Your honest opinion: how much is a 5-letter .com worth?

[kristian]

OK

I want to mention a good rule of thumb in determining if your domain(s) might possess value. This is by no means definitive, but it is one useful rule to remember.

Scarcity determines value. If you own porno.com then you have a valuable domain because there is only ONE porno.com

Most (or all) great single word domains are taken or for sale at huge prices so, for the modest investor, that usually leaves coming up with two-word domains.

A two-word domain has greater value, the harder it is to duplicate it's meaning using other words. For instance, I own smokerchicks.com. It's ok, but it's value it reduced because of the number of other variations - possibly - available : smokergirls.com, smokingchicks.com, lungcancercuties.com, smokingporn.com, etc etc.

The problem with domains of more than one word is the number of possible variations. So to increase your name value you need to choose domains that have few or no variations (say, in the case of a popular phrase turned into a domain name) or buy up all possible variations to sell as a package.

I hope this helps someone.