Here is a little domain name story that I thought I would share and you may find interest in. Here we go:
Back around this time in 2008 I had purchased the domain name BailoutBill.com on an expired GoDaddy auction for $161. This was right around the time that the bill had passed, so a lot of people were talking about the bailout bill and the money involved with it. After only owning the domain name for a couple days, my first offer came in on the domain for $1,000.
I turned it down because I wanted closer to $3K for it because the domain had huge potential. Even today, nearly 3 years after the bill past, the term "Bailout Bill" is easily known and remember by millions of people!
The $1K offer turned into a $2K domain name sale. I documented the whole story here in a "How to make money online, with domain names".
So why am I talking about this again?
Last week in my daily digging at GoDaddy for my GoDaddy Goodies list I put up on DotWeekly, I happened to see….. BailoutBill.com in the list. Scratched my head for a second and I thought, I think I sold that for a couple grand? Hmmm. I watched the auction and pretty much forgot about. I forgot about it so much that I missed the end of the auction as I haven’t been bidding on domains in sometime. Nobody purchased the domain, so I did in the closeout phase for $11.
Full circle and BailoutBill.com has come back to me.
To juice up the story a little bit more, not only did I sell the domain in early 2009, the new owners never changed DNS when they owned the domain. So the domain remained parked, which I collected some revenue (about $100 some months if I can remember correctly) at Fabulous.com!
BailoutBill.com’s value today?
I think I answered the value a little bit before by mentioning that the term itself is know and easily remembered when heard. This means a lot when it comes to branding and using a domain name. The domain still holds value IMO, even though the bailout bill was signed nearly 3 years ago. History doesn’t go away!
Why did I buy it again?
Mainly, "just because"! Secondly, I still think the domain name has value. Lastly, it gave me something to write about and for you to read.
Matt
I would have registered it ..and than offered to sell it to the same guy again…maybe I’d even shave off some $$$’z….maybe.
Jamie Zoch
@Matt,
I didn’t get around to emailing the past owners yet but I just may drop them one someday.
Jason Thompson
Good story, I bet there are several identical to this! Glad it turned out in your favor towards the end.
Homer
I still cant understand how you bumped into this same domain again, just by accident?
You bought cheap, sold for much, and bought cheap again (while earning commercial money in between), win win win situation.
Tony
My guess is the buyer was a newbie domainer. Bought a decent name at end user price due to ignorance. Probably blew his wad over the next year or two due to more ignorance. Is out of domaining altogether now and wouldn’t give a rat’s patoot about domains.
Ken
It’s practically like taking money for free. Or buying $2000 for the price of $11. LOL. nice one. How I wish I end up with such buyers
don
I sold a name a few years ago for 9k that dropped about 2-3 years later, sometimes the end user business just doest work, its a great lesson to go into snapnames, etc and add all of your sales back in…cause u never know.
Amr
I bought traffic name for $3,500 sold it for $6,000, after a year I bought it again from the same buyer I sold the name to for $10,000 and sold it to another buyer for $21,000