Escrow.com has released their latest Domain Investment Index (.pdf file) report covering the 1st quarter of 2020. The 17-page data rich report revealed that Escrow.com closed $85.5 million in domain sales in the opening quarter of this year, a significant jump from the previous quarter when the total was under $75 million. Compared to the same quarter a year ago, total sales stayed steady with virtually the same dollar amount booked in 1Q-2019.

The U.S. didn't start seeing the full force of the global Covid-19 pandemic until 1Q-2020 was winding down, so we will have to wait for Escrow's 2Q report to see how that calamity affects transactions on their popular platform.

Some of the highlights from the new report include these observations:

*  Domain prices grew from last quarter, with especially high growth for 5 character domain names, a category that reached a record quarterly high across 17 years of Escrow data.

*  The U.S. led Q1 2020 global domain sales at $70 million, followed by the UK with $10.1 million.

*  Q1 2020 domain names with content tripled the volume of Q4 2019, a double edged sword as that was partly due to a surge in transactions of lower-priced domains.

*  Prices for Two to three number .com domains increased surged in Q1 2020, reaching the 2nd highest quarterly level in Escrow.com history with a median price of $193,500.