How much is fair or could I expect to pay for this website?
While I haven’t got in contact with the owner yet, I am very interested in the site due to its potential. I've done some research and here are the figures:

SUpposedly gets- 45,000 visits a day(most likely very few uniques as its a niche video game site)


Has a pretty inactive dying forum-10,428, Posts: 89,761, Members: 8,847

The site has real lack of updates and content but is still very well known among the community. It is a certain video gaming niche. The site seems to be run very poorly with a serious lack of updates and updated content. The sites main problem is that it hosts numerous videos for the video game which almost all total over 100mb, From what I know, the site doesn't make a profit and costs the owner a little bit, or if it does make a profit its a very small amount. It seems the site has an ENORMOUS amount of potential(the reason I want to buy it out).

Some other stats:
PageRank: 4/10
Alexa Rank: Not Ranked
Incoming Google Links: 12
Incoming Yahoo Links: 2,562
Incoming MSN Links: 361
Incoming Alexa Links: 0
Overall Incoming Links: 3,037 (Overlap is possible - Estimated 2,662 unique links)
Outgoing Links: 11 (Ratio: 1.091% - Each Link Receives Approx. 0.309 PR)

So what do you think an appropriate buyout figure would be? I just want to have some idea of a fair price before I contact him and make sure hes not giving me some outrageous or overly priced figure, or if I need to give him a quote of what id be willing to pay, id do it accurately. I do have a price range in mind but just want to check if everyone else has the same idea.

Thanks

You need to find out how many it makes from ads, its pointless paying a lot if it does not make a penny, as for what it could be doing, well i would say its worth a few thousand min.

I'm in a similar situation to im_not... I have an opportunity to buy www.webdesignforums.net - it's got very similar numbers in terms of posts, members, etc., but makes no money. Any ideas on value?

I like to think of websites like buy-to-let investments. Ask yourself:
Payback time
Amount of money/time need to spend on it once you have bought it
De/Appreciation in value

One last idea - ask them the price, and then, as a rule-of-thumb, offer them 2/3.

I'd say a fair price is 10x the annual income

But what if there's no income? I'm thinking that owning a forum might bring me customers... but other than that, I don't see a ROI. Thoughts?

Originally Posted by willcode4beer

I'd say a fair price is 10x the annual income

Wow x10 really? I had always thought x2 annual income is usually about what sites sell for.

10x annual income is ridiculous, not even brick-and-mortar businesses get that

Perhaps you meant 10x monthly income

Well-established, high traffic sites can get up to 2x yearly income, but 10 months is more common for smaller or newer sites.

Originally Posted by nyef

10x annual income is ridiculous, not even brick-and-mortar businesses get that

Perhaps you meant 10x monthly income

Well-established, high traffic sites can get up to 2x yearly income, but 10 months is more common for smaller or newer sites.

Actually, for brick and mortar, the normal rate is 20x annual income

Originally Posted by willcode4beer

Actually, for brick and mortar, the normal rate is 20x annual income

Wow that's crazy, it can't be all income though, that must include the tangible value of the business as well, all the property and equipment that comes with it.

There's no simple answer for valuation of a business. You can assess value by gross revenues, net profits, earnings per share, capital, and a number of other aspects.

Originally Posted by im_not_1337

It is a certain video gaming niche.

Becareful that niche isn't dying too. Really just offer what you would be happy with. It sounds like you are wanting to do it for more than just monentary reasons which is great! xx Times the current income doesn't mean much if you think you could turn it around and make a boat load more.

Think of Craigslist xx times it's profit isn't much, but the potential there is the sky.

One dollar per overall link. $3037 Now that was simple wasn't it. The only other way I know of to estimate it's worth is 1 years total revenue. That will come to more than the $3037 so you see it is a deal.

Originally Posted by nyef

10x annual income is ridiculous, not even brick-and-mortar businesses get that

Perhaps you meant 10x monthly income

Well-established, high traffic sites can get up to 2x yearly income, but 10 months is more common for smaller or newer sites.

What would be the point of selling for 10x monthly income? When you could make the same money by just sitting on it for a short time.

That'd be a huge win for the buyer of the site, 100% ROI in less than a year. %$^&, that's better than you'd make in any investment.
If people are willing to sell that cheap, I'm going to start a hedgefund around the process.

Originally Posted by willcode4beer

What would be the point of selling for 10x monthly income? When you could make the same money by just sitting on it for a short time.

I agree 100% with your logic but sites are being sold all the time at this rate. I assume some webmasters get sick of running the site and want to use the money to start a new project or move in a different direction like affiliate marketing/PPC.

I gave the x2 yearly example from websites I've actually seen for sale in the marketplace btw.I have no doubt willcode4beer knows buying/selling websites better than I do but none the less it's a rate I've seen used on a couple occasions.

Originally Posted by ECSuite_Russell

I gave the x2 yearly example from websites I've actually seen for sale in the marketplace btw.I have no doubt willcode4beer knows buying/selling websites better than I do but none the less it's a rate I've seen used on a couple occasions.

You should be getting a very good ROI.

Just think, at that rate, (doing nothing) you get your investment back after two years, it doubles every two after that. You are doing about 2X better than the best guys on wallstreet. 5X better than the average guy on wallstreet.

But, I'm sure you are working those sites a bit and getting a greater return than when you bought them.

Awesome, Good work