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Anonymous
Dealership - F&I
May 5, 2026 - 00:11

The April sales data is getting a lot of coverage for the headline number, down about 7% depending on whose estimate you use, but the detail that is actually affecting my desk every single day is buried in the JD Power forecast. Nearly one in three trade-ins currently carries negative equity. That is the real friction point in deal structure right now and it is not getting better until used vehicle values stabilize. When a customer comes in with four thousand dollars in negative equity on a trade, you are not having a vehicle selection conversation. You are having a math conversation, and the math very often does not work at current rates and transaction prices. Incentives are up 11.1% across the industry which gives us some room to bridge gaps but the combination of negative equity trades, elevated rates, and transaction prices that have not come down meaningfully yet is creating a trifecta that makes a large portion of the traffic walking in the door structurally unable to complete a deal. The SAAR can say 16.1 million all it wants. I am watching it at the individual deal level and the denominator is shrinking.

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