Yes, its kind of like Monopoly – Virtual Real Estate
July 10, 2008
Now who doesn’t remember playing Monopoly? That great board game where you roll the dice, buy property and charge people rent when they land on it. This was my favorite game ever when I was growing up and I still play it on my computer today and hunt down the Monopoly Slot Machines when I’m at the Casino (which is about once every 2-3 years at this point).
So it should come as no surprise to me or anyone that knows me that I love VRE or Virtual Real Estate.
Quick example before I explain more: Online-Jobs.Org is a piece of VRE. A prime example of Virtual Real Estate that I visit often and renovate on an almost daily basis currently with new paintings, windows, doors, etc. in other words new articles / blog entries.
I currently own over 50 properties of VRE and while about 25-30 are unoccupied I am preparing all of those for occupancy as we speak.
Now, Virtual Real Estate is just like owning actual Real Estate except its a whole heck of a lot cheaper, no oil bills, and usually no tenants calling you at 2 am about a lightbulb that went out.
You can also turn any Baltic Avenue VRE Property into a Park Place or Boardwalk with a little hard work just the same as you can turn a shack into a livable 2 family home and make bank on it.
My role in my Monopoly Empire is 100% landlord. I am currently too attached to all my projects to sell them even though I am aware that I can make more from an upfront payment than I will holding onto the property for another year. I just can’t let go.
I’ve sold my property in the past, I actually have a list of over 500 domain names that I’ve purchased and resold at a profit I could have easily showed the world how to flip domain names more than 6 years ago and made a killing teaching people how to do it.
Enough about me.
Lets show you how to play the game.
As in real life, you have a choice to make.
• You can buy up undeveloped lots [brand new domain names] and turn them into prime real estate.
• You can find VRE that you’d like to purchase from other developers [webmasters] by browing ads
• You can be a landlord [like me currently]
• You can be a flipper [like I used to be]
I would say a fair share would say its better to be a landlord and the other half would say its better to be a flipper. Either way there is money to be made and if you can quickly and easily dispose of a property for more than double what you’ve paid for it. I think you should do it.
Like I mentioned earlier any Baltic Ave can make its way into a Park Place with some time and effort. Most people wouldn’t buy a .ORG domain that has a Hyphen in it. I did and while I don’t make any income from this site to speak of, I sure do enjoy working on it. I call this property MY Property. It keeps me sane to write down everything I know and makes me breathe easier knowing that maybe someone can be helped using my knowledge.
Now lets go through and figure each step out one at a time.
•Developing New Property
So you decide I’m going to run out and buy a brand new undeveloped lot for a few bucks. You find one thats available and grab it! Its now yours. What is your next step?
If you said ‘sell it’ you are wrong. Most domains bought will not be sold above the registration fee without some kind of history, age, website, or traffic. This doesn’t include your insider information on a product about to be released that you snagged a domain for. Those will probably go for more than the registration fee you paid and congratulations on the sale. 🙂
Your next step should be deciding if you want to develop it for you to have or develop it for you to flip and sell to someone else. Having that thought process in mind can help you in the development process. Now you know that you have to design it to have mass appeal, using a common system your buyer will be familiar with doesn’t necessarily hurt either, such as WordPress.
When you decide you’re going to flip a property from the get-go you are also in a rush. Look webhosting costs money, albeit not alot of money depending on what host you choose but money nonetheless so the longer you hold on to a property the more its going to cost you in the long run. So now you need the design done, the plan for the property in mind or even better if its on paper or a text file. The quicker you can get the site online the better it is for you. As you need to put together a massive effort towards getting traffic and getting it quickly.
I see people buying domains at say $10 a piece. Putting a site up and running within 48 hours and pumping traffic to it for 1 week make 6-7 sales within that week and flip the site for hundreds if not thousands of dollars and they’ve only owned the property less than a month.
How many times would you do that per month if you could?
A lot I’m sure.
You could also choose to keep the property for yourself. Sometimes domain names become near and dear to you even though other people might think they’re ugly or worthless. Better yet other people might want your domain name right now and you don’t even know it.
Stay tuned for part 2 of this article coming up this weekend. 🙂
-Justin
Online-Jobs.Org