March is here, which means it’s one of the busiest times of the year for machinery auctions. A quick visit to the auction calendar on MachineryPete.com reveals more than 110 auctions scheduled from March 13 through the end of the month.
According to Machinery Pete, auction volume is up roughly 4.5% from late 2025 and is still climbing, driven heavily by retirement sales.
More auctions means more opportunities for farmers to update their equipment lineup. As evidenced by Machinery Pete’s Pick of the Week, farmers are willing to pay top dollar for the right iron.
“These solid auction prices … I think it’s structurally tied to the fact there just aren’t as many one-, two-, and three-year-old items in the used chain,” says Machinery Pete, co-host of the Moving Iron podcast.
Familiarity often dictates buyer behavior, adds Casey Seymour. He says it’s not uncommon for farmers to search for the same tractor model they currently own but with fewer hours.
This trend ties into a broader shift toward downsizing equipment inventory. Rather than keeping a couple of extra tractors or implements on hand, farmers are focusing on right-sizing their machinery lineup to operate more efficiently, Seymour adds.
Retrofit Equipment Is a Challenge to Value
Whether you call it a retrofit or an update, that seems to be the theme for 2026. The growing practice of retrofitting planters and other equipment with newer components creates a unique valuation challenge.
“A 2015 planter with 2025 row units isn’t a 2015 and it isn’t a 2025. It’s something in between, and the market hasn’t fully standardized how to price it,” Seymour says. “The opportunity and the risk are the same: If you understand exactly what was done, why, and how it performed, you can move that machine up the value scale. If you let it sit in a listing without that context, buyers assume the worst and keep scrolling.”
Autonomy Options Might Impact Resale Value
As farmers live in the here and now, progress is being made on autonomy in agriculture. Seymour says we could see more options to make machinery autonomous in the not-so-distant future.
With a stated goal of an autonomous farm by 2030, John Deere, for example, continues to make progress on autonomy kits. Those kits, as Seymour explains, will only work on certain model years. The same is true for Case IH and AGCO kits. That move could significantly influence future resale values for tractors.
