Buying a domain from another person

[Sisko_is_my_captain]

I'm a little confused how this would work: I currently own a domain that is my name, with a dash (e.g., Firstname-Lastname.com). There's a vegas lounge singer who has the same name as me, who registered FirstnameLastname.com some years ago. His domain is being automatically renewed every year, but he hasn't had a website up and running for months now. I think he's pretty much forgotten about it, and I'd like to email him and offer to buy the domain.

I'm thinking of offering $75 or so, which seems fair since he's not using it and I'm not exactly going to make any money with it, since it's just going to be used for my personal site and nothing commercial. My question is: if he agrees to sell it, how do I handle transferring it to my hosting company and putting it in my name?

Thanks.

 

[MacGyvr]

The current owner will need to log onto their registrar's website and initiate a transfer to your name, usually by entering your email address if you don't have an account already with that registrar. You would then receive an email with instructions on how to proceed. You cannot initiate the process yourself. It has to be done by the current owner.

 

[Tom]

I have sold a few domains in the past couple years, each registar may have different procedures and prices for getting the transfer done. The other issue is trust with the seller or buyer, do you trust the person? will they take your money and not allow transfer of the domain, or on the other side, if you transfer your domain will you get your money. On one domain i sold, i got half the money up front then the other half after the transfer was done, was that risky? yes it was, as he may have not paid me the second half. Another domain i sold we used www.escrow.com, that is a middle man of sorts when you buy things online to esure both buyer and seller are satified, the buyer basicaly lets escrow hold the money untill the tranfer is done. The only thing with escrow.com is they charge fees, in my case the buyer of my domain paid for them.