Offers made around a domain’s expiration date

Over the course of more than a decade in active domain investing, I’ve experienced that a lot of inquiries are made around the time of a domain’s expiration date.

There are several reasons why this happens, and here’s what I’ve found the most important ones to be:

• The inquiries are made by end users unaware of the domain’s dropping cycle.
• A domain investor or other party attempting to capitalize on the notion that last minute renewals are rare.
• Owners of similar domains, e.g. in other TLDs or forms of the same domain, seeking to add that domain as a brand supporter.

Although it’s prudent to renew domains well in advance so as not to risk losing them, at times it’s interesting to experience another person’s “rush” by letting these domains get close to their expiration date, or beyond that.

Since most decent registrars allow for several days to renew a domain past its expiration date, many interesting inquiries that don’t arrive throughout the year often arrive at that point in time.

A small sample of statements that I’ve received through the years:

• Are you going to let this domain go? I want to buy it for $10.
• Let me know if you renew this, I have been wanting it for some time.
• (After renewing it) What’s the point of renewing it, let someone else have it!
• I’d like to offer you (low $XX USD) for this if you sell it before it expires.

The fact is, that for any domain name that has already been determined to be of value, a year in renewal fees adds very little to its cost; meanwhile, the potential ROI even 10 years down the road can be quite substantial.

When faced with an offer that arrives close to a domain’s expiration date, one should actually increase their asking price – not lower it.