I was recently looking for some accommodation for a short trip to the North West, and was browsing hotel rooms and couldn't help but notice that serviced apartments were being displayed as prominently as the hotel rooms and they looked great. Loads of privacy and space, great specification and all for about the same price as a hotel room. When put side by side, a serviced apartment seemed to be more attractive than a hotel room.

One of my (worst) habits is that when I buy a product for the first time, or try something new, or go some place I've not been before, I start to think about what angles there are for creating a website about it.

So with a new interest in serviced apartments, I noticed that servicedapartments.co.uk and servicedapartment.co.uk were up for sale. I made an offer, a counter offer came back quickly and after a couple more messages back and forth, a sale was agreed.

Actually servicedapartments.co.uk was the only domain I wanted, but the scale of the investment was such that I had to protect it from someone else buying the non plural form and challenging me for the top position which I think the domain will get in due course. So I decided to bite the bullet and buy both the domains. Just for good measure, I found that servicedapartment.com was available elsewhere and added that to my bourgeoning serviced apartment portfolio as well.

There was a bit of trust on both sides, so we dispensed with the need for a broker and then proceeded to a successful transaction. Twelve hours after the initial enquiry, the domains were in my name and my bank balance significantly lighter.

So now, I have some premium domains in the serviced apartment sector, and have done a preliminary site and am still evaluating merchants. I am also looking for in-context link swaps, so if you have any hotel/travel/self catering related sites and would like to swap links, please do get in touch.