The last four months of the year are different in this business.

Sellers who spent the summer holding out for a better number start doing math against a December deadline. Lenders who extended in the spring open the same file and reach a different conclusion. Nothing about the asset changed. The calendar did.

We spend most of our time on that gap. In distressed and special situations, the work is rarely about finding something nobody knows exists. It is about being ready and funded during the specific week the other side becomes willing to transact.

That readiness is not luck. It is diligence done early on deals we have not been offered yet.

Mark Lester, Principal, LANDCO NEXA