Should Domainers share purchase price when discussing domain sales publicly?

On Friday I wrote an article about a domain sale made by domain investor Logan Flatt. For those who haven’t read the article the headline reads:

“NoMatterWhat(.)com – from $360 purchase to $22,999 sale with Logan Flatt”

I knew the purchase price of the domain because Logan shared in on Twitter. This sparked a good conversation on Twitter that I thought I’d carry over to my blog.

Another domain investor who I respect, Keith DeBoer brought up the following point which definitely got me thinking…

Reporting domain purchase price

I’m glad Keith brought this up as I think it sparked a pretty interesting conversation on Twitter. The point he makes is pretty solid – “it feeds the perception that domainers are opportunists who ripoff end users.”

While I always like writing about domain sales with insane ROI, it might be something that could rub people the wrong way. I mean, if you think about just about any other space, say real estate, while you might buy a house and sell it for a 2x or 3x ROI, there’s no chance you’re going to sell it for an 100x ROI and do that over and over again. And on that note, if you did sell someone a house for 100x your purchase price, and they didn’t know what you bought it for, yeah – they might feel like they got ripped off.

Josh Reason from Josh.co shared his two cents and I think he said it well:

Sharing domain ROI

The conversation continued and honestly, since both Keith and Logan are such standup guys, it was a totally fair and level-headed discussion. This is one thing I do really appreciate about the domain industry, outside of a few bad apples that might troll a conversation, for the most part people are kind, open-minded, and interested in hearing different opinions!

After reading through this thread on Twitter and taking more time to think about it myself, I think I’m probably going to stop writing articles where I share the purchase price and sale price of a domain. As a public media source my blog is read by plenty of normal people who aren’t in the domain industry and as I think about it more, I don’t think I’m helping the perception of domain investors when I write articles like the one I did on Friday.

That being said, I do think it’s up to each domain investor and media outlet to decide what is best for them. For me, I always want to do everything I can to show the world a positive perspective on domain investing and I think this discussing really helped me think through this a bit more. I don’t think there’s really a right or wrong answer here, but I’m always interested in hearing different perspectives and changing my tune if I think there might be a better approach for me.

Thanks for the great discussion everyone, it was a good one to have. Of course I’m interested to hear what you think about it. If you didn’t already join in on Twitter feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section below. Comment and let your voice be heard!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton