In this week’s edition of The Sales Roundup, I look behind the numbers to see why a few of the names on a recent DNJournal chart sold for the prices they did. Those names are GoBet.com, Limit.com, and Surgery.tv.
GoBet.com – $850,000
Domain name investors may already be familiar with the name Rick Schwartz. The legendary domainer has been building his epic portfolio since the 1990s, and has amassed hundreds of the best names available including Property.com, Properties.com, and Queen.com.
Rick is known for his high sales prices. Although he has sold very few names, the domains he has sold have been blockbuster deals. Candy.com for $3 million-plus equity, Porno.com for $8,888,888, and Men.com for $1.3 million are three worth mentioning.
Therefore, it should come as no surprise that in order to prise a domain from Rick’s possession, it took a significant sum of money. In this case, Rick sold GoBet.com for $850,000 plus fees. In a tweet, Rick disclosed that the total paid by the buyer was in fact $935,000.
The negotiations started with a $70,000 offer in June 2019. Rick declined all offers, including one for $750,000.
As of writing, GoBet.com resolves to a default registrar page, but the available WHOIS shows that the buyer is based in Manila, Philippines. Little is currently known about the buyer but it was reported that the buyer may have also acquired EzBet.com.
Limit.com – $120,000
This one-word .COM name was sold at Sedo for $120,000. According to DomainIQ’s WHOIS history, the name was sold by Sedo on behalf of a British individual who may have held the name since 2010. For that ten year period, the nameservers have always been pointed towards NS1.SEDOPARKING.COM and NS2.SEDOPARKING.COM, Sedo’s nameservers.
The domain was acquired by Brent Oxley, the founder of popular hosting company HostGator. Since selling HostGator, Brent has amassed a portfolio filled with highly valuable, premium .COM domains.
His overall portfolio can be seen in the Efty marketplace, but some of the standout names include Broker.com, Hybrid.com, and VT.com.
Brent is not afraid to spend six-figure fees to get the best domains. For example, he paid $375,000 for Broker.com, $500,000 for Give.com, and $190,000 for Hybrid.com.
In this case, Brent paid $120,000 to acquire Limit.com. Brent obviously expects to sell the name for a sizable profit as the domain currently requires a minimum offer of $200,000 to even discuss the name.
Surgery.tv – $45,000
According to NameBio, the sale of Surgery.tv for $45,000 represents the second-largest .TV sale of the past three years, and eleventh-largest .TV sale of all time. That’s only based on publicly disclosed sales figures, though.
The name was sold by Blue String Ventures, a company predominantly concentrating on domain name investments. Information from LinkedIn suggests the company owns several thousand domains including some of the best .TV names available.
Blue String Ventures previously sold Ebola.com in a deal worth $200,000, and more recently sold Soul.tv for $18,000.
The high prices attained by Blue String Ventures suggests that they are in the habit of saying “no” to most of their offers, leading buyers to pay substantial fees in order to pry the domains away.
Based on data I’ve gathered, the name was acquired by a neurosurgeon in Queensland, Australia. The domain may be used in conjunction with a YouTube channel, or perhaps as a standalone surgery TV website. As of writing, the name isn’t resolving.