A Few Thoughts On My $50,000 New gTLD Domain Name Purchases

Last week I shared my experience buying $50,000 worth of New gTLD domain names in the past year. That sparked a lot of comments both in my post and on a thread on the NamePros.com domain name forum in a thread that started by calling me an expert. I want to make a few things a little more clear.

First of all I didn’t call myself an expert. Someone at NamePros.com did. Am I an expert?
You decide. But I can say I am making money by selling and buying domain names.
Does this make me an expert? A lot of people that don’t write a blog make money with domain names also.

“So someone has to own a blog to become a gtld / domain expert?”

No. But some of the bloggers are domain “experts”.

I am not alone in buying these. Also other bloggers are buying New gTLDs as well. Mike Berkens owns more than 1,500. Mark Hershiser is buying too although he has disappeared lately.

I started this blog because I wanted mainly to be able to raise any concerns and complaints I have. And to be able to communicate with other domain investors. And because I was active in the domain name industry and knew a few things and not a lot of people did.

The New gTLD domains I own is about 5% of the total domain names I own.

My renewal fees for all domains was at about $19,000. I have since dropped a few.

The New gTLD renewal cost is about 13,7% of my total renewal cost. That concerns me a bit and I have dropped a few domains. Mostly a couple of $200+ premiums but more of the $40-$50 “regular” priced domains. (more on this on my New gTLD renewal report)

Also the average purchase price of the 565 domains I bought is $88,50. Is that a lot?

I didn’t say anywhere in the post that everybody should do what I do. So it is not really fair people asking “So if an “expert” jumps off a bridge I’m suppose to jump too? Domainers get too caught up in what the so-called “experts” are doing….”. Actually I prefer not having any competition. 🙂

Some people choose to ignore some of my posts and praise some others. So 95% of my domains are not New gTLDs. But I also own .org and .info and .us that many people don’t like and I am still making money. And I haven’t stopped buying .com.

I don’t feel I have to choose between .com and New gTLDs. I buy what seems a good buy to me. And I don’t feel bad owning the best domain in a “failing” New gTLD.

And I don’t say I am right buying these New gTLD domains. Time will tell.

But I have to agree with this: “… and if they can’t even sell .com they should definitely refrain from buying new extensions for resale.”. lol

People are looking at my early buying spree and try to translate my slowing down as me loosing faith in New gTLDs. That is not true.

There are various reasons of my slowing down. Registries got smarter, reserving more domains and making more domains premiums. e.g. I got buy.guru and domains.tips. Since then all the Donuts “buy” and “domains” new gtlds are reserved by the registry.

Someone said on NamePros “Those who don’t speculate in the new g’s fail to understand that it is much harder to get good names now than at the start. The competition are harder and the registries are smarter.” and I agree 100%.

I am also busy with 2 other projects and buying New gTLDs takes a lot of research. I also hit my budget for the year.

Also in the first month I liked .photos and .domains(I am an end-user in the TLD) and bought a lot of them for cheap.

Also more than 90% of my domains are from Donuts that has slowed down in releases. The other registries, except .Club and Afilias, are much more expensive.

I tried 100+ domains in .video, which I liked, and couldn’t find a single one at a reasonable price. I bought a few .poker domains that were cheap.

I don’t do flips. I have tens of $500 to $1000 offers. I don’t sell any domains at this level.

Others are having good luck selling New gTLDs: “I have been writing about it before, but I have sold +20 new gTLDs to both domainers and end-users. I will continue to do that”

Someone at Namepros said: “If he invest $50 k in buying 565 .com high end domains atleast he could sold half of it the next day with more heavy prices!! Anyways good luck to him for selling the left 563 gTLDs! Its sure and certain he would required to renew atleast 100 next year same day!!”

I don’t work this way. I don’t sell on the next day and probably sell 30-40 domains per year.

Would I be better off buying nnn.com or lll.com last year. Probably. But his applies to everyone on the planet. This also doesn’t mean that I will make money selling New gTLDs.

Some people think that because I didn’t make a profit on the first year then the investment has failed. That is not how investments work. Especially in new things. Actually the 2 domains I sold were after the first year so I see sales picking up.

I am an end user for a lot of my purchases. Here is the first one I developed: Sold.Domains. The database has about 500 New gTLD sales.