Buying Websites In A Credit Crunch

Posted on 12th March 2009

It’s true, we’re in a recession, the economy has gone into a never ending slump and many are doing what most clever investors and business owners never do; that’s selling up and off loading your websites and domains during what is possibly one of the worst times to do so.

The websites I’m talking about aren’t the cheapo variety either, many are established sites, with a history going back as far as 2003-2004 and a steady income to match. These are the sorts of sites that I wanted to buy back in 2007-2008 but was unable to do so because the owners wouldn’t accept reasonable offers. These are the very same sites that I was told would never be for sale but are now available at such great prices that I’m actually spoilt for choice

Life for me as a website buyer is as good as it’s ever going to be which in my opinion makes this possibly one of the best times you could ever imagine to buy a website. Whether it’s your first site or your hundredth, right now is as good a time as ever to buy up what you can. I personally picked up 20 adsense earning websites last month, which isn’t an impressive amount for my standards but the prices I picked them up for certainly were.

Now before I wet your appetite with some real life examples and purchases I made, let me give you an idea of what’s going on and why people are selling so low. I’m going to share with you some of the real life reasons I heard when I asked the prospective website owner why they were selling and why so low. Check them out below.

• I need to buy my girlfriend a wedding ring
• I need to pay for my car insurance, it’s overdue
• My adsense income has dipped and I just want to get out of the website business
• I enjoyed some great years with my site, but have decided to focus on my studies now, the economy has really taken a big hit
• My Xbox got the red ring of death, (basically means it curled up and died) and I need to get a new one
• …. and the list could go on

What you’ll notice about all of these comments is a general sense of pesimism and desperation for cash. All of these owners were either extremely cash strapped or simply had an extremely bleak outlook for their forseeable future. A real sense of “I need to sell up and horde my cash” or “I need some cash to buy something and I need it now”. These were the core feelings and sentiments I was getting from 90% of the sellers, which just reaffirms how ideal the situation is for buyers. Most sellers right now are interested in one thing only, and that’s getting hold of some cold hard cash (even if it means selling their once beloved website at a huge discount).

Now the above reasoning is beyond me, I don’t understand it but I don’t care either. As far as I’m concerned it’s bargain time and I’m picking them up all over the place. I’m collecting sites which I can probably sell for x2, x3 even x4 when the economy picks up (and thats without doing anything to them). If I actually work on them rather than just sitting on them, numbers could go up as high as x5 or x6. Some may argue with my reasoning but when I share with you some of the sites I’ve purchased you’ll quickly change your mind. So lets get into a couple of the outstanding bargains I’ve picked up during January-February 2009.

Warning - The Examples Below Will Excite You !!!

Just remember the below list is merely a sample of the many sites I’ve purchased during the first quarter of 2009, there’s plenty more where they came from but I’m revealing to you only a select few. Also to give you an idea of how great these bargains are, just remember that under normal circumstances a web buyer like myself pays around 10-12 months worth of monthly income. That means you’re looking at around 1 year to earn back your original investment, but many of these will be paid off far quicker! Just check the list below and you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

• UFO Videos - No daily maintainence required for this one, no article writing, it simply shows off some cool ufo videos. I bought this puppy for $100, I’ve had it for about 2 months and it’s making roughly $20 per month via adsense. In just 5 months I’ll have paid off my original purchase price but the way this site is going it’s probably going to be even quicker than that. Under normal circumstances this site would have sold for atleast $300 (total saving $200).
• Crossword Puzzles For Kids - A great little information site, which i purchased on the quality of the domain alone. This site is just a baby and only a couple of months old but it’s already picked up some great rankings on the search engines and is pulling in around $10 per month. I picked this up for just $30, meaning I’ll own it within 3 months and the income is still growing.
• Free Poems - Bought this for $300, changed the ad placement around and turned it from a $1 per day site into a $3 per day site. At even $50 per month I would recover my investment within 6 months but at the rate this is moving I’ve almost recovered it within just three.

Conclusion

If you want to build up a portfolio of sites that earn you an automated daily income, night or day then now is the time to get started. There’s more bargains out there to be had and I would suggest if you have money lieing around or simply want to increase your portfolio ownership then consider buying a website. Not only will you earn far more than the interest you’d get from your bank account but you’ll have the added satisfaction of calling yourself a profitable businessman and earning your money the smart way.

P.S Note how all of the sites mentioned above don’t exactly look impressive, but hidden within them was a bargain and an untapped potential waiting to be unlocked. If you look beyond the ugly exterior there are loads of great sites to be had. Good luck with your site buying and I hope you found this post helpful!