Hurricane Sandy: The damage to the domain business was immense

Hurricane Sandy claimed more than 100 lives in the US and the loss to tangible property was devastating.

With thousands of households and businesses in the greater area of New York and New Jersey left without power for weeks, the cost in lost business is impossible to calculate.

There was also another side of this loss, that affected domain investors; the numbers could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Many inquiries that were made right before the Sandy devastation from parties residing in the affected region, are just now being responded to and the news isn’t good. The response varies, but the message is clear: they can’t afford paying that price now, with the focus being re-instating their business.

I had at least five such offers fall through for that exact reason, and I feel sorry for these people that lost the shirt off their backs due to the hurricane. I cannot imagine the number of such inquiries that won’t go through as sales, at much larger venues. This might explain the extreme recent dip in sales at Sedo and Afternic as well.

Hopefully, in 2013, once insurance pays and residences and offices get back in orbit, we’ll get those offers once again and materialize them as notable sales.