How much changes hands
According to Kerrigan Advisors, dealers completed a record 462 transactions in the twelve months through June 2026, representing 724 franchises. NADA counts 16,991 franchised light-vehicle dealers in the United States in its 2026 mid-year report. Kerrigan counts transactions, and one transaction can include several stores, so its count and BSR's store records are different units.
The Buy-Sell Report has recorded 622 buy-sell store records since June 2025, drawn from state license records and industry reporting; one record is one store, so a deal that moves several stores is several records.
What is a dealership buy-sell tracker?
A buy-sell tracker is a service that records dealership ownership changes, such as buy-sells, closures and new openings, and lets subscribers search them. Think of it as monitoring for your dealership customer base: instead of finding out from a bounced invoice, you see the change when it is recorded.
A useful tracker tells you the store, its franchise brand and location, the buyer and the seller where they are known, and the broker named on the deal, so you can act on it.
What a tracker is for
Account protection
When a customer's store sells, you can reach the new owner early, while vendor decisions are still being made, rather than when your next invoice goes unpaid or your contact's number is disconnected.
Prospecting
A new owner reviews the store's vendors, and a new opening starts with none. A dealer group adding stores may consolidate vendors across them, which is a chance to win more than one store if you are in the conversation.
Market context
Records show which dealer groups are adding stores and which are selling. The broker directory lists, alphabetically, the firms named as broker or advisor on BSR store records, with the states and brands where each appears.
How vendors tracked sales without one
- Word of mouth at industry events and from field reps
- Searching news sites for dealership acquisition stories
- Calling stores directly and asking whether they had sold
- Reading trade publications
- Checking state dealer license records one state at a time
Each of these is slow, incomplete or manual, and none of them scales to a book of many dealership accounts.
What to check before you pay for a tracker
- Sources. Does it draw on more than news? A sale without an advisor or a press release may show up only in state license records.
- Unit. Does it count stores or deals? A deal that moves several stores is one deal and several stores; know which you are looking at.
- Search and filters. Can you search by dealership, buyer, seller, brand and city, and filter by state, brand and event type?
- Export. Can you get the records into your CRM?
- Honesty about gaps. Does it say where its coverage is thin, or does it imply it sees every sale?
How The Buy-Sell Report works
The Buy-Sell Report records buy-sells, closures and new openings of franchise new-car dealerships, one record per store, from state license records and industry reporting. Each month has a free activity page with that month's store records by type and by state. Subscribers get the searchable dashboard, with buyer, seller and broker detail on every record, a marker on the records that are new since their last visit, and CSV export.