GEO domains: how much do they worth?

[italiandragon]

Hello everybody,

I`d like to know your opinions about GEO domains.

We all know that even a little Country like Malta, has produced 6 figures sale with the sale of Malta.com last year, but how about cities?

Let`s forget for a moment US cities which are pretty sold out.

Outside of the US, how big needs to be a city to be worth it?

For example, I have got:

Cairns.mobi

pop.: 126000
rank: 14 in Australia
Top tourist location of the Gold reef.

and personally would not sell it for less than $10,000 but that`s my opinion.

 

[Rico]

i dont think not famous city .mobi's sell for 10k+

 

[italiandragon]

ok, if you don`t know Cairns,


http://www.cairns.qld.gov.au/tourism/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairns,_Queensland

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cairns


How much would you appraise Amsterdam.mobi then?

 

[Rico]

for me $2k - for a mobi lover xx,xxx

 

[italiandragon]

oh i see now, well I was not talking only about .mobi otherwise i`d have posted in .mobi section.

How about:

.com
.info
.net
.org

???

 

[Argie]

.info is a great extension for GEO Domains, can't compete with .com obviously.

 

[italiandragon]

thanks argie but I asked how big the city needs to be.....in population.

 

[SeanIM]

For me it's not purely a question of the size of the city or region but also the nature of the industry...and probability of the end user paying a certain amount for it.

ie; californiarealestate.com versus bfe-location-woodennickels.com

 

[carlton]

... Outside of the US, how big needs to be a city to be worth it?

Very good question dragon. Cities of several hundred thousand have large built-in audiences and local businesses with innate interest in their city. If the city has tourist appeal (even if relatively small), or is a transportation nexus (like Atlanta or Chicago in the U.S.) then the potential value is magnified many times over. Cities of 500,000 + often have one or more professional sports teams and this creates much greater public awareness of the city on a National level.

No one knows what major cities will go for .. no one here, or elsewhere, can provide a definitive valuation. Known sales (a few at best) are all domainer/reseller level. My personal view is that any notable city in a major extension is an extremely unique, one-of-a-kind property. Cairns has estimated pop of 168k and is fourth in tourism in Australia. 15k is entirely reasonable for the MOBI and the name could easily go for much more. Along these lines I would value something, if available, like Sydney.mobi or Melbourne.mobi (registry reserved) at $75,000 - $150,000.

Relatively unknown towns/cities of 50,000 - 100,000 population I appraise around the 10k mark and there's considerable upward potential beyond this general guideline depending on a motivated buyer's goals/needs.

I'll add that I'm not saying this because I have major U.S. cities. I went after major cities because I saw them as huge opportunities.

 

[BidNo]

Here's some data on domain sales (sorted by TLD and population) for US city cities with populations over 40,000:

Dom TLD SalePrice SaleDate SaleThru Population
Austin biz 2360 2006-10-30 Moniker/Traffic 690300
Austin biz 4500 2004-12-31 Sedo 690300
Seattle biz 2000 2007-04-01 ********* 563418
Columbia biz 392 2005-04-17 Sedo 159200
Clay biz 1846 2004-12-31 Private 59679
Hollywood ca 13550 2007-03-31 Afternic 148288
NewYork cc 999 2006-06-04 Ebay 8143200
NewYork ch 3236 2007-01-18 Sedo 8143200
Hollywood co.in 7000 2006-06-06 Sedo 148288
Hollywood co.uk 17438 2006-03-26 Sedo 148288
Yonkers com 70750 2006-10-29 SnapNames 199611
Vancouver com 123000 2006-05-30 Private 165065
WestValleyCity com 5200 2005-05-01 EnomsClubDrop 116900
Gary com 29000 2007-03-11 Sedo 101068
Gary com 35000 2006-09-10 Private 101068
CentreVille com 2000 2006-12-22 Afternic 52218
NewYork info 46392 2006-09-17 Moniker/DomainSystems 8143200
NewYork info 28086 2004-01-01 Sedo 8143200
Houston info 4000 2004-04-11 Private 2085082
Detroit info 10000 2006-09-03 DNForum 913577
Austin info 5000 2006-10-08 Moniker/DomainSystems 690300
Washington info 4000 2004-05-09 Private 548902
Nashville info 1000 2004-12-31 eBay 545997
Albuquerque info 850 2004-01-18 Afternic 477854
Oakland info 1785 2004-12-31 Sedo 404225
Tampa info 10000 2004-04-11 Private 326593
Jackson info 472 2005-11-06 TDNAM 180492
Vancouver info 6378 2004-12-31 Sedo 165065
Odessa info 3044 2007-02-25 Sedo 91981
SantaBarbara info 850 2004-01-18 Afternic 91621
Troy info 515 2005-09-18 Private 80835
Wyoming info 3750 2006-01-24 Private 71064
Fishers info 304 2004-09-05 Sedo 57200
Washington jp 2500 2006-12-14 Sedo 548902
Baltimore md 3000 2007-01-14 Sedo 616699
Tampa mobi 1150 2006-10-08 Pool 326593
Orlando mobi 5100 2006-10-15 Pool 199817
Madison net 6042 2003-11-30 Sedo 221600
Boise net 1320 2004-08-22 EnomsClubDrop 193200
Beaumont net 1979 2004-08-08 Pool 110230
Carlsbad net 1961 2006-06-25 SnapNames 87542
CherryHill net 1405 2006-05-28 SnapNames 71800
Chico net 4000 2006-10-01 BuyDomains 64425
Union net 7500 2006-08-13 GreatDomains 55954
SanClemente net 1090 2006-02-13 Afternic 53228
Biloxi net 3000 2006-10-01 PPCIncome 50410
Pittsburgh org 14250 2006-07-18 SnapNames 324732
Toledo org 4621 2004-11-07 SnapNames 307757
Yonkers org 1225 2006-02-26 SnapNames 199611
Sunrise org 4600 2007-02-04 BuyDomains 93117
Shawnee org 3933 2006-09-03 SnapNames 54797
Reno pro 500 2006-08-18 Afternic 205867
Washington se 1477 2005-02-28 21:28:00 Sedo 548902
Detroit tv 1660 2007-02-05 Afternic 913577
Houston us 2500 2004-05-23 GreatDomains 2085082
Fresno us 1500 2004-12-31 DNForum 464859
Honolulu us 4000 2005-07-19 Private 382655
Honolulu us 2500 2004-12-31 DomainState 382655
Vancouver us 1250 2004-12-31 DomainState 165065
Union us 1200 2006-02-26 Private 55954

Branson.com sold for $1.6M in June '06 but didn't make the above list as it's too small. However, as Carlton noted, it is a major tourist destination.

If anybody has a list of international cities with populations, point or send it to me and I'll pull those as well.

 

[italiandragon]

Hi guys, thanks for your replies, they are very appreciated.
I`m making a deep research on this subject and I`ll add my datas when they`ll be completed.

 

[MVIG]

Hi, I own a few small city .com's with populations between 20,000 and 40,000...I have developed one of these sites Centerville.com which is bringing in a pretty good income...I do have a salesman working for me, paid on full commission. I feel that geo domains will only be moving up in value especially if you develop them.

I do like the .com's but if you can brand a .info or a .us for US cities it may work as well. But I get a lot of hits from type-in traffic (I also own centervilleohio.com and centervilleoh.com) so that is were I see the value of a .com.

 

[droplister]

I think there is way too much to consider to generalize, but here are some things too look for...

Continent > Country > State/ Province > City > Town > Nickname aka Bean Town > Place aka Grand Canyon
^ not always true in price, but its sort of a break down

Population
1 - 20,000 small side
20,000 - 100,000 now we're getting somewhere
100,000 - 1 million sweet
1 million plus - golden

tld - .gtlds are all good and swell, but something like Beijing.cn is always sweet.

Tourism - Do people care to visit? A high population could still mean extreme poverty

Searches - basic ovt stuff

Recognition - I know where New York is and all sorts of connotations come to mind, but I don't know a damn thing about Karachi, Pakistan.

Political/Economical climate - Don't want city names to change on you if you buy a city.tld nor do you want the domain taken away and all the other bad things that could happen with a country enduring difficult times, but alternatively that could be a good thing like iraq.com. Iraq is in shambles, but you could bank off the worlds interest in the issue.

this is just first thing that comes to mind. gl