Well a couple of you have said the magic formula, so though of you not making any money, listen to the theme of us that are. Sure you can buy yourself into it via a broker, and hit the ground running, but very unrealistic for most people out there on penny budgets.
The key is monetizing your own content rich websites via google adsense and other sponsorships, so you have a steady income as well as building the value of the domain name for after market purpose if your intentions are a flip. This way you are making a daily living at minimum surviving if not living large off the daily revenue until you flip a domain for a large amount. If you have been domaining for longer than 6 months you need to change tact if your not making money. Start trying a different method because you are doing something wrong.
This is the best way to turn a bad domain portfolio into a good one. For though of you have have purchased dumb domain names as newbs. I will say it again as I did in my last post, it doesn't matter how dumb the domain name is if it has (organic) traffic behind it.
Guys, I have been in the online industry for around 8 years recently laid off 8 months ago last Nov 2007 from a high ranking position in a ecommerce software development company. I'm one of those dumb people who has been buying up domain names for the last 8 years paying annual renewal fees at the tune of $6000 a year and my domain names had 10 inches of dust. I never used them, they never saw the light of day or a nameserver until 4-5 months ago when I got into this business and blew the dust off.
With a lot of dedicated 15 - 20 hour days 6 - 7 days a week for the last almost 5 months I am doing good and I will be a millionaire in about 7 - 10 months time if I keep my pace. I have gone from 600 domain names when I started to more than 1000 domain names today, all my new domain purchases have been subsidized buy my daily revenue coming in. In this period of time I have sold a couple of domains as I already told you for greater than $500 and a few of over $1000 and one over $2,500. I can promise you these domains were only worth registration fee 5 months ago. My 1st domain sold was
www.VIPnation.com for $2,500 which I paid under $2 for on ebay ans sold via private party, and the last two I sold were on ebay.
www.HouseVilla.com which I purchased for $7 and I sold for over $500 and
www.planethollywoodhotel.com which I paid under $2 for and I sold for over $1000.00 on eBay. there was a couple sales in between. These domains were all bought and sold in a matter of 4 - 5 months, you do the math, whats my ROI?
Long story short, hard work, dedication, moxy, and persistence pays off if you stay positive and think positive.
This is my full time job at the moment until I find a company to work for, and by the looks of things and my future I will not need to work for anyone else again. I see myself making a large 6 to 7 figure income in the next 10 months +/-
For though of you discouraged research
www.plentyoffish.com in google. This guy is projected to make 10 million this year after being in business for almost 6+ years i think, but was making $10,000 a month with in his 1st 2 years of plentyoffish.com researching the history of plentyoffish.com may be inspiring for you to read. It was me!!