This is a new site from the folks at sitepoint.com. They have revamped their marketplace section as a new specific site called flippa.com. The site is completely designed for buying and selling websites. It has an awesome web 2.0 look and feel. The navigation is extremely easy to use and user friendly.
They have listings for upcoming auctions, ending soon and completed transactions.
I like this breakdown because sometimes you just need to get a new site quickly and you don’t want to wait around. By going to ending soon you can get something without waiting a month.
Completed auctions are extremely helpful especially for newer web investors. They can give you a glimpse of what you could expect to pay for a given website. Typically people pay between 12 to 36 times current earnings. The stronger the business model the higher the multiple.
If managed well websites can be an extremely effective investment. Many sites sell for less than $5,000 and you can keep adding new ones or growing your existing web assets. If you compare this to starting a franchise there is much less risk and you don’t have to quit your job to get started. Also you take a lot of the guesswork out of the picture. Someone has already done all the testing to prove that the method works. Many times starting a new site you have no idea if anything will work out.
If you decide you don’t like managing the site it is also easy to sell. I recently bought a site for 3k. I sold 2.5k in advertising and then turned around and sold it again for $750. Probably not worth the effort, but once I got into it I decided I didn’t like managing the site. Easy in and easy out. A site like flippa.com will make this even easier.