They paid $8k for the domain and $4k to the broker. (At least, that's how I'm reading it- I agree it could be worded more clearly.)

Did the broken do more than offer a couple of opinions? That $4k seems steep.

Sounds like the broker got paid for his advice on not poking the bear. That could easily have saved $4k.

But the asking price was $8k - it would have to be an excellent approach if it generated a sale price of more than $12k (and thereby justifying the broker’s fee in this instance).

However I am aware of how squatters behave, so this could actually happen.

The risk was that the seller would realize the buyer was a company with VC money and an investment in the name. The broker thought that the seller might ask for an order of magnitude more if they knew that.

Yup, that was not clear. It was a typo and I've corrected it to $8K (this was for the domain). Thank you for pointing this out

The broker was $1-1.5K

I still do not get it.

>That’s exactly what we did. We had a brief discussion on broker fees, our domain broker had already proved himself and we liked him. The feeling was mutual, we got a great deal on his broker fees and paid $8,000 all said and done.

If you paid 8,000 for the domain and 1,000 or 1,500 for the broker, you paid 9,000 or 9,500, all said and done.

Correct. I've edited it to say that clearly (finally). Sorry about all the confusion here

Ah, I have to say, I still didn't quite understand the price from how the article is written, particularly since I wasn't sure if the squatter sold for their listed price of $8,000 or if they had accepted the $3,500 and that was their "final" price.

I only now understand that it was $8000 + $1000 broker fee based on your replies here.