Now there's a broker who'll flip your sites for you at Flippa

[Clinton]

I've done a blog post on how the market for starter sites has taken a hit or, to use Luke's words, the honeymoon is over.

Evangelists in that market, like flippingawesome.com, have bailed. buyingandsellingwebsites.com are not taking any more new members. etycoon.net, a site that shares a bed with Flippa, used to make two posts a week and they haven't made a "flip alert" now for two months.

But some don't give up.

Step forward Ryan Malone. Not only has he bought flippingawesome.com, he's titled himself the original Flipping Broker (or "original Flippa broker" if you go by the header on his site) and set up a website to take on broking work.

He does say he won't take on crap sites

To be as blunt as possible, I don’t sell crap. I sell websites that are of value to the Flippa market place, so this means that there will be a minimum age for the website, a minimum level of traffic (or traffic quality), and to reiterate that, the brokering fee will be a measure of the time that it takes me to list an auction, get the sales copy written, and create videos, etc.

Hmm. I see no mention of profit. I wonder what his definition of crap is.

Bad move? Or a Warren Buffet kind of buy-when-everybody-else-is-selling savvy? And what do you think will be Flippa's response to his use of their name in his new title?

[tke71709]

Honestly I don't think it's a bad thought.

Think of it in terms of real estate. If you want to sell your house you go to a full service real estate agent who takes big bucks in terms of commission but does most of the work for you (brokers), or you can go to home depot and buy a for sale sign and stick it on your front lawn and take out an ad in the local newspaper (flippa), or you go the middle route and you hire the services of a company that comes out and takes nice pictures of your home, they give you advice on how to prepare the property, do a quick inspection of things that you should fix to increase the resale value (e.g. recaulk windows) and help you write your sales copy.

The third way is increasingly popular for real estate in Canada (why pay a broker 5% of the value of your home to sell it?) and this seems to be the same concept.

[Thomas]

It's an idealistic service and I'm assuming he hasn't done too much broking on Flippa in the past as it's a lot of work. He's certainly not the first or only broker who sells on Flippa but nevertheless there is definitely demand from people who want to get a premium from their sites. In my experience, broking is a lot of work (to do it properly), especially on a middle-of-the-road marketplace such as Flippa. Sellers with premium sites tend to go elsewhere (XXX,XXX+) so that leaves brokers on Flippa with little margin for profit. I'd be interested to see how much he charges, how good he is and what sort of service he offers.

"the brokering fee will be a measure of the time that it takes me to list an auction, get the sales copy written, and create videos" - this statement strikes me that he is inexperienced as these factors are probably the easiest and quickest part of the whole brokering process. Due diligence, for one, takes longer than all of those combined and doesn't come cheap if you know what you're doing.

I've noticed he sells David's sites (which sell around the $1k mark) as a "broker". I've been trying to figure out how on earth this is a profitable use of his time, unless David pays him around 50% commission. I'll be watching this one closely as I think it could be interesting.

[mpcovcd]

Can someone explain to me the difference between a flippa broker, and a website broker? I didn't know web 2.0 included making up professions.

[Ajeet]

He does say he won't take on crap sites. Hmm. I see no mention of profit. I wonder what his definition of crap is.

The sites need to make at least $50 in month for Ryan to be interested in them. He "prefers" sites with original content, but will occasionally accept autoblogs too.

The third way is increasingly popular for real estate in Canada (why pay a broker 5% of the value of your home to sell it?) and this seems to be the same concept.

It does not seem that Ryan is taking the first route. It is more like the first.

how on earth this is a profitable use of his time, unless David pays him around 50% commission. I'll be watching this one closely as I think it could be interesting.

He charges a fixed fee of $219 plus 15% of the sale cost over the fixed fee.

[tke71709]

It does not seem that Ryan is taking the first route. It is more like the first.

I disagree, a full service model would include a certain amount of due diligence, finding buyers, etc... Like a real website broker does.

[Thomas]

Don't know about the rest of you, but anyone with good due diligence abilities is certainly not available for $219 for an hour, let alone an entire site sale!

[benitez17]

Don't know about the rest of you, but anyone with good due diligence abilities is certainly not available for $219 for an hour, let alone an entire site sale!

I don't think he's offering due diligence services. I think he's helping to write the sales copy and managing the sale process. If he has some sales copy templates he can use, he can probably crank out a listing in an hour or less, and then spend another couple hours managing the sale process. His whole site turns me off because it screams "Internet Marketer" to me (not in a good way), but that doesn't mean that it doesn't work or he doesn't know what he is doing.

On a $1000 listing, which seems to be his targeted market, he is getting over 30% commission, which seems steep to me. I'd like to know what his Flippa username is so I can see his listings and see if he can justify his asking price.

Also, I think my due diligence skills are good, and I am available for $219 an hour.

[Clinton]

Honestly I don't think it's a bad thought.

Fair enough.

I'm not sure myself. If he's selling half-decent sites and not scamming anybody then good luck to him. Personally, I don't think there's much mileage in this as a business model in its current form.

Anyway, Ryan seems to have registered here. Maybe he'll post. Ryan, a tip: Unlike some blogs, this site doesn't filter out posts that it doesn't like . We encourage genuine debate, not a bunch of "me too" posts from cheerleader friends in the same industry.

[Thomas]

I don't think he's offering due diligence services. I think he's helping to write the sales copy and managing the sale process. If he has some sales copy templates he can use, he can probably crank out a listing in an hour or less, and then spend another couple hours managing the sale process. His whole site turns me off because it screams "Internet Marketer" to me (not in a good way), but that doesn't mean that it doesn't work or he doesn't know what he is doing.

On a $1000 listing, which seems to be his targeted market, he is getting over 30% commission, which seems steep to me. I'd like to know what his Flippa username is so I can see his listings and see if he can justify his asking price.

Also, I think my due diligence skills are good, and I am available for $219 an hour.

Due diligence should always be included as a broker, regardless of where you are selling. It's just asking for trouble if the seller (or even buyer) gets ripped off as he'll then get the blame. I don't think I would put my rep on the line without doing DD too. There's a lot of work on the backend IMO that you haven't mentioned. Just talking to the seller in the first place generally takes a few hours and a few days of emails back and forth; listings are generally a lot of leg work with questions, comments, bid management; the transaction can take a while once auction is over, especially if the buyer is relatively new to the industry. Then you have to deal with contracts and also make sure you get paid.

Steep, yes, but I'd imagine there is still demand at this level especially with his "reputation". There's a good reason why people don't broker sites for $1000 - they are just too much hassle!

Perhaps a slight exaggeration on the DD pricing, but either way it's still cheap for anyone with experience as it can be quite a lengthy process.