houses.co.uk

[grantw]

Just watched this auction finish at $50,870.00 over at Snapnames. Fancied a bid myself until I logged in and saw it was well into 5 figures!

Grant

 

[Edwin]

Just watched this auction finish at $50,870.00 over at Snapnames. Fancied a bid myself until I logged in and saw it was well into 5 figures!

Grant

I was in at the early part of the auction, but it got "real" quite quickly as the deadline approached.

It's interesting to see it sell for that amount when it sold for €51,000.00 at the Traffic Amsterdam auction in June 2009. That's a 30% decrease.

On the other hand - and we'll never know for sure - I wonder how much higher it might have gone if the auction was truly "live" rather than cancelled at the last minute and then relegated to an online auction platform...

 

[Bailey]

At around £32k seems a good buy price to me - I just noticed the top reported .com sale last week was Adventure.com @ just over £120K. Market certainly looking low at the Moment, must be the summer recess for new domain investment

 

[doodlebug]

Approx 36k GBP got to be worth that when you consider stuff like sunglasses.co.uk sold for 30k GBP, I would much rather pay 36k GBP for houses than 30k GBP for sunglasses

 

[rob]

Big name auction, but I was not aware of it running.

 

[Edwin]

Big name auction, but I was not aware of it running.

Relatively few people were. I did not see any publicity on here or any other forum, for example.

 

[Bailey]

£ 1= $ 1:61 at moment - i know i'm being picky but thats slightly less than £32K

 

[doodlebug]

£ 1= $ 1:61 at moment - i know i'm being picky but thats slightly less than £32K

So not 36k GBP lol

Even more of a bargain for the buyer

 

[domainseller200]

Big name auction, but I was not aware of it running.

Ditto ! Fabulous name and price IMO - gutted not to have even known about the auction

 

[khalid]

Good name at good price, I'm with Rob about not knowing.

Seems most forums are ghost towns these days.

 

[wb]

Approx 36k GBP got to be worth that when you consider stuff like sunglasses.co.uk sold for 30k GBP, I would much rather pay 36k GBP for houses than 30k GBP for sunglasses

Would anyone else prefer Sunglasses.co.uk for the money or just me?

Don't get me wrong 'houses' is by no means a bad name, but I don't personally like how it sounds limiting to not include apartments/flats (looking in terms of dedicating resources to build a brand rather than basing this on exact search volume). If I was entering the market I would much prefer 'homes', or better still, 'property'.

 

[grantw]

Would anyone else prefer Sunglasses.co.uk for the money or just me?

It's not just you, much better domain in my opinion.

Grant

 

[Rob_F]

I think it went for a fair price, imo, not especially cheap. Property.co.uk or home.co.uk it ain't – houses.co.uk just doesn't do it for me.

And before anyone says it, I know those would both be six-figure names.

- Rob

 

[Bailey]

One can only suppose if the house selling market was at its best - a domain like houses.co.uk would do about double (possibly even treble) in domain resale value and business leads.

Seems to me there's some good domain bargains to be had where that particular market niche is under pressure. Regarding Sunglasses.co.uk We know 'relatively' small luxury items start to become a substitute for the big ticket items of better-times in the feel-good stakes - And it is summer ?

 

[bensd]

The other problem with houses it's a seriously competitive Market. You would need a lot of £ to compete with the big boys - and that's before you start making money!

 

[domainseller200]

The other problem with houses it's a seriously competitive Market. You would need a lot of £ to compete with the big boys - and that's before you start making money!

As you rightly say, only a fool with alot of money would attempt to develop houses.co.uk from a standing start to compete with the already fierce competition.

I see houses.co.uk with a totally different outlook (as an investor / domainer) - if that was bought today for £32k, I can see that name being sold for at least £75k within the next 2 years and even likely into 6 figures with the right awareness about the sale.

I am sure most of you remember James's fantastic flip of phones.co.uk which he bought in November 2007 for £49,500 and then resold in July 2008 for £175,000

For me personally that name at £32k is a total no brainer in the long run, and I would rather have £32k invested into that name than £32k sitting in my bank account earning 0.5% interest a year

Of course this is only in my 'risk' taking opinion, but my gut feeling tells me it is a risk well worth taking with a 2 year exit plan in mind - you are never going to lose money on this name, so not as risky as it might seem.

 

[Pred]

agreed Frank

 

[doodlebug]

Exactly, sunglasses is never going to comand 6 figure but possibly houses could and as for it not being homes well I would that at least half of the residential market is houses so why would you not want a slice of that share ?

houses.co.uk is not homes.co.uk is like saying sunglasses.co.uk is not fashion.co.uk

 

[grantw]

I'd still rather have sunglasses.co.uk

Grant

 

[wb]

In a seriously competitive housing market, you're going to need a lot of money to compete with existing companies (as others have said). If you have a lot of money, why would you want to limit yourself to just houses? You may as well try to buy a better domain with more scope (assuming they can be bought for the right price).

Sunglasses.co.uk is a bit different and I definitely wouldn't compare it to Fashion.co.uk in the same way that Houses.co.uk/Homes.co.uk can be compared. A closer comparison would be Glasses.co.uk, but even then that's a completely different market too as the majority of sunglasses have no prescription whereas the opposite is true for normal glasses.

Back to Houses.co.uk, if you're not going to develop it and monetise then you need to find someone willing to part with £32,000+ in the future, which of course is what the risk/reward ratio comes down to. Sunglasses could be developed and monetised into a solid asset with a far lower budget.