Flipping Easy

I’ve already covered the “traditional” or more established business models of site flipping, but this industry is still developing and new opportunities are popping up all the time. In fact, I recently stumbled across a new business model for buying and selling websites that has so far, flown largely under the radar in the flipping industry.

A Website Broker

The opportunity I’m talking about is that of a website broker. Much like the other business models of site flipping, this one also has a direct parallel to the real estate industry: the real estate agent. Just like REALTORs or brokers in other industries, a website broker is acting as a middle man. Essentially you would be using your experience in listing and negotiating website sales to sell someone else’s site in exchange for a percentage of the sale price.

As I said, I essentially stumbled on the idea when a friend approached me asking for help selling her site. Since then I’ve been approached to sell to other sites, receiving offers of up to 15% of the final sale price in exchange for my services selling their site. I suspect that as more and more people realize their websites have monetary value and look into selling them, opportunities like this will become even more abundant. In fact, a quick Google search displayed a few sites that are already tapping into the opportunity and establishing themselves as the authority website brokers.

The appeal of this business model should be fairly obvious; while you wouldn’t make as much money as if you were selling your own site, you also wouldn’t have nearly the amount of time or money invested on the front end. You don’t have to spend any time creating or promoting the site, you’d only have to spend the time it takes to sell the site. Offering other services such as marketing the auction or sale, or providing tips on how to maximize the return for the seller could help a would-be broker get an even larger percentage of the sale price. And of course the beauty of any broker relationship is that the broker has a natural incentive to get as much for the site as possible. The larger the final sale price, the more money the broker makes!

It’s Not Complicated But…

You see, while you and I might find the actual act of selling a site to be the easiest part of an entire flip, most website owners have never sold a site and many would be willing to pay you a percentage to save them the hassle of trying to learn all the ins and outs of an entire industry just so they can sell a single site.

A great, non-real estate, “real life” example of this would be buying a car. I worked as a car salesman for a short time a few years back and, even in that short period of time, I negotiated the purchase of more cars than many people will buy in their entire lifetime. In reality, the entire process from start to finish isn’t all that complicated (it took me about 2 weeks to learn) and yet, most people HATE dealing with car salesman. In fact, I know several people who prefer to take someone with them just to help talk turkey with the salesman. Why? Because they know that a mistake in negotiating can end up costing them thousands of dollars in the long run.

The same holds true when buying or selling a website. The experience gained from past negotiations and sales can make hundreds if not thousands of dollars difference in the final sale price.

Will being a website broker become the next big online money making craze? I don’t know, it certainly looks like a promising potential business model. But the industry of buying and selling websites (site flipping) is still quite young and new opportunities are cropping up all the time. Whether you pursue becoming a website broker, create and sell websites, or stick with the buying and flipping model, remember to keep your eyes open for new emerging monetization methods.

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