With the advent of the .EU address coming this December, is it still opssible to make money buying web addresses on the 'net?
I see for example that www.paris-collection.com has become available as of today.
Seems like an interesting address that someone might want someday so do I just buy it and hope someone wants to buy it off me in the future or is there a a better way of approching this?
The problem is, cyber-squatting laws are very much against people who do this. Chances are, “Paris Collection” is already a trademark owned by someone. If you bought the name with a view to selling it on to them, they would likely be able to claim successfully that they have more of a right to the name than you do, unless you have a good business reason for owning the name (say, you are using it to exhibit your collection of miniature Paris Hilton dolls 
).
Have a look here for some information on ICANN’s domain name dispute resolution policy. (ICANN is The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.)
As long as the words in a domain have legitimate meaning apart from any trademark on it and you don’t use it to infringe upon the trademark, you can avoid cybersquatting problems.
As far as the OP, it is possible to make money selling domain names, but it’s not easy. Most names the people buy with the hopes of reselling just sit there and never go anywhere. Most of my good names I got back in the '90s or from spending hours and hours and hours going through lists and using name catching services.
This is true in theory but not in practice. A trademark owner may sue even if you aren’t infringing. They may sue in a WIPO court, possibly overseas, and you will be forced to spend a great deal of money to defend your rights. Many courts, especially WIPO, are biased in favor of trademark holders even if the other party is not infringing on the trademark. Even if they can’t show that you registered in bad faith, they know it’s very likely you’ll throw in the towel before it gets that far because you can’t afford the process. I’ll have to dig up cites, but there are at least several cases where domain name registrants have lost their domains even when there was no trademark infringement or bad faith in the registration.
For the record, anyone can sue you for anything, and some decisions are bad even when the law and regulations are clear. Just because some judges and some dispute panelists make bad decisions doesn’t mean that the regulations are wrong.
WIPO domain name dispute resolutions are not the same thing as court, and you don’t have to spend any money at all to defend yourself unless you want to. Many cases decide against the company making the complaint even if the person owning the domain name doesn’t bother to respond, depending upon the evidence. Of course responding improves your odds considerably, and paying a lawyer who has dealt with the process before increases it several times over. Beyond that, if the dispute goes against you, it’s always possible to take it to court after that, and some of the worst decisions made by WIPo have been overturned.
The situation isn’t as bleak as you try to make it out to be. But, at any rate, I’ve been selling domain names since 1997, and I have never even been accused by a trademark owner of violating a trademark, let alone threatened with domain name dispute or a lawsuit. So it’s certainly possible to get into the business without having to worry about it. You may hear more about the lawsuits and disputes, because those make news. Don’t let them make you paranoid.
I’m not trying to sound bleak, but I thought your original post sounded a bit like a Pollyanna. I am not a domain broker, but I own or have registered for others several hundred domains (for my own projects and clients’). I have been accused of infringement several times by companies who just coveted the domain in question. I have been outright sued only once. It was a case where I clearly had rights to the name (domain name exactly the company name, company in existence long before the plaintiff’s trademark), but we nearly lost because of lack of adequate defense and ended up spending much more than the domain was worth to us due to the principle of the thing. Good people lose valid registrations all the time. You’ve been either lucky or careful or both, but I didn’t think that told the whole story to the OP.