Equipment Oversupply Means Deals on Nearly Any Machine Your Farm Might Need

We’ve hit a new normal in commodity pricing, which means the demand side of the equipment equation is likely in a valley as well, said Andy Campbell, Tractor Zoom’s director of insights. 

“Prices have followed supply, and supply is a leading indicator in our data that predicates a change in values,” he said. “Pricing on everything is down, and the most capital-intensive equipment has been hit the hardest.”

He predicts lower prices and a lower sales volume through December, but we still may see a year-end uptick, as final harvest numbers come in and farmers make year-end decisions.

“I don’t think people will flip over the whole fleet and replace everything this year, but if a farmer needs one piece of equipment, I think they’ll still go seek it out,” Campbell said. “There’s enough supply right now that they’ll be able to be pretty picky and work with a dealer, or look at auction to find exactly what they need.” 

He’s paying specific attention to Class 8 combines, which have already experienced a price drop starting in late 2023 into 2024 and are starting to bottom out. Other equipment, such as large 4-wheel-drive tracked tractors, started dropping in value after the 2024 planting season and are still falling.

“Every month, auction values tick lower and lower,” he said.  

Here’s a look back at a few categories of equipment featured in Machinery Insider™.

Self-Propelled Sprayers

Campbell said supply of late-model used sprayers with fewer than 1,000 hours is about 70% higher than last year. They’re still selling somewhat on dealer lots, but more are being unloaded at auction. 

“One of the steadiest pieces of machinery I track is the Case Patriot 4440, and it’s only down about 10% in value year-over-year,” he said. “However, some higher-priced units, like the Hagie STS12, are down almost 33% year-over-year, and even John Deere 410R units have dropped 25% at auction.” 

He adds that fewer higher-priced sprayers hit the market each year, so prices fluctuate a bit more with the smaller pool of sales. But “quite a few more” have come up for auction this year than previously. 

Quadtracs

Supply of Quadtracs began to rise in June 2023, and from August 2023 to August 2024, late-model, low-hour units on dealer lots rose 250%, Campbell said. This can be problematic for dealers because these later-model tractors average $500,000 apiece, which means high holding costs for units sitting on the lot. 

“This is one category where, at the end of the year, if a farmer doesn’t find what they want at auction, they could probably talk with a dealer,” he said. “There’s enough of them out there to see if it’s the right fit for their operation, and this is a great time to make a move on those.”

Campbell notes a 20% drop in value on Quadtracs, mostly since the end of the 2024 planting season. 

“There were strong end-of-year sales in 2023 for 4-wheel-drive tractors, but it’s just been recently that these have been on the hot seat,” he said. 

John Deere 8R Series Tractors

In the last year, average prices for the 8Rs have dropped between 8% to 11%, Campbell said. “But,” he adds, “if you look at just August and September, they’ve dropped 16% to 18% compared to 2023 values.”

He believes there are too many machines in this horsepower range and too few interested and able buyers, forcing dealerships to unload inventory pre-harvest into the end of the year. 

Campbell said a similar situation occurred in 2014, when there was a surplus of machinery from overproduction following several years of high profitability for farmers. Then, when higher yields returned, commodity prices fell and this overabundance of equipment supply drove values down.

“Same economic story: oversupply and low demand,” he said. “But what’s different are two things — the oversupply then was a vast oversupply; manufacturers didn’t have the allocations in place that they do now. There also weren’t the interest rates we have now, and the starting value of machinery was maybe half or less than what it is now. This time the excess equipment supply should wash through much quicker than it did 10 years ago.”