To some, this is going to sound like exactly the same thing. After all, isn’t an appraisal supposed to tell you what something is worth?
When I was a kid I loved to collect baseball cards. I literally had boxes and boxes of baseball treasure beneath my bed. I’m not sure if they are still the authority, but back then there was a price guide called Beckett’s, and my friends and I used the Beckett guide religiously to determine what are cards were worth. Sometimes they weren’t even worth a penny, but other times the mighty Beckett would give a card some serious power. Sometimes claiming that it was worth hundreds of dollars.
But were they really worth that much?
The answer is no. They weren’t. The reason they weren’t worth that much is because there was no way I was going to get Billy Harper to pay me a hundred bucks for a Nolan Ryan with a bent corner.
I couldn’t sell it for that much because I didn’t have a market to sell it in. Which is true for many domain investors as well. Here’s what I’m getting at.
Many domain name investors work their domains through a circuit of appraisal services, looking for the highest appraisal possible. Now, this is obviously something you are going to want to have, if only to show a potential buyer when working on making a sale. But what I find funny is that many domainers think their appraisals are the absolute, and that’s how they price their domains. If Estibot says a domain is worth $25,000 then no way are they taking a penny less!
Ridiculous logic if you ask me. As far as I’m concerned it’s also ridiculous to lock your price around ANY appraisal. Because that’s not how domains are sold. It comes down to what the market will bear. Not what you or someone else thinks its worth. And certainly not some flat formula for pricing you found on one of the domain name forums.
Understand, appraisals are just a guide to what a domain might be worth. They are not written in stone and are not meant to lock you into a price. If you want a real idea of what you can sell your domain for, you are going to have to do some research and see what other similar domains are currently selling for. Even this is not going to give you an absolute price. It’s only going to give you an idea of what that domain will sell for. To get a real dollar amount there is only one way.
Sell the domain.
Your appraisal is only a piece of paper. In the end, a domain is only worth what you sell it for.
Tags: investment, return, value