advice Please Help - offer for my domain, I have never sold before.

[Ashash]

Hello,

I have just received an email from a broker sending me an offer for a recently purchased domain name.

First of all, I do not know how to validate if the email is authentic (it is from [someone's name]@godaddy.com)

Secondly, I have never sold before, do I accept the offer (USD $500), or counter?
For what it is worth the domain is valued at $1376 by GoDaddy, and I purchased it for USD$25 just a few days ago.

Please help, I have zero idea of what I am doing. I bought the domain on a whim at auction, thinking of possibly developing it at same very vague stage in the future, but happy to sell it off for a quick profit, it is not hugely important to me.

Thank you so much for advice for this very green newbie!

 

[Callmejohn]

If you have a GoDaddy account you should be able to log in to see the message and respond (accept, counter, etc) via their portal. If not and you can confirm the email address is actually coming from GoDaddy.com it is likely legit. If GoDaddy valuates it at less than 3x the offer I’d say it’s a good offer to accept - usually GoDaddy overestimates. You could counter and may be able to get a bit more, but countering always give the buyer an extra chance to walk away.

 

[Ashash]

Thank you John, that is exactly what I was thinking, I am happy with that return for very little work and a couple of days, I will accept and see what happens.

 

[OmarVG]

 

[draco]

If you got an email from an actual broker at GoDaddy, I don't think that shows up in your account listings / offers. The broker should have his or her email address and telephone number in their signature. It's probably genuine, as long as they're not asking you to do the transaction off GoDaddy.

If it is a GoDaddy broker, that means someone hired them to negotiate for the domain. Do a little research (Google, etc.) to see if you can identify an obvious end user. You can try to negotiate for a higher price, but you could also risk losing the sale.

I bought a domain on here for $10 last year as part of a larger deal. Two months later a GoDaddy broker contacted me offering $500. I was fairly certain I'd never sell the domain anywhere else (I wouldn't have bought it on it's own.), so I decided to just accept the offer, rather than risk the buyer walking away if I tried to negotiate. The domain still has my parking page up, so I have no idea who bought it.

Nice bonus. Normally if a GoDaddy broker contacts you, the buyer pays the commission. So you'll get the entire $500.

 

[Ashash]

Thank you so much Draco, I did end up finding it hidden away in my GoDaddy portal but before that I contacted GoDaddy live help and they also confirmed it was genuine. So I have sent back accepting the offer, now waiting to see what happens. I am a little bit excited! Okay, it's not $11m for Tesla, but I am thrilled all the same

 

[Ashash]

Oh, I did do a quick google search and nothing outstanding popped up, so unlikely to be a massive domain, looks like it could be an obscure band, maybe someone off FB or IG.

 

[Ashash]

I have accepted the offer, does this mean it is definitely sold, or can the buyer reneg on the offer?

 

[draco]

I think the buyer can renege. But since they've already paid money to hire a broker, it's not very likely.

 

[Ashash]

Thank you, I shall keep everything crossed then, until payment has been confirmed.

 

[Mark4domain]

Good job on the sale.

IMO, If there's an actual "GoDaddy broker" contacting you, it could be a big buyer and you might have priced your domain low. Just future FWIW, domains are worth of their potential to end customers, not what you spend to buy them. Also, Godaddy automation mostly underestimates domain values IMO.
I would have told the GoDaddy broker right away that this offer was not worth their and my time and to go back and get a real offer from the customer. The fact that it's still your parking page hints that it's bought by a person/company who is either holding on, or going to take a long time to move forward on it.
Also, it's in the brokers interest to price it higher too as they are on commission, so give them some room.

 

[Ashash]

Thank you Mark for the input.
Almost a week later and it has still not been paid for, so I would say that the sale is not going to proceed anyway.
What a waste of everyone's time, I don't understand why they would engage a broker and get the domain cheap and then not move forward with it. Very odd.

 

[Mark4domain]

Thank you Mark for the input.
Almost a week later and it has still not been paid for, so I would say that the sale is not going to proceed anyway.
What a waste of everyone's time, I don't understand why they would engage a broker and get the domain cheap and then not move forward with it. Very odd

Payment takes time, hang in there. Don't be overly pushy but nicely ask for status update to broker, some times it takes 2 weeks

 

[Yanosh]

It’s very unlikely for a buyer to hire a broker and then not pay.
Just wait , they’ll pay.
If you want , you can send an email to the broker asking if there is any issue.
But don’t be pushy, just ask and that’s it.

 

[Ashash]

Well they ended up not paying. I don't think I am ever going to understand people...

 

[Jannes]

That's too bad.
The problem of quickly accepting the first offer is that it easily leads to second-guessing. The buyer might think that they've overpaid (or are about to overpay), since perhaps the seller could have accepted a lower offer. (On the other hand, the seller might start thinking (correctly or not) that they left money on the table, but that doesn't seem to be relevant here.)