The big difficulty when purchasing domains is this: Consider a person who owns unused domain X. X comes up for renewal. Owner is torn about whether it's worth

The big difficulty when purchasing domains is this: Consider a person who owns unused domain X. X comes up for renewal. Owner is torn about whether it's worth another $10 (or whatever) to own the domain another year. If they say the domain out there for sale for $100, there is no chance this person would buy the domain. Then a random inquiry comes in from a potential buyer. The owner is suddenly struck with a powerful case of the endowment effect ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endowment_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endowment_effect ), and imagines the buyer is probably a well-funded startup, or maybe a Fortune 500, or perhaps even Google! Or Microsoft! Or maybe a joint venture between Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, which desperately needs this domain! Suddenly the owner treasures this domain. The thought of parting with it is unbearable. The notion of putting a mere price on such a precious domain, unthinkable! Yet the actual prospective buyer might only find the domain worth a few hundred dollars; so usually no deal is possible.