Domain name values are rising for several key reasons:
First, they provide unprecedented advertising abilities and can reach out to new clients and interact with them 24X7 where no other media can't even compete.
Secondly, absolute creditability. People judge your domain name, your url, your address, this is how they find you and get to know you. How well your site looks and works is also a factor, I hope that is obvious. Don't lose the fish at the dock. But, if your domain name is off center, or has extra words, hyphens, number, all these make it weaker and harder to do business with your organization. Look at how you view and surf, how fast are you gone and less likely to put a credit card up when these two key points are off? 77 percent are gone in less than half a second.
Domain names are like real estate, they're virtual real estate, but the difference is domain names rarely and infrequently come back on the market. Once sold, they are gone. If they do come up for sale, it's usually in the aftermath of a merger and for 100X what it last sold for. Like real estate, inventory is low and depleting. The pool of good names is drying up at an accelerating rate.
Get the .com extension or you'll be giving business to it. Maybe a .org depending on what your business is, and a .us maybe a good thing 10 years from now, but get the best .com names while you can. For the all the reasons above, and most prominently, domain names are the most powerful advertising mechanism in place for the next 20 years.
Prices are going up. Open to offers, take a look here.