Buying domains on forums
If you wish to buy cheap domains, you should check the offers at the major forums. At many of the forums, the domains are listed at the prices much lower than the registration fee. Some domain owners also give away the domains free, to avoid receiving reminder emails from the registrar regarding domain expiry and deletion.
Since registering a domain takes only a few minutes, many domain buyers make impulse purchases. However, development and promotion of a domain is a time consuming process and takes some effort, so they usually sell it off at a cheap price when the domain is about to expire. There are a limited number of end users for domains purchased at registration fee, and many domain owners prefer to sell the domains at discounted prices instead of paying renewal fees.
For some TLDs like .info and .org, the promotional price in the first year is much lower than the standard renewal fee . These offers are available for a few months every year. So if the domain has been purchased only for resale and does not have much parking revenue, it may be better to sell it off at a low price and earn some money, rather than let it expire.
In most forums, the buyer directly deals with the seller of the domain. After the buyer makes a payment through PayPal, Moneybookers or some other online payment system, the seller will push the domain to the buyers account at the registrar. Though the buyer can file a charge back, this method has the advantage that both the seller and buyer save on the brokerage fee. The transaction can also be completed faster.