Just bought a killer domain!

I just bought StorageAuctionsNewYork.com. I've had my eye on it for years but they were asking $5K and they wouldn't budge. I noticed that they lowered the price. Then I made them an even lower offer. After going back and forth we finally reached an agreement. It was a bargain considering the domain's versatility. The term "storage auctions new york" has high search volume. Plus, it will naturally rank well in the search engines. 

I'm not sure if I'm going to develop it yet. I have been tossing around the idea of creating a storage auction listing service for New York and giving Storage Unit Auction List a run for their money. With this domain, I could definitely compete in the search results.

Would having a listing for two states constitute giving anyone a run for their money?

Would having a listing for two states constitute giving anyone a run for their money?

I meant giving them a run for their money in New York. I really don't want to compete with them in other states besides New York & Texas. New York has the population to support a service like ours as does Texas.

I do want to compete in profitable cities though. Chicago would do well. I'm not interested in cities in California because competition is high and a because a service like mine, California Storage Auction News, already exists. 

I have top level domains for the following cities:

New York
Houston
Philadelphia
Dallas - Multiple
San Antonio
Austin

I have been thinking about developing them but other projects like the purchase and marketing of this forum and the development and marketing of VirtualStorageAuction.com have occupied most of my time lately.


I'm not interested in:

Los Angeles
Phoenix
San Diego
San Jose

I'd like to buy a domain for Chicago, just haven't got around to that yet.

Austin is the 11th largest city in the U.S.  The numbers just don't work on cities smaller than Austin.

I think the numbers could work in smaller markets because your competition would naturally be lower and the maintenance on those sites would take less time, theoretically. But I think you're missing a big opportunity with Atlanta and some Florida markets.. I'm thinking Miami, Tampa and Jacksonville. Smaller cities, like around here (Raleigh/Durham) probably wouldn't work, just because the saturation of storage facilities isn't really here. Although, there's a new one popping up every month it seems!

Portland, OR is 3/4 the size of austin, and has several large adjacent cities as well...might not be a bad one.

Portland, OR is 3/4 the size of austin, and has several large adjacent cities as well...might not be a bad one.

That's a good point. There may be other areas that could be lucrative. Especially where 2 or 3 cities converge. Like Fort Worth for example. Obviously we already cover Fort Worth but if I was just basing my decision on population, I would have never moved into that market. However, since it's located next to Dallas, the combined population for the two cities is around 2 million.

Is anyone aware of any cities (that aren't on the list above) that are within 40 miles of each other and have a combined population which exceeds one million?

Tampa-Saint Petersburg, FL.
New Orleans-Baton Rouge, LA. (further then 40 but I think they are in the ballpark of what you are looking for)
Washington DC-Baltimore, MD. (Not "smaller" cities I know, but they weren't on the list)
Denver-Aurora CO. (Not sure if that counts cause Aurora is pretty much a suburb of Denver)