I get things like this every so often:
—–Original Message—–
from: REDACTED
date: 19 Mar 2008 12:41:20
To: info at phoenixrealestateguy.com
Cc: REDACTED
subject: Your Domain, www.phoenixrealestateguy.comI would like to purchase the domain www.phoenixrealestateguy.com. I would be willing to pay $2,000.00 for it. I have my own website (redacted) and make money by improving sites and getting advertising for them. Please let me know if you would be willing to let me buy your site by emailing me at xxxxxx or call me at xxxxxx.
I will forward a purchase agreement to you immediately. We have already deposited the funds for the purchase of your domain with SafeFunds.com.
Please visit their website for details regarding receipt of payment and transfer of ownership of the domain.
$2,000?
I think not. Add a couple of zero’s to that and I’ll give it some thought. (Hey, everything has a price.)
What is even more funny is this came not long after I responded to a comment on “The Case Against Blogging” on HomeGain blog that said (in part):
Michael Maher writes: “It’s time to call blogging what it is ”“ a fun hobby. Businesses make money and hobbies cost money. In this case, time is money and this hobby is costing time. It’s okay. Some people mow their lawn. Some people do scrapbooking. Some people build model cars. And some people blog. Great! Have fun with it, but don’t substitute it for genuine assertive prospecting methods like handwriting notes, phone calls, and one-on-one meetings with potential clients and referral partners.”
Yeah, whatever.
.
The Phoenix Real Estate Guy was started by Jay Thompson, and I have a little blogging problem... he liked to say...
$200,000 would probably be close to worth it. $500,000 and I'd do it in 5 secs if I were you.
Steve – it's wouldn't even take 5 seconds. This blog is my baby, and my livelihood, but half a million bucks? Yeah, I'd sell out for that…
I thought about buying iDelaware.com and it was "for sale". The price: $2,750. Now your site is worth well more than $2,000.
That said, if somebody offered me $20,000 for delawareohrealestate.com — I'd be tempted.
…and worth every penny!
Jay, if I win the lottery … I'll make you an offer you can't refuse.
But here's the thing, it's not the name of the site but who you are that is really important. If someone bought it, traffic would eventually go to zero and your new site, name to be determined, would have all your fans.
Well I'd give you 2k for it…and then some! 🙂
True Howard. But there are tens of thousands of backlinks that would go away. Rebuilding them would suck.
Besides, I am The Phoenix Real Estate Guy! 😉
Stay tuned, there may be more "real estate guy" sites in the future……
Now I'm headed to the mailbox to look for Caleb's check…
I think we better buy MrsPhoenixRealEstateGuy.com – not that I'll be blogging any time soon!
"not that I’ll be blogging any time soon!"
Uh huh. She used to say that about leaving comments and setting up an RSS feed reader too….
"I think we better buy MrsPhoenixRealEstateGuy.com"
Done! 🙂
IMHO, real estate websites are worth far more than any other type of website. The reason is because the value of traffic & leads generated from the website. If you only get a few hundred visitors a month on the site, the revenue opportunity is so much more than a site that sells socks. Do some quick math and you will find out how much a real estate website is truly worth. Average Commission(Annual Leads Generated x Conversion Rate)=Annual Revenue. Then find a multiple that works for everyone. The buyer shouldn't expect more than a 3-5 year payback. Considering you could easily make the same $2,000 from selling a trailer in AJ, it doesn't make any sense to sell it. I would think $200,000 would be too little as well.
I think that offer was a fair price for your domain. Most domains are selling in the $1,000 – $5,000 price range.
The "guy" on the end of the domain name kills the value.
To be the real estate market expert you need key words in the domain. You are now the expert in your town or city.
Also look at this one: http://www.gilabendaz-realestate.com – actual real estate business. Problem: They should own http://www.gilabendazrealestate.com !!
I would recommend you return the domain and ask for a refund. Then purchase a premium geo real estate domain!!
No way, not even with a couple of additional zeros. Your equity on this site is priceless.
Pete – there is much more to this site than the words in the domain name.
Why in the world would I "return my domain name and ask for a refund"???? I don't understand that, at all.
With tens of thousands of backlinks to this domain, 700ish posts and 4,000ish comments, this site generates a lot of business for me. This site ranks very well in search engines for countless real estate related terms, despite the "guy" at the end of the URL "killing the value".
"Phoenix Real Estate Guy" is a brand. As such, it is worth far more than $2,000 to me. Considering the number of closed real estate transactions this site has produced, even an offer of $200,000 would require a lot of consideration.
Perhaps from a purely keyword specific domain name perspective, PhoenixRealEstateGuy.com isn't worth that much. As a brand, a PR5 website with a significant amount of content, fabulous search positioning, an established readership and (I like to think) excellent reputation, it is worth significantly more than $2K to me.
Pete obviously hasn't seen you business cards.
$2,000 – LOL
Hobby, cost money – LOL
Hey Jay if you ever do decide that you want to give up your hobby that costs you money for $2k – let me know
I wonder if they would have went as high as $2,050? You should have asked.
Just one phoenixrealestate.com and 245 results found order: left anchor with domains starting with: phoenixrealestate
Your site is in a group of 245 others active and parked websites that start with phoenixrealestate.
I am buying domains with city ending in realestate, azrealestate, or arizonarealestate. Or city names.
I control over 50% of Arizona incorporated towns and city premium real estate domains in one way or another right now. That city/town ending in realestate, azrealestate, or arizonarealestate .
Secret: Check out the expired domain name auctions for expired real estate domains that you can buy from $10 -60 and up:
https://www.tdnam.com/
http://www.snapnames.com/
Get over yourself…You act like your site is branded like Ebay or Amazon…PhoenixRealEstateGuy is cheesy and generic, it may work for you but its not a "brand" to the community its a brand to you.
After reading Pete's observations, I had to comment.
Searchbots can parse words, so it can look at this domain name and figure out it says Phoenix Real Estate Guy. So there you are – the plum of local real estate keywords! The "Guy" part doesn't matter at all. I'd say you have a kick-a** domain name (the Diva talks this way sometimes).
In addition, with all the backlinks, posts, and comments you have, you'd be crazy to give it up!
You rank #12 in Google for Phoenix Real Estate, and you'll be happy to know you rank #2 & #3 for Pheonix Real Estate! Keep up the good work.
Jay
You see you immediately cheapened your image and website by becoming a HomeGain blogger! You may wish to reconsider….
Seriously, the value of the Phoenixrealestateguy.com domain is you and your content not the URL.
If you sold it and set up under another name within two weeks you'd have 75% of your readers, within a month 95%.
Dear Mom-
I never claimed that Phoenix Real Estate Guy was branded like eBay or Amazon. Clearly it's more like Nike, Coca-Cola or Google. 😉
Of course it's a personal brand. (Though there are a few in the local community that are aware of it. Many more in the real estate community)
SEO Diva – thanks for stopping by! Fabulous place you've got.
Louis – Maybe I should reconsider ;). Yes, the value is in the content. I think most of the readership would follow quickly, but it would take much longer to rebuild the "authority" of the site, and hence the search placements it enjoys.
Besides, if I sold the domain, I'd have to throw out a lot of business cards…
"yeah, whatever" is right…. Because sitting on the phone and risking $11,000 penalty to talk to ONE person is more valuable than writing a relevant post that countless can see and… may find in a future date….
Hope he enjoys playing solitaire while on floor duty …just saying….
Jay – I got a similar email this week for my Austin real estate website url. What idiot would sell a highly ranking web address for a measely 2 grand? Some people have a lot of nerve. It is like the boneheads who find my site in a web search and then call to guarantee top placement in searches. Right!
The numbers placing values on non-commerce websites always amaze me. The numbers get so large, but in the end it is usually the person behind them making them a success and the offers are not to buy the person.
Hey, Jay. If you sell out, you can have this one: http://tinyurl.com/3dn3t8.
It's a brand for sure, and I think as time goes on and on holding for the long term will only keep raising the value not to mention it's throwing off free cashflow (in leads that turn to closed deals) so a sale would be a dumb move in my opinion.
Nice going there mate! for $2000 ! what were they thinking? this site is much much worth than that. $300,000-00 should do it. Your site is highly rank and got high traffic. It's a ridiculous price!
The value of the site is what it will (if ever) get sold for and not what it is/was/will being offered for. I think that another real estate agent/broker in the same are would value it more, especially if he/she understands online marketing and how to convert online leads into real business. For a person that is not even in the industry and makes money only by placing Google ads and affiliate links on the bought sites… 2K is a fair price if they're not going to develop it further… it will be just enough to make their money back and a little more before it dies. (of course you don't sell the content for this price) As far as all those links… I've seen this kind of transaction done – the bought site was dead and not ranking in a few months and the new site (which was also bought but for much cheaper) is back in business and #1 for its most competitive kw. Links can be asked to be changed.. and I think, if Jay really wanted, the majority of links could be changed very quickly to his new site/blog.
As far as fair price… I think 500K and even 200K is a little bit too much of dreaming. Even if you're a realtor in the Phoenix area… and bought this site… you have to be too good to start making profit in 3 years.
Jay,
According to http://directory.sootle.com/website-worth/
…
your website is worth…*drumroll please*…
$366,246.00
How about that?! Not bad aye?
@Max "Links can be asked to be changed.. and I think, if Jay really wanted, the majority of links could be changed very quickly to his new site/blog"
True Max, for things like blogroll links. I did that when I changed domains here a long time ago (long time in blog years at least) and almost everyone cooperates. But it would be asking a lot of people to go through their individual posts that link here and change all of them. (and the vast majority of links here are from folks individual posts to my individual posts.)
I mean, I'll change a blogroll link in a heartbeat if someone asks. But if someone wants me to thumb through 700 posts and change any URL references to them, that's probably not going to happen.
@Ricardo "$366,246.00 How about that?! Not bad aye?"
Aye!! I haven't had a look yet, but I suspect that is primarily based on back links (that's how most of those valuation thingys seem to work)
$366K Hmmm…I think I'm out.
Jay, you have too many followers, so most of them would pick up your message right away. I know what you mean by changing blogroll links… what about all those comment and post links, right? Majority of blogs would have only a few links pointing to your site, so changing them wouldn't be too hard for the owners (assuming that people got your message just by following you), those that have a lot of links can do a direct database query to their blog to automatically replace all the instances of the "sold" domain name with the new one (assuming you keep your content with the same URLs). I would think, contacting the most important people personally, and then posting a blog post with a few follow ups after that would switch the majority of your links in a fairly short time. Plus, keeping up the good job as you always do, would bump you back up as well 😉
Among all of us, Caleb, probably, would have very close idea of a "fair price", and since he's out 🙂 it "kinda" confirms my first post.
Yea I know… But on a serious note, I wouldn't sell Phoenix Real Estate Guy.
You have one of the best blogs out there in the blogverse. Great thoughtful posts cutting edge tech. So i guess what cracks me up is someone would "improve it" by cutting out all your content and throwing up a bunch of adsense.
Uh, I got the exact same email about my domain. The next Nigerian scam-to-get-your-bank-info perhaps?
Jay, it's been snowing off and on up here in the great Northwest for the past couple of days, I could use some sun. I'm prepared to offer $2001.00 and a $25.00 Starbucks gift card in exchange for your url and a case of SPF 50 sunscreen……..Shake on it?