Do older domains really rank better?
The short answer is yes. Older domains get ranked better than newer domains. Its minor though and if it changes hands along the way the effect is minimized. Search engines aren’t stupid and just having a long lived domain name isn’t likely to make much of an impact on rankings unless there is some relevant content on the domain during that time. If its not used and not ranked and then you buy it, you won’t likely get too much benefit from better rankings simply because the domain is old.
It is known that the age of a domain does influence rankings but changing hands through purchasing a domain is likely to eliminate whatever minor effect that has. So the long answer is no. Older domains don’t really influence rankings as much as people like to think because you have to purchase older domains from squatters which means it changes hands. If you bought a domain years ago and tossed up a simple landing page or mini site and now you want to revisit that domain and develop it then yes it will have an advantage since you owned it for a while.