Your Inquiry May Lead to a Sale Listing

One of the most exciting aspects of investing in domain names is when you’re able to get a reply to an email or a phone call from a domain owner that was difficult to reach. Sometimes you need to do more research to contact certain domain name owners, and getting a reply to an offer or inquiry opens the door for a potential acquisition. I think many of the most successful domain investors are good investigators and have a knack for finding and communicating with even the most “hidden” domain name owners.

If you found it difficult to get in touch with the owner of a domain name, chances are good that others did as well. If that’s the case, it is very possible that the domain owner has not fielded many (or any) inquiries or offers in a long time. Your offer or inquiry may make the domain owner aware that his or her asset has value, and if that is the case, the owner may seek a public sale to get the most money for the domain name.

On occasion, when I was able to “find” a domain owner that wasn’t easy to reach, I’ve run into the issue where the offer makes the domain owner interested getting other offers and opinions about the value of the asset. Contacting someone that isn’t aware of the value of the domain name is a double edged sword. Many people are interested in turning a domain name into cash, but they want to make sure they are getting the most for their domain name.

It is certainly the right of the domain owner to get the best price and seek to market the domain name. Generally, this does not align with my own interests in buying the domain name without competition. You should always be aware that when you inquire about a domain name to someone who hasn’t received any inquiries in the past, your inquiry may lead to them listing the domain name for sale on a domain marketplace or with a domain name broker.

I have two recommendations that may help you in a situation like this. The first is to make a good / reasonable offer for the domain name. If you make a lowball offer, the owner is likely to pass on it because there’s no need to sell a long-held domain name for a low price. The second recommendation is to put a time limit on your offer. If they know the offer will be invalid after a short period of time, they will need to move quickly. If you made a strong offer, you may have a better chance of securing a deal.

Have you been in this situation before? How did it turn out for you?

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

2 COMMENTS

  1. Hey Elliot.
    Off the subject of domainzz.
    I hope you have a nice day tomorrow on father’s day.
    I hope you take some time to enjoy your day with your family.
    And thanks again for letting me post my worthless domains on your site on Wednesday.

  2. I had a similar situation that was rather funny. Let’s say you find a domain that is in redemption period and you try to persuade the registrant to redeem it and let you buy it, because you’re confident there will be a bidding war you’d like to avoid. Well that may result in the guy deciding not to let it go after all and start bidding on it himself – and that’s exactly what happened with a drop auction at one of the big drop catchers involving a bunch of bidders with his name very clearly and obviously displayed among them – the very guy who had been letting it drop, lol. So during the auction I took steps to try to mitigate this situation by writing him back to say that I already had the .net and would at least be able to use that. In this case I was being truthful because for the particular domain involved, the .net is also not only perfect and valuable, but could even be perceived as more appropriate in the minds of the public than the .com. Nonetheless, the .com is a gem and I did really prefer to have the .com which I had been looking at for some time before this unexpected drop. Lol – so it may have worked, because he apparently dropped out of the auction completely and i won the remaining bidding war for a price that was quite ok.

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