Sell at 400% profit?

[LimitedEdition]

First off, I am an extreme noob and literally finished reading the Domain Graduate today and parked all 4 of my domains at sedo two days ago so please bear with me. I have received an offer to sell my domain names and want to know if this could possibly be a legitimate deal or if it is a scam which is so prominent in this market.

Yesterday I received an e-mail from a company and invests in domains stating that they were interested in one of my domain names and how much I was willing to sell it for. I informed them that I had four domain names, all the same name with different extensions and asked how much they were willing to offer for one or all of them. They replied back that they wanted to purchase all four for "X" dollars, which is apx. 400% more than what I purchased them for 6 months ago. They are also requesting a "manual valuation" from an independent company and can adjust their offer price by 12-15% based off the valuation.

Please note that my domains receive little traffic and are parked, not developed.

As I am very fresh in this market I can not tell if this is total bull or a legit offer. Seeing as this could potentially be real I did not disclose the names of the domains, the company name or offer price for privacy.

Any advice is appreciated and I do apologize for the noob question, but I do hope the expertise from the members on this forum can point me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance...

---------- Post added 08-21-2010 at 12:12 AM ---------- Previous post was 08-20-2010 at 11:52 PM ----------

I just found that this is a common appraisal scam and is common for people who park their sites on sedo....ah well.

[CureCancer]

You here to introduce yourself or promote Domain Graduate? You've mentioned it twice now.

[LimitedEdition]

I didn't pay $45 to promote Domain Graduate....

[simon]

. They replied back that they wanted to purchase all four for "X" dollars, which is apx. 400% more than what I purchased them for 6 months ago. They are also requesting a "manual valuation" from an independent company and can adjust their offer price by 12-15% based off the valuation.



As I am very fresh in this market I can not tell if this is total bull or a legit offer. .

yea thats typical of a scam. if they ask for appraisal then just delete the email and move on.

[LimitedEdition]

Thanks, will do. So is it common for the seller or the buyer to pay for appraisals? Or are appraisals even relevant in this market?

[simon]

the buyers know the value of the domains so no need of appraisal. so i would say appraisals are not needed in order to sell a name.

[mediawizard]

This is commonly known as the 'appraisal scam', just google it.

Anyone who wants to buy a domain from you already has a price in mind, no serious buyer would expect you to pay for an appraisal.

No ebook can teach you domain investing just as no ebook can teach you to make money in stocks. It might provide pointers which could accelerate your knowledge of the industry, but don't follow anything blindly.

[bgmv]

Yes this is a common scam, welcome to domaining - i am sure this isnt the first and only scam you will encounter

[Eraser]

Yes, it's a scam. They target new people as they don't know about these scams. Never pay anyone to do appraisal. If buyer want to know the value he can buy those appraisals, which he won't as he is just promoting those services.

[LimitedEdition]

Thanks for the info guys. I'm glad I already got the first attempted scam out of the way.

[Maxwell]

Thanks, will do. So is it common for the seller or the buyer to pay for appraisals? Or are appraisals even relevant in this market?

I feel it's the buyer's responsibility. What the domain will sell for is ultimately up to them, and if they are more comfortable with a third opinion, then that's their own business.

When I first got an email like that, with slight suspicion it was a scam, I told him to pay for the appraisal himself and then we'll knock whatever it costs off the price we can agree on. Let's just say I didn't hear back

But to be quite honest, appraisals are virtually meaningless. With some experience in end-user sales, the vast majority of names sell for $xxx, with weaker names not selling at all or going for $xx or $x, and stronger names going for $x,xxx+.

At the end of the day, an end-user can do much more with a domain name than a non-developing domainer can... so if you can get more than you paid to acquire the name, I wouldn't let an unrealistic valuation get in the way of a sure sale.

Just remember, there's no such thing as a bad profit.

[LimitedEdition]

^ Well written.