Each year from roughly the first of February to the end of March is a time I like to refer to as Flake Season. During this two month period all the FBNs (Flakey By Natures) get their income tax back—usually about $1500 or so—and begin the process of trying to find someone crazy enough to finance them in a car. In my current job that someone is me.
I manage a car lot in a poor neighborhood of a Northern California town. Statistically only 2 percent of the population nationally have credit scores below 500. I’m beginning to think that all of them live within a couple of miles of my lot!
Case in point: yesterday I talked to a woman with a credit score of 428 who had a $1000 down and wanted to buy a car. Now I work a lot of my deals backwards. I run their credit first before they look too closely at a car. In this case the lady had an open loan at a sub-prime lender that was $1250 past due. Since we do not do “buy here, pay here” how in the freaking hell am I going to get her financed?
I run into these situations every day. I had one recently with not one, not two, but THREE repos on her bureau. She was indignant when I informed her that getting her financed had roughly the same chance as monkeys flying out her butt! Well, I didn’t use those words, but you get the idea.
The sad part is that almost all of these people are women. They all have kids, none of them are married, and they all have bad credit. I sometimes wonder where all the flakey men are. In jail, I guess.
Very few of my customers have been living at their addresses for more than a few months. They seem to move from place to place like nomads, probably going through one eviction after another. I bet that the U-Haul business in this town is pretty lucrative.
I get a person with a credit score of 600 or above about every three weeks. It’s a very exciting experience. In my old dealership, only about ten miles up the road, they didn’t know quite what to do with a 600. Here, I want to organize a parade with my customer as Grand Marshall!
Believe it or not I’m able to get most of my 400’s and 500’s done, and during Flake Season I can pretty much clear my lot. But come April 1st, the money dries up and so do a lot of the deals. Almost no one will have any money for a down payment.
Flakes are about a third of my business, maybe half during Flake Season. The rest come mainly from out-of-area Internet sales on cars no one in my neighborhood could ever hope to qualify for. Most of these deals are cash.
Like a lot of car men, I’m looking forward to the economy stimulus checks the government is planning to send out in May. For me it might mean Flake Season II. Given the state of the car business lately, it will be like Christmas in June!
So if you sell cars at a normal dealership (whatever the hell that is), and are confronted with a score of 580, and you’re depressed about it, think of me sitting here in Flake City.
I’d kill for a 580!
Talk to you later,
David
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