Which New GTLDs are Like the Miami Real Estate Market (Part 2)

If you’re reading this now, you’re in an exclusive club, where the only members are people who geek out over Miami, Florida real estate domain names and who use those names to look for patterns in valuation of some of the new gTLDs.  It’s okay, I’m not telling anyone how interesting this is either.  Let’s save all the good names for us.

If you stumbled on this post accidentally, you should first read Part 1 first. Think of it as the cost of membership.

In this Part 2, I examine domain names associated with some of Miami’s hottest neighborhoods of Brickell, Edgewater, Wynood, and the Design District.  I also look at domains related to one neighborhood that may be one of the next up-and-comers in Miami, Little Haiti / Lemon City.

As in Part 1, I took the names of these neighborhoods with the following domain extensions:  .COM, .NET, .CO, .BUZZ, .IO, and .XYZ.  I also took the names of the neighborhoods, added “condos” to them using all of the same extensions, including .CONDOS.  I used Estibot’s appraisal tool and the values should be used for pattern purposes only. Estibot appraises every .BUZZ name at $0, when it’s clearly not the case.

I only cover 11 domain names for each neighborhood (22 for Little Haiti / Lemon City given the two names).  Obviously, there are thousands of combinations of available names and my list isn’t exhaustive or even close to it.  Like the actual real estate itself, you’ll notice the valuations are higher in more established areas and there are less available names.

Finally, any links to purchase available names are not affiliate links, except links to unregistered names (that’s my Godaddy affiliate link).

Brickell

Brickell is an urban neighborhood in downtown Miami.  It was hit hard after the 2008 crash, but has rebounded well, with plenty of new condo developments being built.  Brickell is the most established of the Miami neighborhoods covered in this post.  It also had no available domain inventory (of the 11 for each area covered here), except Brickell.xyz (which I bought while researching for this post).

Brickell is the most established of the Miami neighborhoods discussed here, and the available domain inventory reflects that.  Given the scarcity of “Brickell” keyword only domains, I have priced my .XYZ aggressively, but reasonably.  At under $500, it sells quickly, but I’m quite bullish on Brickell and the area, so I’m more interested in keeping it (unless the right price comes along).

Edgewater

Edgewater is located north of downtown is east of Biscayne Boulevard between 17th and 37th streets.  East Edgewater, is the part of Edgewater located directly on Biscayne Bay.  The picture above is from the Paraiso Bay development that will be completed in 2017.  Edgewater borders Wynwood and the Design District.  There is also a boardwalk being built that will stretch from 37th street on the Bay into downtown.  The gentrification going on here is tremendous.

Because Edgewater is a popular name of other ares in the U.S. (you’ll see a registration for a condo complex in NY in the table below) as well as the name of a publicly traded company (Edgewater.com, NASDAQ: EDGW), the domain inventory is scarce. While looking up the domains and their status for this post, I found that Edgewater.co was being sold for $100 and bought it immediately.  It was a no-brainer. Sorry guys.

Because Edgewater is such a versatile name and is associated with so many geographic areas as well as various businesses, hotels, etc. around the U.S., a generic Edgewater name bought right has a lot of resale potential to end users.  The Edgewater results produced the only instance (of the five sets of 11 domains) where the .XYZ is appraised higher than the identical .IO.

I got Edgewater.co for a great price and I listed it for $800 with a $1500 buy-now price.  I think it’ll sell for somewhere in this range.  Again, it’s a domain I don’t mind keeping either.  Given the versatility of the Edgewater keyword and the fact that most of the best “Edgewater” TLDs are gone, I’m liking this one.

Wynwood

The Wynwood neighborhood is home to more than 70 art galleries, five museums, seven art complexes, and five art fairs. It’s to the west of Edgewater. It’s a vibrant area with great coffee shops, restaurants, and stores to go along with all of the art.  A property developer named Goldman Properties, specializes in taking blighted areas and turning them into hot spots.  In addition to Wynwood, the company has done it in Miami Beach, New York’s SoHo, and other places.

You know how all of those turned out.  It’s one of the reasons I find Wynwood domains so interesting because Goldman Properties has lots of reasons to help the area grow and thrive (as it owns a lot of property in the area).

Wynwood.co is a solid buy at $800 and might pay dividends down the road.  WynwoodCondos.co and WynwoodCondos.net should be on your list and at $10 they are a much better value than Wynwood.Condos at $800.  Wynwood.Buzz seems priced to move given the $999 minimum bid.  And, for the buyer who plans to build out a site about what’s hot in the neighborhood it or Wynwood.xyz are the best deals on the board.

Design District

The Miami Design District was originally known as Buena Vista.  It stretches from 38thst Street to 42nd Street on the east side of North Miami Ave. (within walking distance of Wynwood and Edgewater).  In the late 1990’s, after a few decades of urban decay, the Design District started attracting designers and high end stores followed about 10 years later.  The first luxury retailer, Christian Louboutin, opened there in 2009.  As you can see from the map above, it was only the beginning.  A $1.4 billion mixed use project, multi-block project, which is currently being built, will turn the Design District into a combination of South Beach’s Lincoln Road and Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive (according to TheRealDeal.com.)

Lots of opportunities for Design District names.  Any area that has a $1.4 billion project currently being built and is fast becoming home to some of the most luxury retailers in the world, is not a bad place to invest a few of your domain investment dollars.

DesignDistrict.io and DesignDistrict.buzz are both interesting to me.  DesignDistrict.xyz won’t be the worst $10 you’ll ever spend either.

The Castello brothers, who have one of the best geo-domain portfolios in the world, own DesignDistrict.com.  If they’re playing in Design District domain space, you know it has potential.

Little Haiti / Lemon City

Little Haiti is also known as Lemon City and is located just north of the Design District.  Given the development in the surrounding areas, especially the Design District, Little Haiti is an interesting case study in real estate and geo domains.  Simply, the billions spent on development in the adjacent neighborhoods to the south, can mean only one thing – development dollars coming to Little Haiti. An op-ed in the Miami Herald discusses the changes coming to the area.

The availability of Little Haiti and Lemon City domains is on par with real estate speculation in the area.  It’s growing, but there are still plenty of deals  out there.

Conclusion

If you’re going to speculate on some geo-domains, South Florida, and specifically the Miami area, are great places to start.  I’ve found some gems out there that relate to services and business types that serve condensed urban dwellers who are paying $500+ (and up) per square foot for a condo.  I’ve kept my investments to .COM, a few .NETs, and few .IOs, a few .COs, and a few .XYZs.  Enough to dabble, but not enough to become an evangelist for any gTLD.  After this research, I’m more of a fan of .BUZZ and .IO than I was prior to writing this post. I also have more respect for .CO, but only like it when the awesome version of the .COM isn’t available.  A 3+ word .ANYTHING doesn’t interest me at all.  Also, .CONDOS works great for a real estate agent who builds out a site and the prices I’ve seen on these are too high even for end users, especially, when they can find a cheaper variation.  I did get out of my gTLD comfort zone today and bought Wynwood.Design, my first and only .DESIGN name.  I love the Wynwood neighborhood and if there was any place in Miami where the businesses might embrace gTLDs, it’s Wynwood.

I didn’t include the areas of El Portal and Little Havana in this Part 2, because I simply ran out of time (and space), but I do have those results, if you’ve read this far and are interested.