#81- MM - Where Are The Cars?

Luke, guess what, buddy. Monday morning again. How you doing?

I tell you, I'm tired. Jeff, it's that time of the year where you work a lot and you're trying to source these cars. And it's getting harder. New car stores aren't selling as many, so inventories go down and we pay more, and it's just. It'll wear you out.

Yeah. And you're out there bidding against people who. I don't know where they're selling these cars to, but they're fine paying retail at auction. And then I don't know what's going on, man. But how do you compete against, you know, the scarecrows in the lane that just have their arm propped up the whole time?

Well, you know, the thing is, we've got to be resourceful as dealers. We have to look at different ways to buy cars. And there so many platforms to buy cars now compared to just 10 years ago. Jeff, 10 years ago, we had to buy from Odessa or Mannheim or have an end at a new car store. Right. Well, now we have Trade Rev, we have acv, we have Backlog, we have Mannheim Express, but we have so many different ways to source inventory. Plus, you could buy cars off ebay or Facebook Marketplace or CarMax or whatever. So things have changed. And this time of the year when you think that you just don't have a way to buy cars, maybe broaden your reach and look somewhere else for that inventory, not just in your backyard.

Yeah, it's so true. I mean, I say this over and over. Like, sometimes you'll go to the auction, you'll end up paying a grand or fifteen hundred dollars over wholesale or MMR or whatever number you use. But you could probably find that same car on Facebook Marketplace. It's going to be 2 grand over MMR. And you think, well, that's horrible. But the difference is, is you get to drive that car, you get to check it out, you get to look it over. You might be able to talk them down a little bit. You don't have buy fees, you don't have transport fees. So we do got to turn over all those stones and dabble in all of them. And some of them more headache than others. But if you give some of these online platforms a shot and you find that you got a little in, you got to ride that, right?

That's right. And don't be in dealers out there. Don't be afraid to transport a car. I know. You see Joe Mock always complain about transporters on the Facebook group, but transportation is pretty simple. I have a guy that is down in Florida so every time I buy, he brings my cars back, make those relationships. But I buy cars in Texas, I buy cars in Tennessee, I buy cars in Pennsylvania. So don't be afraid of spending a little bit of money on transportation to get the actual inventory you need at the right price because it's not that big a deal if you break it down. I think last year I spent $166 per car sold on transportation, but I was able to source the exact type of cars I wanted. So don't be afraid of that.

Yeah, yeah. Go out and like we talked about this week we're going to talk with Joe of ACV and we discuss a lot about broadening that pool. You know, go to a bigger lake, stop fishing in the same local little pond. Of course, you're just going to catch.

Catfish over and over and over. That's right.

Go, go to a bigger place where you're gonna be able to find, you know, those one offs. You know, you get a look at 20 cars instead of just the five you know, that you've always looked at.

So that's it. So let's get it done this week, Jeff.

Alright, alright. Awesome. Everyone stay tuned. Episode on Thursday morning.