Machinery Pete: Used Sprayer Prices Show No Signs of Softening

If you had told me four, six, eight, 10 or 20 years ago that some day I’d be writing a column on red hot, rising values on used self-propelled sprayers, I would have said no chance.

There have always been a large backlog of late-model sprayers on dealer lots all over the country.

Of course, we know the past two years have changed all that.

Auction prices on good used self-propelled sprayers have shot skyward the past two years, and there’s no eminent signs of prices reversing. Farmer-buyer demand for older model, self-propelled sprayers in good condition has been exceptionally strong.

2+ Years and countingThe highest auction price ever paid on a sprayer is $451,000 for a 2022 Case IH Patriot 4440 with 340 hours, which sold on a Dec. 8, 2022, online farm auction in Imperial, Neb.

The 11 highest auction prices ever on self-propelled sprayers have all occurred in the past 28 months. Wow!

On March 15, 2023, a 2020 Apache AS1040 with 982 hours from Norton, Kan., sold on a Bigiron.com online auction for $233,750. That’s the highest auction price ever on any Apache sprayer by $18,250.

At a very nice farm auction in Springfield, S.D., on Aug. 3, a sharp 1998 John Deere 4700 sprayer with 1,200 hours sold for $65,000. That is the second-highest auction price on that model in more than eight years. The only higher auction price came on Dec. 6, 2022, at a farm sale in Columbia City, Ind., when a John Deere 4700 sprayer with 2,725 hours sold for $76,000.

Like I said: Wow.

Supply still limitedIn 2020, the average auction price on a John Deere 4830 sprayer was $88,520 with the highest sale price at $173,877. Then came the supply chain crunch and the historic sell-off of used equipment on dealer lots. By last year, 2022, the average auction price on John Deere 4830 sprayers had jumped a whopping 47.6% to $130,618 with a high auction price for the year (and all-time record high) of $229,000.

The average auction price so far this year on John Deere 4830s is running at $98,323, which is still very strong, considering the current average dealer advertised price is $119,211. This makes my “Machinery Pete Ratio” (average auction price/average dealer ad price) a robust 82.5% on John Deere 4830 sprayers. For comparison, over the past 20-plus years, I’ve been tracking this data, I’ve found 71% to 76% to be the historical norm. Anything above 80% is on fire.

Much of the farmer buying on used sprayers in good condition throughout 2022 into early 2023 was driven by fear. Dealers didn’t have any extra machines sitting around if needed. Some farmers were buying a back-up sprayer to have on hand, just in case.

In December 2022, I did finally begin to see inventory levels on used combines on dealer lots begin to rise. From May to July 2023, I began to see a similar trend on 175+ hp used tractors on dealer lots. I have not seen the same with used self-propelled sprayers.