The quad premium LLLL.com market has been one of the short domain market segments hit hardest since September 2008. Back in September, it was pretty hard to find quad premium LLLL.coms under $200. There were a few here and there in the $160-$200 range, but it was much more common to see them fetching $200-$300, with sales for $400+ pretty common as well. LPTF.com sold for $104 on November 27th — it seemed like a steal to some at the time, with no other quad premium LLLL.coms being reported sold for under $142, however it would soon be established that the minimum wasn’t a whole lot more than $104 anymore. Sales under $130 became increasingly common heading into December, with 8 quad premiums selling for under $130, including DHSF.com selling for $112 on December 23rd.  January was a strong  month for quads, the lowest four being between $130-$140.  February started off rather rough, seeing a return to $110 LLLL.coms with the sale of LGIR.com on February 3rd. Five quads sold for under $130 in February, with 3 more selling for $130, LHDP.com ended the month selling for $91 on February 28th.  March saw 35 quad premiums sell for under $135 by the time the month was over.

And that brings us to today — April 2009. April has so far seen 17 quads sell for under $135.  It’s important to note that there were roughly double as many reported quad sales in March as there’s been in April, so the number of sales in the under $135 range has actually been pretty stable over the past month.

What’s interesting to observe when looking at the data is that the minimum wholesale has held pretty consistent at $110 for several months now — there’s been a few sales here and there for under that, rarely more than a few dollars under and rarely would it be assumed that the domain wouldn’t likely sell for more if resold. That said, while we see a consistent trend of the minimum wholesale being around $110, we have been seeing more and more quads selling under $130. It’ll be interesting to see what transpires in the months ahead..

Presumably, a large number of sales near the minimum wholesale could further push down the minimum — eg. it’s highly unlikely all the domains selling in the $110-$130 are of the exact same quality, so if we continue to see this trend of sales for $115, $120, etc, we might see the minimum wholesale on quads further decrease. Quad premiums seem to at present be behaving similarly to what we see in the LLL.com market, where the weakest 15% or so of LLL.coms will all sell for pretty much the same price (lately that’s been about $3300-$4000) — clearly some of these weaker LLL.coms are much worse than other weaker LLL.coms and if domainers were being realistic about enduser potential, some of them should sell for hundreds rather than the thousands they see for being domainer collectibles.

Are the quad premiums heading down that road? The weakest of quads are certainly weaker than the strongest of triple premiums, yet even the weakest of quad premiums consistently sell for more. What does this say to me? Domainers are (at least when speaking of the weakest of quads) paying $110+ for these domains because they’re quads more than anything else — it’s certainly not because the weakest of quad premiums have more enduser potential in many cases than strong triple premiums selling for half the price.

For the record, I’m a big fan of the quad premium LLLL.com market and these observations are just me looking at what may transpire in the near future. Long term, I see this as a healthy short domain segment to invest in, all the more so if prices fall further.

Related posts:

1. More LLLL.com Statistics
2. Bad LLLL.coms: What does Minimum Wholesale Really Mean?
3. Quad Premium LLLL.nets: The Most Underrated LLLL Market?