In this month’s used equipment market review, find out how tractors, combines, sprayers, and other equipment changed in value during the end-of-the-year buying rush. Overall the market might best be described as strong, but divided. In each category, the best equipment is still fetching record values, but only for the most desirable pieces out there. As you move down the lifecycle, the more use equipment has, the closer you get to comparable values from a year, or even two years ago.

Let’s dig into December’s activity.

The tractor market remained strong through the month of December with few exceptions. Older 175+ HP tractors carrying more than 5,000 hours are one of the rare soft spots in the dealer market

In December 2021, tractors that averaged over 3,000 hours were valued at over $151,000 at auction and over $289,000 at dealerships. In December 2022, the same tractors were valued at over $176,000 at auction and a little lower at about $284,000 on dealer lots.

In December 2021, tractors with 1,000-2,000 hours were valued around $327,000 at dealerships and $231,000 at auction. In December 2022, that gap tightened and the values increased to nearly $345,000 at dealerships and over $304,000 at auction.

To put these past couple of years into perspective, below is a Tractor Zoom Pro view of the top selling tractors in December 2020 and 2022. Despite the fact that we’ve all been immersed in this equipment value tsunami these past two years, it is still shocking to see the almost 40% price increase on the John Deere 9620RX.

In December 2021, tractors in this hour range were valued at over $429,000 at dealer lots and nearly $348,000 at auction. In December 2022, values increased 5% to over $453,000 at dealerships and an 18% increase to over $417,000 at auction.

The increase year over yar is notable, but more impressive is that the gap between values nearly closes between auctions and dealerships to only an 8% difference in December for 300+ HP tractors with less than 500 hours. Similar trends carry over to 175-300 HP tractors.

We’ve been watching the combine market closely, especially this fall, when we’ve seen steeper price discounts at dealerships as more OEMs delivered on supply and dealerships adjusted prices lower to move the subsequent trade-in inventory.

The auction values for these low hour and late-model combines with 0-500 machine hours has held strong throughout the end of 2022. 

In 2021, this segment of harvester was valued at around $334,000 and increased just a slight 3% to over $345,000 in 2022, but of course much fewer were listed.

At dealerships, combines in that similar 0-500 hour range in 2021 were valued at around $455,000. In 2022, that number steadily climbed throughout the year to nearly $500,000 in December, resulting in a 10% year-over-year increase. This higher rate of gain for dealerships over auction is especially notable considering that average auction values for low-hour combines were almost equal to dealership values just six months ago.

As we move up in the wash-out cycle, the value of combines with 1,000-2,000 machine hours decreased slightly at dealerships year over year.

In December 2021, the value was $180,000, but likely due to a return of supply and market uncertainty, the average value decreased 4% to around $173,000 in December of 2022.

Self Propelled Sprayers have been a comparatively flat market in 2022, with most low-hour categories increasing a modest 10%. A special note to anyone looking across this broad category for averages, be sure to separate out low-hour machines and newer technology like John Deere’s ExactApply™. For an example of ExactApply's impact, see the first Tractor Zoom Pro screenshot below with 'exactapply' included in the description filter. The second view is simply all John Deere self propelled sprayers. Both searches are only for equipment with less than 1,000 machine hours.

In December 2021, all sprayers at auction in this hour range were valued at over $151,000 and at dealerships, $300,000.

In December 2022 at auction, sprayers were valued at over $177,000 and on dealer lots, $329,000.

In December we segmented out dealer price changes by machine hour, where we saw slight price decreases in all hour ranges, except for those with very low hours, which, like most other equipment, are in exceptionally high demand. If farmers can’t secure a brand new sprayer from a manufacturer, the 1-2 year-old machines are their next best options.

We’ll be watching the planter market closely in the next months as spring planting preparation comes back around. Stay tuned for more specific insights in the next couple of months!