A picture is worth a thousand words, right? Feast your eyes on the latest supply and demand chart on used planters for sale at MachineryPete.com. It tells you definitively what you already knew: that used planter values are down in 2024. How could they not be with diverging supply and demand lines?
Here are two key realities I glean from looking at this chart:
1. The supply of used planters was at an all-time low two years ago as 2022 turned into early 2023. But note the steady rising blue supply line over the past two years into late 2024. Farm equipment dealers today have far more large, late-model used planters on their lots than they’d like.
2. Farmer buyer demand for used planters fell off a cliff starting June 1, a much steeper drop than what we’d expect seasonally. Corn below $4 will do that.
The whipsaw has been challenging for farm equipment dealers. It wasn’t long ago they had limited quantities of new planters available to sell. Early order programs (EOPs) on planters were one red-hot ticket. If you wanted a new planter, you had to scramble to get your name on your dealer’s list. It might not be delivered in time to plant, but what are you going to do?
By the time summer 2024 rolled around, dealers began to scramble to take excess large, late-model used planters from their lots out to auction. I’m quite sure they weren’t liking the sale prices they were getting on these large, late-model, used planters at auction, but the alternative was holding them on the lot and paying 8% interest on them. Big ouch.
The first nine months of 2024 saw a 576.9% increase in the number of zero-to-3-year-old planters sold auction compared the same time two years ago. From someone who has been compiling used-equipment values for 35 years, I have to say, that is an eye opener. Not surprisingly, auction prices on late-model, used planters have softened.
A good example is a 2022 Kinze 4705 36R-20 planter with 1,532 acres that sold on June 26 in Ann Arbor, Mich., for $233,200. If you flip back to 18 months prior during a Dec. 5, 2022 auction in Hamlin, Iowa, a 2021 Kinze 4705 36R-20 planter with 900 acres sold for $326,000.
My Key Takeaway
Timing is everything. It’s great to be selling when buyers can’t get new, and used values are at an all-time high, but it’s not as fun to be a seller when values are falling and there’s an excess of good, used equipment available.
Watch for dealers to continue to aggressively push a high volume of large, late-model, used planters out to auction from now into 2025. Of course, if you’ve followed my Machinery Pete advice for years now, you know the next truth-nugget I’ll share.
When other folks don’t feel like buying and are pulling back, it’s exactly the best time for you to be an aggressive value buyer.
