Getting Nervous

[Chris.C]

I was wondering does anyone else get nervous when it comes to buying domains that have clearly been developed by previous owners who seemed to have been running businesses off them?

I'm a small time internet marketer and I get nervous because I really don't want the hassles that come with dealing with a pissed off previous owners. Almost to the point where I see a good domain that I'd be happy to buy for considerably more than what final sale price yet at the same time I'd rather not buy it.

What are your thoughts?

 

[DavidL]

Firstly, the vast majority of expired domains are deliberately allowed to lapse.

Only a small proportion of registrants accidentally let domains drop because registrars generally have pretty comprehensive reminder processes (seems to me anyway).

I think of a generic domain as a commercial office/shop address. The better domains are equivalent to offices that are closer to the CBD or the main shopping strip.

Really good domains get type-ins which are the equivalent of walk-ins into your shop.

Say a shop owner forgot to renew their lease then stopped paying when the next installment was due and didn't respond to 5 or 6 reminders from the landlord. The landlord then goes and places a padlock and chain on the shop doors for 30 days so no one can access the store. The landlord even agrees on a grace period and that if within 30 days the lessee responds and pays the rent he will let them sign a new lease. However the landlord hears nothing back from the tenant.

Would you blame the landlord if he decides to lease the shop to someone else? Would you blame the new tenant for wanting to set up shop at that address? Should the new tenant be nervous that the previous tenant might come along barge into the shop and say "Hey, this is my shop!"?

If you can explain that this is the situation with expired domains, you rarely get a pissed off response. However saying all that, when this happens to me, I try to be sympathetic to the owner and if I'm not too invested into development and not that attached to the domain I'll try to cut them a break and give them the domain for a nominal fee to cover expenses or often no fee.

I've received hampers, invitations to come and stay and all sorts of 'thank yous' for not being unreasonable and trying to help out