I’m .com person. I have looked far and wide to help purchase some of the best generic .com’s in the word. However, there are certain keywords that are extremely valuable even in other extensions. One such phrase is ” Car Insurance”. I own Carinsurance.net. I purchased it a few years back from the winner of a snapnames.com drop. Back in those days, Snapnames did not auction domains. What they did was charge you a small sum, around $69. If no one else had a “snap” on it, you could snap it and hope that they won it for you. a few domainers built their empires on snaps.
I have had various offers over the years, some higher, but have always kept the Carinsurance.net domain due to the large lead gen and SEO possibilities. A few recent offers at the $100,000 range has got me off my motivated into developing it.
What would you do?
I’d develop it and keep a price tag on it for $500,000.
It should be worth more than girlgames 🙂
I received a few 100+K offers on a .net.
I’m gambling it will go for more in the future (2-5 years).
If you don’t really need the money, I would keep it unless
you can put the $100K AFTER TAXES to good use.
Anthony
If I could own a domain of this caliber I would focus on development. With time and marketing it should easily bring in $100,000 or more a year.
Based on the domain name only, because no parking stats are provided, I’d sell. Of course I would try to get in the $125,000-$150,000 range, but be willing to settle near $100,000.
Larry,
I would sell for $125-$150k if I were you (since it is just a parked domain name). Obviously this would be worth a lot after a few years of development but that is a very tough space and a tough keyword to crack. Best of luck with the possible sale.
I would NEVER sell it for $100k. This is a rare domain to own and for all you know the other party may be a huge insurance company that makes millions and may be billions each year. A person trying to buy such a domain won’t be some ordinary person for sure and I don’t think you can actually ever develop it as good as a real insurance company could.
So, You should not sell it for just $100k .. if you do and the new owner goes onto make millions every year ..you would only be filled with regret. Don’t sell for anything less than $500k ( upto $750k actually ).
Larry,
I will sell it for $100,000 and in this great buyer’s market you can pick up some top-notch .com’s to reinvest in.
Larry, hope to see you at DomainFest this year like last year.
Thanks, Jim Holleran
I’d have to agree with Patrick. I would take the money. You can always put that money into another domain. The only issue I see is taxes and I would like to take home 100K after taxes. The last deciding factor is money. If you have plenty then pay someone to develop it and wait.
I wish I could give a knowledgeable answer to this question.
And I would love to read about your decision, once its all done.
If you have time to develop a really good site, develop it. If you don’t think you have the time, go back to the buyers and tell them the first one to offer you 150k gets it (I think ChefPatrick’s range is pretty accurate and reasonable). But do not develop it unless you really can make it into something that will add a few hundred grand to the price tag.
This is good offer for .net extensions, and is really hard to give any advise on that. If you really do not need money, keep it, and develop website to increase the value. It’s definitely worth more money,but decision will be yours. Take a time to thing about it what you would do with money you got from that sale, and go from there.
Best of luck!
Looks like people so far are split down the middle. I look forward to hearing more thoughts.
@jim, yes i will be at Domainfest. I look forward to seeing you and all my other good friends.
It comes down to your personal circumstances – your need for cash and also your development expertise. If you are skilled at developing lead generation sites, perhaps you could make more with development. However, I wouldn’t count on making $100K off of Google Adsense or affiliate programs. One doesn’t see many two-word .Net domains sell anywhere near this price range.
Larry,
It’s a great lead-gen domain in a great lead-gen niche. I;m sure you already know that. Spend some money on solid development and cash those monthly checks. 100K is way too low.
– Richard
I would get in contact with Joel Ohman (if he’s not the interested part) and see how he is doing with his $200K+ he spent on insurance related domains. http://www.dotweekly.com/2009/08/28/360-quote-llc-buys-even-more-insurance-domains/
Based on how his developed domains are doing may suggest it’s worth keeping and developing or the total opposite.
Larry… You have better names to develop.. Focus on those firstly. Put some real effort into those.
A simple lead-gen or anything like that on CarInsurance.net will not do anything to create real value. It is a very competitive niche and everybody and their mama wants in… Unfortunately, not too make make it.
A nice and targeted category leading domain will surely help you over the long run and give you a quick boost but “the domain doesn’t make or break your business”
There is a lot more to development and running a standalone business is not so simple in one of the top 5 or 10 most competitive categories around.
Larry, I have to agree with Mike, you said it yourself you have better names to develop, take the money and use it develop your undeveloped geo names. Join us for lunch on Tuesday and we’ll talk about it.
Steve
I’d sell for the $100,000 or try and get a price of $100,000 after taxes, (whatever that may be where you come from)
As car insurance is as competitive as they come.
unless it gets staggering amounts of traffic (which i dont think it does) Sell it now.
Or even go for a smaller sum and a revenue share (small percenatage) with the option of a payoff after 1yr.
If someones willing to put down $100k on a .net nowadays, they must have some serious plans for it, so a revenue share is a good option to go down.
Have a reocurring revenue stream every month, and a large sum of money to do as you wish.
I don’t often agree with Mike @ WD, but if you don’t have serious development chops, it’s going to be a long painful road to start with CarInsurance.net if you want to get any kind of leverage in 2010.
Who made the offer?
@ ari. current offers are from lead gen guys.
@ leonard . I dont need the cash but I know cant develop every domain and a sale could make sense but I usually follow my gut on these and it’s telling me its worth more. Also some .net’s in the last 2 years went unreported for high numbers.
@Steve, thanks for the offer but hate sushi. BTW you should call Blue ribbon as I realized they may not be open for lunch.
Unless its making a decent amount on PPC I’d sell, there has’nt been many 100k + .net sales reported over the last 5 years and looking at the names that did sell most are not doing much interesting with them…which says to me, yes endusers may use .net but mainly when they’re cheap.
In UK there are loads of ads on TV for all the main big car insurance brands like Elephant.com, MoreThan.com, Admiral.com etc and lots of comparison sites like MoneySuperMarket.com, Confused.com, GoCompare.com, CompareTheMarket(meercat:)).com who get a huge amount of business and have massive marketing budgets…Even Tescos (supermarket) does car insurance now, seriously stiff competition for car insurance over here.
I’d Sell, Sell, Sell 🙂
You said you don’t need the money, so don’t sell, or wait for a higher price. The only way this domain will go down in value is if all domains become worthless, or car insurance gets replaced with something else, both unlikely to happen. It’s not like a fad topic that may go out of style, car insurance will always be around and related good domains will stay in demand. Hold on and wait for an offer that blows your socks off.
I would wait for that 200k offer, if no deal go ahead with brainstorming some plans for it. It’s such a nice name and will make lots if developed right. worth 200k+ most def
I would take the money.
Hold.
Sell it ASAP…take the money and run…domain names are going down in value each day…more and more people are using google search rather than typing in the actual domain name itself.
If you guys were looking for car insurance…what would you do? Most people would just goto google search and type in car insurance and click on the top searches…i dont think none of you guys would even bother to type in carinsurance.com …definately not carinsurance.net
Just do a survey here: how many people would type in carinsurance.com … and how many would just goto google.com and type in car insurance
What is it with domainers. If the offer had been for $2m everyone would be crowing back with comments like “Id counter with $2.5m”.. i.e. take good opening offer and counter with higher number, no matter what the original bid.
Lets say the offer had been for $25k, would an accepted counter of $100k then have been acceptable?
Take the money or do the math. If you are parking and earning more than $20k per annum with the name alone then keep it, if not, sell it. Simple!
Looks like the domain gets 300 – 500 uniques a month right? What would carinsurance.com pay per lead? Per unique? If you can make at least 10k / year from it Id sit on it forever. If not, sell it and invest the $ wisely.
I would sell for $100k and reinvest at least 50% of the money.
That price is worth letting go of it. You’ll obviously want to negotiate as much as you can with the potential buyer, but six-figures can go a long way in buying and developing .COMs right now.
If you need the money, sell it, but go for a bit more, to end up with 100k after taxes. But if you dont need the money develop it, market it and you will make that sum in 1-2 years
Well you took a calculated risk by even posting the question and then having it distributed through domaining.com’s newsletter. I am sure your post will bring you more offers than the original $100k. In straight financial terms, you bought it for $69.If you sold it for $100k you are making around 144928% profit, minus a few renew fees here and there. That’s not bad in the economy we are in.On the other hand, if you keep the domain, it will with no doubt go up in value in the future. So it comes down to feel and need. Does it feel right to you? If you have any doubts move on. I have sold domains in the past for good money and a few months down the road regretted it…probably because I did not need the money and I realized how many ways I could have profited from the domain if I still had it.
Lot’s of feedback for this name for sure,
You’re not sure if you want to sell it, you’re not sure if you want to develop it out. You don’t need the money, but you’re scared that if you bail on the name, it’ll sell for a higher price later.
What I didn’t see posted here was:
Why not work “with” the person that wants it, and work out some sort of partnership/development liason. Essentially a lease to the company. You retain the domain name, they pay you to use it, they pay you to develop it however they want, they pay you for everything, and you get a percentage of any ads on there, or however you want to work it out.
Residual income while maintaining ownership, and you both obtain something you want.
When it comes time down the road, and if it were a successful venture, then they’ll pay more for ownership, and if it’s not then you’ve made some money, and can then sell the name later on.
@ brady. I did not have the original Snap for $69 on the domain. I purchased the domain from the Snap winner at a premium.
Develop…Develop…Develop…
I’d sell. .net domains will get less and less traffic in the coming days. Their value is at its peak, especially with URI rewrites and integrated searching becoming prominent (Google Chrome no longer differentiates Search from Address — a sign of the times that it’s “go .com or go home” in terms of type-in traffic).
I am actually angry that you have had such a gem parked, a simple one page lander could bring in a few thousand a month without a problem.
How about this, let me develop the name for 50% of the lead gen profits and 10% of the total sale price. This domain shouldn’t even be for sale, it’s priceless.
Dan
If I was in your position I would be asking myself the following question. If I never did anything with the name, would you miss the 100K? Assume the worst, we always say we will develop and for whatever reason it doesn’t happen that offen.
If the money doesn’t mean anything, do not sell. You own many good names so to say your going to focus on carinsurance .net would interesting. I think it is a matter of what your next step is with the business of domains.
Do you want to build out businesses?
Do you want others to build them out and you just “participate” in the earnings?
There are many options and only you know what is the best one for your particular situation.
Good luck and nice name
Larry don’t do it. . . I bet I know who it is too.
Adam,
Let’s talk later today.
larry
Larry, I’d offer it at two prices to all who’ve expressed interest in it in the 100k +/- range:
1. 150k-175k w/no rev share.
2. 100k w/3-5% gross-rev share for 5-15 yrs.
Full development on a .net would be silly; especially in such a super-competitive space like this one … and I’ll bet you’ve already received the greatest ROI on it you’ll ever see on this one.
Better return now on nice, category-killer .coms … or; as Kevin said; put into dev on one of your .coms.
great keywords but still surprised you’ve had an offer in this range tbh
take it
i have no love for .net
Actually the offer got as high as $370,000. While it may be a great price for a .net, that many would have taken, I turned it down. I feel that long term, the potential is much greater than what I was offered. I do feel blessed that I have the option to turn it down, where many people would not have.
I rejected a $118,000 offer at Sedo for a .net … I still
believe I will get 2X or 3X more in the future.
Larry, thats an incredible offer! $370,000
you sure are a lucky man being able to turn down that offer for the domain
btw your blog is only one of 5 domain blogs i regularly visit. really value your views
cheers
@GUY,
thank you for your comment and for reading my blog. I guess it will be years before we will only know if it was wise move.
Personally, I would develop it at this point. However, I would have sold for $370,000.
Little late on this post, but I’d definitely develop. You made the wise choice. Insurance companies are loaded and you will get bought out for millions soon enough.
Now you just have to make sure it’s the best insurance quote site out there to protect your investment – SEO SEO SEO!
$100k isn’t in the ballpark for that carinsurance.anything.
Curious of your opinion following the near 50 million sale of the .com version, that being said the only way I see you getting your max value is by adding value to the site, why not explore a jv with a proven lead gen group, creating a win-win scenario is not a bad way to increase your revenue at the present stage and increase your potential exit down the road?