Sedo is the largest marketplace today for selling and buying domain names. There are millions of domains listed there, but only a few hundred sell every month. Even after the auction has ended, it may be several weeks before the domain is transferred to the seller and the buyer receives payment.
This week I received payment for my first domain leasing deal. The price I had quoted was low for the traffic I have, but at least a start. The companies leasing the domains are off line companies , usually magazines , so processing the payment takes time. You have to send a formal invoice to them, processing can take 15 days.
The advantages of dealing with offline companies is that they are usually willing to pay the price you are quoting, since their business expenses are usually high. Also if you sell things online , at least 25% of the sign ups are scammers and you suffer due to fraud. Offline, trust is important, so most companies will be reliable.
This is a better option for .uk domains, since selling of a domain name is expensive and a time consuming process due to Nominet rules. The seller has to first pay a fee, before the change in registrant is implemented.
Another article on website flipping - Buying and selling websites offers quick profits
Developing websites takes time, but is usually more profitable than selling domains.
With the decrease in parking revenues and increase in lawsuits against PPC companies like Google for domain parking, many large domain portfolio owners are forced to develop their domain names or will have to let the domains expire.
Developing a domain, so that it can be monetized using PPC or affiliate programs is both time consuming and expensive, since a lot of traffic is needed to earn a significant income. Building mini sites and monetizing them using programs that offer a fixed monthly payout like Money4Banners is a good option. Though the amount is not much, if you have many websites which pay you $10 a month, the earnings can be substantial.
Interesting summary of non-Google monetization options . I have not tried some of them, will sign up with them soon. Many of the other advertising companies do not have sufficient inventory.
Sendori and LeaseThis are two other relatively new concepts.
Interesting article on flipping websites, with actual values. In most forums, people seem to developing websites for resale. I usually develop for revenue , selling websites (and domains) is very chaotic at present.
Since parking revenues have been falling, many companies are offering domain development services for large domain holders. Aeiou is one such services, but it is very expensive, $250 for just a 5 page website. The sample website seems to well designed, but content could be improved.
Also monetizing the website using Adsense only seems to be a risky strategy. Based on my experience last year, Adsense is not a very reliable source of revenue. Other programs may pay less, but income is more consistent. For Adsense, Google may start serving PSAs (Public Service Ads) any time and the time and money so spend getting traffic to your website is wasted.
For most of my developed domains, domain registration, hosting and development costs are less than $12/year , so my break even point is much lower. This service Aeiou seems to be useful only for expensive domain names.
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.
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