With spring planting just around the corner, equipment purchases have largely slowed down. Farmers are shifting their focus from hitting farm auctions in search of that next machine to getting back in the barn and getting preventative maintenance done before planting season is full-go and the you-know-what really starts to hit the fan.
Auction pricing, however, is remaining stable to high on most any type of equipment, and that’s especially true for well-maintained, pre-def machines.
Machinery Pete – aka Greg Peterson – shares a couple examples that illustrate that trend over the last week:
- A 2011 John Deere 9330 tractor with 6,934 hours sold Monday at an auction in Webster, S.D., for $119,000. It’s the highest price ever on that model, which had over 5,500 hours.
- A “pristine” 2011 John Deere Gold Key Tour certified 8210 tractor (shown below) sold last weekend for a record-high $132,500 in West Unity, Ohio, smashing the previous record on a used 8210 by over $17,000.
- At that same Ohio auction, a Gold Key Tour certified 2016 John Deere S660 combine went for $178,000, which Pete says is “a real nice price.”
The West Unity auction featured the meticulously maintained equipment of late farmer David Beuhr. Machinery Pete says the results speak for themselves and show the bid drawing power of well-maintained (with documentation to back it up) equipment.
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“That four- to seven-year-old stuff, when you start hitting that price point that more people can afford, and you’re looking at $225,000 or $100,000, when something falls into that mix – depending on the hours and what have you – that’s typically where the majority of this stuff really starts to move, especially when you’re looking in down cycles like this. You’ll see more churn in that stuff,” adds Casey Seymour, who brings over 20 years of experience in the used equipment market to the table every week on The Moving Iron Podcast.
Seymour and Machinery Pete both think right now and late 2025 will be the best times to find good deals on late model, used equipment.
Commodities Update
Shawn Hackett, principle, Hackett Financial, says fasten your safety belts and hang on to the lap bar in the commodities market. The first quarter of 2025 has been an “extremely volatile” roller coaster of ups-and-downs, and that looks to continue into Q2.
But there is upside there as well, and that could start to show itself around the timing of the upcoming USDA Planting Intentions Report and President Trump’s April 2 tariff imposition deadline, he says.
Hackett predicts initial corn acreage planting projections will come in around the 94- to 95-million mark, but there is a chance that number is closer to 93- to 94-million by the time planting starts to wrap up in June.
“The stock market had a big, big surge yesterday because (Trump) says, ‘yeah, there’s tariffs, but they’re flexible’, which, you know, I don’t know other than I think whatever happens on April 2, the market will be much less bearish afterwards than going into it,” Hackett says. He adds that it’s a good time to “sell the rumors and buy the news” if you can play the market and find some value to extract.
When it comes to weather and its effect on prices, Hackett is warning a challenging planting season lies ahead with a late spring rush of winter weather followed by another dry July.
What’s Happening Out West?
Aaron Fintel, used equipment specialist, 21st Century Equipment, says he is also seeing high prices come in on most types of late-model, good condition machines. And he is seeing strong upward movement on what he deems “big-ticket, last-minute items” like high-horsepower tractors and planters, which is a bit unusual for March in his neck of the woods.
21st Century Equipment is a John Deere dealer with over 20 locations throughout Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming.
“January basically became March,” Fintel says. “And that’s because of the price of the Iron and (lower) interest rates.”
Seymour told Fintel he is a bit surprised at the still-rolling-along strength of the “super smokin’ hot” used sprayer market. In his experience it is extremely rare to see high demand for used half-a-million dollars and up applicators after February ends.
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Fintel is seeing the opposite in his area – farmers in the West are buying up used, pull-type sprayers like he’s never seen before – but other than certain high-horsepower sprayer models from John Deere specifically, he is not seeing the same level of interest in used sprayers that Seymour is on the Great Plains.
Conversely, in the lower horsepower, utility tractor segment (120-174 hp) the guys are not seeing the level of buyer interest they would expect with those machines, given how well the dairy and livestock markets have performed over the last two or three years.
“For anybody on the dealer side that seems to be the biggest…like, why? Why aren’t those moving? Those are the only people that have money,” Fintel adds.
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