Entrepreneurs

Woman who bought PresidentTrump.com for $9 hopes to sell it for $100,000

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Most people who support a presidential candidate just get an "I Voted" sticker for casting a ballot. But one Tampa, Florida, resident has the potential to make thousands off her confidence in Donald Trump.

Long before Trump launched his presidential campaign to "make America great again," Julie Magill was a believer, snapping up the site www.PresidentTrump.com in 2013.

"He mentioned he might run for president, so a light bulb when off," said Magill, a realtor and air conditioning contractor, who also invests in real estate and domain names. She checked to see if the domain PresidentTrump.com was available and found it on GoDaddy for $9 per year.

In total, the 53-year-old Republican has spent an estimated $80 to register and build a page on the site, and now she's hoping to sell it for at least $100,000.

"I would love to think I could get more, but you have to be realistic," Magill said, adding she would buy a house on the Intracoastal Waterway with the money.

So far she's received 13 to 14 offers, she said. While Magill recently got a bid for $100,000 by email, she's not yet sure how serious it is. Before that, someone offered her $43,515, a "very serious" bid she ultimately decided against taking.

Magill, who plans to vote for Trump, would like to sell to his campaign. However, her numerous tweets to the family and Trump's recently fired campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, have so far gone unanswered. Trump's campaign did not respond to CNBC's emails about Magill.

She's certainly not alone in wanting to cash in on the Trump juggernaut. "Trump" ranked among the top 10 keywords registered last month for .com addresses, according to data from Verisign, a provider of domain name registry services and internet security.

Meanwhile, Trump's rival, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, has not been a trending keyword since Verisign started the series in January 2015. (Since her husband, Bill Clinton, has already served as president, many of the URLs connected to her name have no doubt been taken for years.)

"People have registered thousands and thousands of names with Trump in them," said Andrew Allemann, editor of Domain Name Wire, a trade publication that chronicles the industry. "I think most of them are registering them thinking that someone is going to buy them."

But most of these people will be disappointed to find that the demand for many URLs just isn't there, Allemann said, adding that Magill's domain is "one of the better ones" and "actually makes sense."

As for Magill, she wants to strike while the iron is hot and sell her domain name by the time the Republication convention rolls around next month.

But if Trump starts gaining more traction, she might hold on longer.

Until then, she closely follows what the candidate says — much like a trader anxiously tracks the market.

"It's like a rain gauge," she said. "I look at the TV today and think, 'Oh God, what's he going to say today?'"