We close roughly 40% of our annual dealership volume between the second week of January and the end of March. That isn't a coincidence and it isn't demand-driven. It's the result of three calendars that have nothing to do with each other landing in the same window.
Calendar one: floorplan interest
Dealers finance new inventory on floorplan lines that accrue daily. Units that didn't move through the holiday season are now aging into the expensive part of that curve, and a store that's been marginal all year discovers in January exactly how much its unsold inventory costs to keep sitting.
For a healthy store that's an annoyance. For a store already losing money it's the moment the arithmetic stops being arguable. The floorplan bill is the thing that turns "we're thinking about it" into "we need to be out by March."
Calendar two: model-year changeover
Prior model-year units become materially harder to retail once the new year's product is on the lot in volume. A dealer carrying thirty units of last year's inventory in January is carrying an asset that will be worth measurably less by April, and every week of delay compounds it.
This is why we can be competitive on price and still be the best available option. We're not comparing our offer to what the units would have brought in October. We're comparing it to what they'll bring in June after another five months of depreciation and floorplan interest.
Calendar three: franchise agreements
Franchise agreements, facility upgrade requirements and manufacturer performance reviews cluster heavily at year-end and into Q1. A store told in December that it needs a $2.4 million facility renovation to keep its franchise has a decision to make, and for a single-point store with an owner in their sixties, the decision is often to stop.
By the time a dealer calls us in February, they've usually known since November. What changed is that three separate deadlines finally agreed with each other.
What this means if you buy
The practical implications are straightforward, and most buyers still get caught flat-footed every year.
- Have your line approved in December. Not February. The best Q1 lots move in days, and applying for credit while a deal is on the table means you lose it. Approval is free and lines don't expire.
- Expect mixed-quality inventory. Wind-down inventory skews toward what didn't sell. That's not a defect in the deal — it's the whole reason the price works — but price the slow-movers as slow-movers.
- Don't ignore the non-vehicle assets. Parts departments, lifts, alignment racks and diagnostic equipment are often the highest-margin part of a dealership buyout and the part fewest buyers bother to value.
- Move in the first ten days. Q1 supply is genuinely elevated but it is not infinite, and by mid-March the pipeline visibly thins out.
The second window
There's a smaller cluster in late summer, driven mostly by lease expirations and by owners who decided in spring and spent the summer arranging it. It's roughly a third the volume of Q1 but tends to carry cleaner inventory, because those decisions are planned rather than forced.
If you can only be active in one window, be active in Q1. If you can be active in two, the August pipeline is worth a standing calendar reminder.
Observations reflect Fellow USA's own transaction history and are not a forecast. See disclosures.