Because this question is more hypothetical than not and for lack of a better place to post this question I am posting it here. Say I have a website that profits $10,000 a month or more off affiliate sales and adsense. Top 50,000 Alexa and 1-4 hrs a day marketing and mantainance. 1 year established. All records. Selling becuase I simply want to retire early. Where could you try to sell a site like this and how much could you expect to get for it? Does the standard 12-24 x monthly income apply or does it increase with the higher revenue bracket?
www.sitepoint.com is the best place for selling sites.. You can create an auction if you are not sure for fixed price.
you should sell it for just 100 bucks...to me. or you could try the buy and sell section and list the total price around 10-12 months revenue. or whatever you want
I have used sitepoint, digitalpoit and ebay to sell sites before but I have never seen sites sell for the $200,000 plus range. And you would probably not want to attract too much attention to the sale. That is why I am asking if there is some place I do not know about to privately list your site for sale.
as MeetHere said, SitePoint is a good place for selling established site. Though you can try the Sites section under BST here at DP. Or else, use Google Print Ads from Adwords to advertise in US news papers. You can read the details here.
You could list it on bizbuysell.com. I believe they are the largest site of it's kind. You will find brick & mortar as well as internet businesses. Prices above $200,000 are very common.
oh man.. for the amount of money that a site like that would be worth, you would attract every scammer and ripoff artist on the net.. if it was ME, I would find a trustworthy person/friend to manage the site for me, and pay them half the profits or something like that.. Then, you would still have some income while you travel, and when you're ready to get back to the "daily grind", you still have a good, steady income.. As a matter of fact, I'll volunteer to run the site for you for ~50% of the profits while you're gone!
I like Tearabite's suggestion of paying somebody else to run it, though finding somebody could be just as tricky as finding a buyer. Other than listing it on sites you could approach other sites in your niche directly telling them you are looking to sell, they will know the potential of the site and it could well be more profitable to them to buy your site than somebody new to the niche (hence a higher price for you). To be making 10K a month you must have decent traffic so you could also advertise on your site, though a lot will depend on your reader demographic to whether you'd get any serious buyers. With good sites making decent revenue the 12-24 month valuation doesn't normally apply and I'd expect it to be higher depending on the volatility of your niche and traffic and how much work is involved to maintain and grow the site. Good luck with what ever you decide do, I reckon travelling would be a great way to spend a couple of years before other commitments come into play.