Offered for $70k in August, Blaze.com Re-Sells for $253k

In June of 2015, Heritage Auctions’ Aron Meystedt email me to let me know Blaze.com was being offered for sale:

“This is a great one-word name for investment or branding. Memorable and powerful.
The price is $115,000 for this asset. It’s tough to find a one-word .com that makes an impact in the $100K range.
it does receive type in traffic (300-400 per day), which can help launch your new venture.”

In August, Aron sent an email to announce a price reduction for Blaze.com:

“Blaze.com – very close to this selling. $70K would get it done.”

Less than a year later, Blaze.com reportedly sold for $253,000 at yesterday’s  Heritage Auctions live domain name auction in San Francisco.

When Aron announced the price drop to $70,000, I was tempted to buy the domain name. Blaze.com is a short dictionary .com domain name that could be used as a great brand name. My hesitation was that it would be difficult to spend $70k on a name like this when it  might not yield a profitable return  for quite some time, especially when it had been on the market. There are better deals to be had, I thought. Apparently, I was wrong, as this domain name sold for nearly 4x its price in under a year.

Aron told me that a buyer acquired the name last year and then resold it in auction yesterday. Here’s more from Aron:

“The current buyer scooped it up around the price we discussed.
Local, Dallas buyer, and we talked and set the reserve at $100,000  thinking he may be able to flip it and make a small profit.
Apparently, we brought 2 or 3 motivated buyers to the table who competitively bid for the name.”

Congratulations to all parties involved in this deal. Hopefully it closes smoothly. There are still great returns to be made in the business of domain name investing.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn
  1. Was the name dropped in 2015 ???
    ————————————————
    Whois blaze.com

    Domain Name: BLAZE.COM
    Registry Domain ID: 1351673_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
    Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.networksolutions.com
    Registrar URL: http://networksolutions.com
    Updated Date: 2015-12-29T06:17:50Z
    Creation Date: 2015-12-29T06:17:46Z <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
    Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2017-05-31T04:00:00Z
    Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC.
    Registrar IANA ID: 2
    Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@web.com
    Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.8003337680
    Reseller:
    Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
    Registry Registrant ID:
    Registrant Name: BLAZE, LLC
    Registrant Organization: BLAZE, LLC
    Registrant Street: 2019 N LAMAR ST STE 300
    Registrant City: DALLAS
    Registrant State/Province: TX
    Registrant Postal Code: 75202-1738
    Registrant Country: US
    Registrant Phone: 214-420-3390
    Registrant Phone Ext:
    Registrant Fax:
    Registrant Fax Ext:
    Registrant Email: nsi@dimant.com

  2. Ironically, with the 15% buyer premium fee and 15% seller’s fee the auction house is walking away with more than $70k in commissions on this sale.

    I find it interesting that the buyer at $70k was willing to accept selling it for a $15k profit (after commission) with the $100k reserve.

    • With many investments, a 20% ROI is good. Maybe the seller had confidence that HA would bring a new buyer.

      I personally would have wanted to sell it for more, but that is just me.

  3. While the BP isn’t negotiable, sometimes the seller’s fee is.
    You are greatly overstating the commission we took in selling this item.

    Plus, factor in the massive marketing expense for the entire auction, and the final revenue totals aren’t nearly as enticing as one might think.

    Regardless, great flip for the owner and we’re glad we were able to
    create a bidding war for the name! It’s fun when that happens.

    Great story Elliot.
    Aron

  4. This is a good example of why ‘estibot’ has no merit for higher quality domain names. The upper range is so individualized for premiums and is driven by factors that auto-appraisals can never account for.

    • don’t count it for advertising but italian.pizza could be very powerful alternative to branded names that could be difficult to understand for people who don’t know the brand ( blaze ) or are geographically remote…

      i mean moving from blazepizza to blaze may just be an internal image win…

      of course i may be wrong, but i have never heard of blaze / blazepizza even if italian food is the best i like !

  5. Fantastic return. Hope for the seller that the sale goes through.

    The action also produced an opposite result, though. Timeless.com sold for $52,900 as opposed to $150,000 in February last year.

    • I live in the US and am somewhat of an expert on US Trademark law as it applies to domains. Any one of the dozen or so “Blaze” trademark holders could easily file a UDRP against me for Blaze.com once I started using it. I would be using it for a different type of business, so I would not be violating their trademark, but they would still probably win the blaze.com domain in a UDRP decision because they started their “blaze” business before mine. Even if they lose, I would pay thousands in legal fees. And, that does not even take into account possible disputes from the hundreds of other trademark holders that have a trademark with the word “blaze” in it, but not just “blaze” alone.

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