNames.com also had a superb week, ringing up seven five-figure sales, with six of those landing on the leader board including #2 Looks.com at $86,650. That domain was purchased by Anything.com, a company that has built one of the best portfolios in the business. SnapNames put two other domains on the top half of the chart, #8 VirginMobilUSA.com at $21,251 and #10 VirginMobil.com at $19,000.
With SnapNames leading the way, expired name auction prices just keep hitting new highs. The activity has caught the attention of the Wall Street Journal where reporter David Kesmodel is currently working on an article about the drop catching business. Kesmodel asked us to pull some information from our sales database to illustrate how fast the expired domain auction market is growing.
We found that the total dollar value of reported sales from drop catching venues only (this doesn't include aftermarket sales sites like Sedo and Afternic) soared from $4,225,775 in 2004 to $11,474,497 in 2005 (an increase of 266% in one year). The number of auction transactions that topped $10,000 jumped from 83 in 2004 to 179 last year (a 216% jump in reported high dollar sales).
Last week, there were more non .coms on our Top 20 than .coms, but the king of extensions was back in top form this week, claiming 18 of the 20 chart entries. A pair of .co.uk's prevented .com from sweeping the chart and one of those was a doozy. Andrew Shorten and Jarrod Gall sent #4 Lyrics.co.uk to Shaun Pilford of Brain Wave Holdings, Inc. and his partner Ron Sures for $80,000. The new owners from Canada now hold the #1 country code sale of the year, easily outdistancing the previous leader, Ich.de (sold for $48,451 in the first week of January).
Two of the week's biggest sales were made on Ebay. Xedoc Holding SA of Luxembourg acquired #5 ProSports.com for $75,000 and Sean O'Brien of Ohio's Columbus Web Solutions Ltd. sold #9 Whistles.com to Hong Kong's Modern Empire Internet Ltd. for $21,087.
