Domain Market

Mike Mann’s crowdpricing domain appraisal system will have 4 appraisers

Mike Mann shared some details on how the upcoming DomainMarket.com appraisal system will work. He calls it a “crowdpricing domain appraisal system”.

About 10 days ago he announced that the appraisal system would be using 3 appraisers, costing $88 per name, but now he is up to 4 appraisers with no known price.

Here is what he wrote today on his Facebook account:

“Will use 4 appraisers per domain, out of around 25 of the world’s best in the pool in our system; each can log in and appraise any time there are names in queue. Will keep adding and removing appraisers based on their skills.
The customer will get a report with the final appraised value and any notes from appraisers, which will equal the average of the middle two appraisals.
Client will also be given a price range they can consider listing their name within our brokerage; the lowest and highest appraisal create the floor and ceiling. Wont be able to list outside that range.
Appraisers will be given a questionnaire for each domain to help guide the appraisal, and links to some data sources.
The client will be asked to provide anything they want to help us including: traffic data, any past info or offers, prices they paid, and dates.
This will be the only valid domain appraisal system ever and will remain so until the competitors copy it.
They think they know it all so could take a real long time. Ch ching.

He also asked a question today on how to charge for the appraisals:

Do you think we should charge them based on appraised price? if it appraises to $0 charge $20, if it appraises to $1M charge $200 ?

He shared how much an appraiser would make: “Domain appraisers on our new crowdpricing platform will get $15 per domain x100?/day”

I don’t think I agree with this appraisal system. It is too expensive. An appraisal system needs to be very cheap and include a lot of domains. Otherwise it is not so useful. But then again who experienced domainer would do it cheaply?

I sent out some comments to Mike regarding this.

I told him: “There is no such thing as an accurate appraisal. An “accurate” appraisal would only be useful for a court or a loan. Appraisals don’t sell domains.” Mike told me I am “wrong”.

I then told him that “Appraisals might help your model with 250,000 BIN names. You are playing the odds. People that want to submit 1 of their best names will not be helped with this. They just want to get as much as possible.

Mike told me: “The appraisal is as much as possible“.

I finally told him: “No, it is not. The appraisal price is more like a conservative price range that can be lower or a lot higher depending on the buyer. Also this range can change any minute depending on circumstances. You re-appraise your names all the time. What will the other people do?

You can see my 4 previous detailed posts about Mike Mann’s new service here, here, here and here.

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About Konstantinos Zournas

I studied Computer Engineering and Computer Science in London, UK and I am now living in Athens, Greece. I went online in 1995, started coding in 1996 and began buying domain names and creating websites in 2000. I started the OnlineDomain.com blog in 2012.

9 comments

  1. This just sounds like a bad dream, that keeps happening over, and over.

    Why is he so hell bent on launching this, if I had that much money, I would want to do other things with my time.

    Focus on SEO.com, not doing domain appraisals.

  2. He’s just bored. It’ll lose steam over coming months.

  3. Agree with Konstantinos here. I am not sure what he is trying to do or how. If there is no real broker trying to sell my domain whats the reason of paying to appraisal?

  4. Indeed, like a bad dream as Trent said, and a bad joke. But it’s easy to follow the money.

    I like what Rick Schwartz said in 2012:

    “Rick Schwartz says

    November 2, 2012 at 10:57 am

    Mike,

    As I have stated for years….ALL domain appraisals are worthless. Period.

    They are based on [WORD DELETED BECAUSE OF POSSIBLE BLOG FILTER] which in my opinion makes them for AMUSEMENT ONLY and should be labeled as such.

    I am trying really hard not to use the word SCAM. But it always seems to be the first word that comes to mind whenever I hear somebody say “Domain Appraisal”. The others include “Rookies”, and “Desperate”. I won’t even answer an email that MENTIONS an appraisal. The minute ANYONE touts an appraisal, in the garbage it goes. These services do DAMAGE to domineers. they don’t help them. These are based on NONSENSE with info fed into them by folks with limited knowledge of what makes domain names valuable to begin with.”

    • To read the original, see “TheDomains,” “Marchex’s Sales Prove It: Estibot Appraisals Are Worthless,” November 2, 2012, very first reader comment by Rick Schwartz.

    • LOL, how many people wouldn’t do that for $1,500 a day, btw. ROFL

  5. Making (real) money from appraisals, instead of sales?
    You Konstantinos are right, Mike is not.

  6. ALEXANDRU PESTESI

    It may work with Galosses. Some places get rain fall … occasionally… or …. Stop that
    An appraisal for Lending purposes shall be conducted. By state licensed RE appraisers. Or you create a new lending scandal .

  7. Although appraisals may come handy to the domain market novice, usually someone who does not dabble in domains but does own one or a few old domains. Similar to the recent case where an owner of an old 3L.com listed and sold the domain at BIN price of less than 3K pounds. a domain that could’ve probably fetch high 5 to low six figures. But these are very rare occasions, anyone who claims to know the exact worth of a domain is deluding himself and others. What’s sad about these famous and successful domainers is that they speak with authority and are trusted by many novices who will fall for this scam. (yes a scam) because although there is some value to appraisals occasionally for some domains, the great majority of wholesale appraisals will be worthless and hence a scam to make money from novices and dreamers. Michael’s replies to Konstantinos’ questions show arrogance or at least his way of protecting his current project. So, in essence, he REJECTED your appraisal of his business idea which is no different than appraising a domain idea. So Michael just proved that feedback (appraisals) from an experienced domainer is “worthless” why would his appraisals be worth a whopping 88 dollars or more. !!SCAM!!

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