My business partner Cameron and I have been buying up domain names for many years – we own a lot of them. We have always looked at them as cheap real estate…and if you sit and wait, you will eventually see a return on the tiny investment.
Over the years we have sold several domain names at a dollar amount that has probably covered the costs of all of them. We have even turned down some pretty big offers on a couple of our best domains…with the assumption that they will continue to rise in value…and if they don’t – oh well, not a huge deal.
Recently, we leased a cheap server for 3 years so we could launch some of these domain names as websites – this means potential buyers would achieve additional value if they decide to purchase one of them. We launched a Hayward Resorts website, a Brainerd Resort website, Lake Superior resort website, the Lake Vermilion Realty website (actually, this one is not for sale), the MN Fishing Report forums and several others.
All of these sites were built in just a few minutes using an open-source software package called WordPress. It is the same software we use to run the PineNeedleLawn. The beauty of WordPress is that there are thousands and thousands of developers out there building addons and themes which allow you to extend the software…and most of these addons (called plugins) and themes are free! If you have a little bit of programming knowledge, you can take what is available, hack it up a little, and make it perfect for your application.
Again, the sites above are very simple examples of what can be done in minutes. Just think about what you can do if you take some time. Visit WordPress.com for more information on the software.