There are an uncountable number of property development shows currently on the TV. From Channel 4′s ‘Property Ladder’ to the BBC’s ‘Homes Under The Hammers’ – we are being bombarded with ideas of how to turn a profit with property. We are told that the booming property market means that you can buy a house now, keep tenants in it and then sell it a decade or two down the line for a small fortune. That’s the pension sorted then.
However, very few people can afford to get into the property market in this way. The very booming market that these shows speak so proudly of, prohibits many from making their first step on the ladder, let alone buying a few additional retirement properties for themselves. So, property development is just not an option for them, right? Well, maybe but it depends how fussy you are about the type of property that you develop.
In many ways the world of website domains is very similar to the property market. The first rule is the same – select a good location or this could limit the amount you can charge for your domain when it comes to resale. By this I mean buy only ‘.com’ domains for maximal return on investment. Moreover, it is necessary to keep your domain for a while and let it age, without necessarily doing anything to it. No, it will not need a lick of paint or any new wall paper, just remember to renew the domain every year and you will be fine.
Search engines, such as Google, seem to favour domain names that are well established. Aging your domain name in this way makes it far more valuable when it comes to time to sell.
So if you do not have a spare couple of hundred thousand pounds but do have $8.95 and if you are not any good at wielding a paint brush but are perfectly happy to sit and press ‘renew’ once a year – then domain, rather than property, development may be right for you.
