Reflecting the most recent U.S. Census Bureau and HUD release (August 2026) | Published September 2026 August 2026 new home sales came in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 684,000 — the strongest reading since November 2025 and a 6.4% gain from a revised July. The year-over-year gap narrowed to 2.0% below August 2025’s […]
Reflecting the most recent U.S. Census Bureau and HUD release (June 2026) | Published July 2026 June 2026 new home sales came in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 628,000 — up 1.6% from a significantly revised May and 5.6% below the June 2025 pace of 665,000. The gain was real, but it came […]
The most dangerous number in a Confidential Information Memorandum (CIM) is a topline revenue figure that is growing while the underlying customer base is quietly deteriorating. Customer retention is ultimately a proxy for the quality and durability of future cash flows. Businesses that consistently retain customers produce more predictable revenue, require less acquisition spend to […]
Reflecting the most recent U.S. Census Bureau and HUD release (May 2026) | Published June 2026 The spring selling season failed to deliver. May 2026 new home sales came in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 580,000 — down 7.3% from April’s revised 626,000 and 6.8% below the May 2025 pace of 622,000. That […]
Dark Sky Data has launched a customer retention analytics platform built to classify every account in a dataset by lifecycle state and measure whether a customer base is expanding, holding, or quietly deteriorating over time. The platform processes customer-level revenue or unit data directly from Excel or CSV files. It supports monthly and annual analysis, […]
The Real Structure Behind F&I Profit Walkaway, Profit Share, Reinsurance, and DOWCs Most dealers know F&I products generate profit, but far fewer understand how F&I participation structures determine where that profit actually ends up. Some models pay upfront. Others pay over time. Some allow participation in underwriting. Others don’t. If you don’t understand the structure, […]
Reflecting the most recent U.S. Census Bureau and HUD release (March 2026) | Published May 2026 March 2026 new home sales rebounded from January’s subdued pace and posted the strongest month-over-month improvement of the early 2026 cycle. Sales of new single-family homes reached a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 682,000, up 7.4% from February’s revised […]
The automotive warranty industry runs on a layered system of risk transfer. When a customer purchases a Vehicle Service Contract (VSC), a GAP waiver, or another ancillary F&I product, the transaction creates a chain of financial relationships that determines who holds risk, who controls reserves, who earns underwriting profit, and who ultimately pays claims if […]
OEM warranty claims processing is one of the largest manual revenue functions in automotive retail. DealerTech AI in warranty claims is changing how revenue is processed, validated, and recovered across dealership operations. Most OEMs runs their own proprietary claims system. An incorrect submission, a wrong labor code, a missing authorization, a documentation gap, results in […]
The DTC VSC industry is no longer an emerging channel. It has reached a level of scale and maturity that is attracting institutional attention. Colonnade Advisors, an independent investment bank focused on financial and business services, published a March 2026 whitepaper confirming what marketers are already seeing in their numbers: DTC VSC is the fastest-growing […]