What is the Floor Price for 2 Letter .com Domain Names?

Whenever I have posted an article about the sale of a two letter .com domain name, such as Sedo’s sale of MM.com and the private sale of WW.com, there is often some debate about the value of two letter .com domain names. Since many sales at high end are private and/or unreported, it’s difficult to say what an average or floor price is without being active in that market (I am not).

This morning, someone commented, “Speaking of two letter dot coms – what is the lowest amount one may expect to find them at? people ask 7-figures on sedo, but really, what’s the lowest”.

I thought I would do a bit of research to see what the least expensive two letter .com domain name that I could find listed for sale right now. I looked at Sedo, Afternic, Media Options, Igloo.com, Domain Name Sales, and Outcome Brokerage to see what LL.com domain names I could find for sale that had an asking price. I did not inquire about unpriced domain names for the sake of this article, so there are probably other domain names that are less expensive. I  will share this with people I know that deal with LL.com domain names to see if they would be willing to comment.

At the moment, the least expensive two letter .com domain name I could find has a listing price of  $600,000 at Sedo. Because of the make offer option rather than the buy now link, I don’t know if the seller is obligated to sell for that price should an offer of that amount be made, so theoretically, it could be more expensive than that. Recently, Andrew Rosener of Media Options listed WI.com for $800,000  in the weekly broker listings I run and has had it listed in his newsletter.

According to Giuseppe Graziano, Director of Business Development in Europe for Domain Holdings, the floor price for a two letter .com domain name is $270,000. I could not find any public sale listings at that level, but perhaps he would be able to share additional information.

There are just 676 two letter .com combinations available. Many are owned by major corporations like Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and British Airways, As more of these domain names are sold in private, the availability becomes more scarce. As that happens, I would expect the prices to continue to rise.

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

15 COMMENTS

  1. Elliot thanks for the heads up about this post.

    Of course it depends on the actual letters but I’d say the floor for two letter .com combinations is about one million dollars these days. Recently I sold a few LL.coms with a couple of them for 7-figures each. Sedo has extensive global reach and a huge database of qualified buyers making it easy for our brokers to tap into wealthy parties seeking LL.com names anywhere on the planet.

  2. There are a couple of letters which chinese don´t like because these letters don´t exist in Pinyin. Guess they have a lower floor price.

  3. Media Options is in a unique position unlike any other brokerage firm in the industry in that we have focused on short domains (2 and 3 letter .com primarily) since our inception, not only for brokerage but also for our owner operated portfolio. One could say, “we put our money where our mouth is”. In total we have bought, sold and/or brokered around 30 LL.com domains and several hundred LLL.com domains. We still currently own three LL.com domains and ultimately I wish we’d never sold any (hind sight is always 20/20), all of which receive daily offers, primarily from the Chinese investor community as of late.

    LL.com domains have seen unprecedented value growth in the last 18 months. The true wholesale floor value has escalated from $125,000 about 18 months ago to around $350,000 today. I know of one LL.com in the market currently at $275,000 – however, this one has been on the market and shopped around extensively and there doesn’t appear to be much demand for this letter combination. I suspect most investors evaluate these combinations on the potential number of large end users (over $100 million market cap) who could be seen as acquirers in the future, for which that particular letter combination doesn’t have many. Outside of this, there are maybe only a couple at $300k – $350k (2 or 3 I’d say – all of lower quality and lesser used letter combinations). Beyond that all are $450k plus.

    On the flip side (the buy side), I can say with experience that the investors are regularly offering between $350,000 – $500,000 at the wholesale level (almost daily), with offers varying in that range relative to the letter combinations it seems. So the liquid value is in that range depending on the particular letters.

    WI.com (the State abbreviation for Wisconsin) which we are brokering on behalf of MasterLock, currently has several offers between $350,000 – $425,000. However, we will continue our efforts to find an appropriate end user before considering a sale to an investor – per our mandate from our client. Although all offers are welcome as always!

    Itis my opinion, much like Dave, that all of the remaining LL.com domains have a true intrinsic value in the seven or even eight figures and with each new sale and further decrease in supply, the value increases incrementaly. But in an illiquid market like domain names, only time and patience will allow those remaining domains (or the market really) to mature and achieve such value. For varying reasons, investors, including us, sell these assets below their true value in order to raise capital or take advantage of other opportunities. These sales are the ones which set the floor.

    For an endless number of reasons which I’ve documented on our own blog, I believe that 2 Letter domain names are one of the most under-appreciated and under-valued assets today. If there were a single class of domain name which I were most confident in the future value appreciation of, it would most certainly be two letter .com domains – even more so than 2 number .com domains, despite their being even more scarce, simply because the letters have a more global appeal and reach and numbers are primarily focused and value based in China and other Asian markets. If the Chinese economy tanks, so does demand for 2 number or numeric domains in general. Although due to the incredible scarcity of those domains like 50.com which we are also selling, it is also highly unlikely that the values will decrease any time soon and only continue their incredible value growth over the coming months and years.

    LL.com domains are truly unique tools, assets & investment vehicles that are unmatched, particularly in the world of domain names. It seems the world is starting to take notice of this value discrepancy and for this very reason the Chinese among others, in an effort to find a place to invest their money in assets, particularly foreign, have driven up the values so quickly over the last 18 months in a race to get their hands on these scarce commodities. But because of the scarcity and lack of leverage, I don’t think we’ll see any downward pressure on these values any time soon – if ever. I think quite the opposite. I think within 6-12 months you’ll see a $500k floor value on any LL.com at the wholesale level.

  4. Consider what becomes of an LL.com in China:
    “JD.com is No. 1 in the Internet Retailer China 500, which ranks retailers by their own online sales. While Alibaba’s two big online marketplaces—Taobao and Tmall—account for more than 80% of online retail sales in China, Alibaba, like eBay Inc., does not own any merchandise and thus is not ranked in the China 500. JD.com, formerly known as Jingdong Mall, booked $18.2 billion in 2013 online sales, while consumers purchased $248 billion from Alibaba’s two big marketplaces last year from some 8 million sellers.”
    http://www.internetretailer.com/2014/08/12/alibabas-chief-competitor-gets-big-edge?

  5. Okay, interesting, so then when are they going to release the remaining 1-letter .com’s in a fair manner like a lottery or other such scheme that does not favor and has nothing to do with who has the deepest pockets, where everyone has an equal chance?

    • If such release will happen … it will be very expensive betting which is not reasonable investment, unless the buyer is an end-user with extremely deep pockets. Other words, this wouldn’t be interested auction for domain investors.

  6. I have some LL.com with first letter of each being ê, which is a french accented e.

    êa.com
    êe.com
    êm.com

    and so on. They have a limited market of course but one sold a few years ago for low xxxx. They get a low level of traffic.

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