It certainly seems that many average domains sell for bigger amounts when they are an expired domain. You can look at Go Daddy and see expired domains sell for prices that you would never see if being shopped by the owner.
Even with quality names things are funny. EAM.com is currently on auction at Go Daddy. When it was first on Go Daddy it showed as an expiring auction and there were over 40 bids and the price was over $7000 with 7 days left. Today the domain was magically recategorized as a public auction. Now there are only 6 bids and the name is at $5005 reserve met.
Going along with the theory about expiring domains being more attractive to a lot of bidders, I had emailed someone who buys LLL.com domains and let him know when the EAM auction first went up. I emailed him again to let him know it was not expiring but public auction. He thanked me and said he was not as interested now.
Over the years I have seen this happen more than once, bidders interested in expiring but when finding out it was not expired there was not as much interest in the domain.
There must be some psychological reasoning why expired seems to generate more interest. The name is still the name.
Any thoughts on this please leave your opinion.
Expired names seldom have problems closing or sellers that play games. There is a trust factor there. The format tends to also have a quicker close most of the time as well, where as a seller may drag things out. A private sale also requires more money with escrow fees at times.