Should I buy these names?

Don't want to get stuck with a lemon

[tomthumb2000]

I have the chance to snap up a few domains that are 8 years+ old but which have essentially just been one page sites with a picture and contact details.

Some of them are important towns but with a .net extension

And then are a couple of .coms (one 4 letter and one 5 letter) - when i search for the terms on google brings 6 million and 3 million results respecively.

Type-in traffic stats for the names isn't very significant and as the sites have no content they don't get any traffic from google although they have been spidered a long time ago.

Do these sound like bargains as niche sites to develop? I'm afraid of buying a lemon...

[buckworks]

As long as there hasn't been any history of spammy link development to poison them, the primary factor in whether they're a worthy acquisition will be how you develop them.

As for bargains ... bargains are in the eye of the beholder. Do you think you can develop them to earn your investment back in a reasonable time?

In my opinion, it doesn't matter so much how many results come up in Google for a particular term ... what matters is how many people are SEARCHING for it.

[tomthumb2000]

True enough!

What's considered the best place to check on search term popularity these days?

[inbound]

The town names are usually good for development - if they are big enough. How many people stay in these towns? Are the towns known as tourist/conference destinations? Do the towns have any festivals that would make people visit them? Are the towns wealthy or not?

And most important...

Do you have the time/resources to build a truly good resource about those towns?

As for the terms, short is good - as long as they have a commercial application. If they do have a commercial application, do you know enough (or could you learn enough) to develop them? I say that because I find people who are not trying hard rarely sell names by just waiting - so the best course of action is development.

[Samx]

town names are highly recommended as these have a good view to development. You can also sell advertising to local companies, with yourself having a slight monopoly over this market with a decent domain for that town, so can gain decent profits!