Frank Schilling was successful largely because he bought solid/quality type in names for reg fee, on a mass scale, that is not something that can be done in .com.au today, it can't be done in .com today either. It is a pipe dream to suggest the .com.au market today is comparable to the .com market in 2003, it isn't.
You seem to have overlooked the minor point of a
factor of 20. Ie .AU today is not unlike 1/20th of the size/potential of the .com market in 2003.
Quality .com.au with type in traffic went years ago and now have to be bought at a premium (which probably won't make sense for parking most of the time).
That's exactly what people said in 2003/2004 regarding .com. Then Frank Schilling came along and proved that chasing 'quality' names isn't the be all and end all. A portfolio consiating of average names, each of of which delivers just a few UV's a month plus an X% chance of a sale can be profitable.
eg:
Average domain delivers 10 type-ins/month resulting in 2 click for a total earn of 80c say That's $9.60/year which after reg fee of $10.50 means $1 loss. However that domain has a 1% chance, each year of selling for $500. Over time, that would equate to a $5/year earn on sale. So it 'makes' $4/year
That I believe is the Fabulous model (Andrew, was that the basic premise behind the 500K portfolio you guys amassed?)
Secondly type in traffic is very low compared to holding costs with .com.au. If you've got a generic .com.au in a good category with 50 uniques per day from people just guessing at a url, that is a pretty rare thing. We've got a market (potential visitor base) that is a tiny fraction of the .com market but the cost to actually hold a name is higher - the fundamentals are not there for making substantial money parking .com.au's. The generic names with 50 unique visitor per day names in .com.au are about as common as the 1500 unique names in .com.
Yes I agree that you do need to compare with holiding costs and that's where .au suffers. Reg fees will in general be a lot higher
relative to the value/revenue from the name. That's what I was talking about in my caveat
However as per above, you can make a domain work with
10 visits a month - it doesn't have to be 50 visits a day.
Lastly do you think there is 20 people making more than 250k per year from parking .com.au's? I'm not sure there would even be one person?
No I doubt it. The question is, when the .AU growth starts to plateau (as it ultimately will do like com did in 2007), will there be 20 people who have made $250K from .au domains? I'm sure there will be. (note: perhaps you misread - i wasn't saying per year for either com or .au investors)