dot.es was sold yesterday at Sedo online auction for 10,600 USD. This is one of the highest 3-letter ccTLD public sale ever. This is twice as much as the minimum wholesale price for 3-letter .com names (source). Another big sale of 3-letter ccTLD was fly.pl (Poland) sold for 20,304 PLN (6,800 USD) in February 2007. Both of this domain names are 3-letter premium domains.
Average wholesale price for .pl, .es and many other 3-letter ccTLDs is few hundred dollars at D2D market (Domainer-to-Domainer). But end user prices are very often between 1,000 – 3,000 USD. Few examples of 3-letter ccTDLs sold recently (source):
sks.ch 1,650 EUR (Switzerland)
htg.eu 1,500 EUR (European Union)
eli.eu 1,400 EUR (European Union)
alj.fr 1,000 EUR (France)
In my opinion, this shows nice potential in 3-letter ccTLD market, where you can buy cheap (200-500 USD) and sell for few thousand USD. But to achieve good prices – you need to sell to end users rather to investors.
I personally own 1000+ 3-letter ccTLD domains (mainly .pl TLD) and I believe this is much better investment than 3-letter .com domains, where the wholesale price is already quite high and potential growth is lower than in ccTLD market.
Domain Market in Europe 
Terence Chan said
Great to hear, but what kind of business model will dot.es promote? A .es speciality registrar?
RegFeeNames.com said
Nice name and good to hear a solid sale in the .es ext
A domain ext I dont own but I believe is worth owning if sales continue in these levels.
Regards,
Robbie
Daniel Dryzek said
This is highly possible that the domain was bought by some registrar that will use dot.es as registrar’s brand in Spain for example. Price is quite high as for 3-letter ccTLD domain name and that means that the bidders were aware of domain value, and that would lead me to registrars. But dot.es can be used for different businesses as well. Let’s wait and see what will be there in few months.
Paul Smith said
That was my domain. :-) I forgot this one was on aution because of the holiday. I felt I was slacking to promote the domain but to my surprise it turned into what could be a nice sale. Since it sold at Sedo nothing is guaranteed until the funds are in hand.
With this domain I always believed it would sell high. It is a great domain, some regisries use dot.xx as their homepage so this domain has all the potential in the world to be successful. Not to mention DOT has many acronyms such as Department Of Transportation
Daniel Dryzek said
OK, so now the transaction is confirmed by Sedo. Domain dot.es is now sold.
jeytee said
you fucking homos you think buying domains and selling them is a business model? fuck you all tossers – because of fuckers like you, nobody can register a domain for which they have a real use. you fucking homos
Daniel Dryzek said
This is my favorite comment on my blog ever ;)
Yes – buying and selling IS THE MOST popular business model in the world. Goods, real estate, stocks, domains – the same business model :)