Used equipment inventories remain elevated. And while they are not as high as they were in 2023 and early 2024, Andy Campbell, director of insights for TractorZoom, says it's still too much pressure for this market to take. 

As has been the case, used combines continue to be the biggest problem, Campbell says. 

“We've seen combines drop anywhere from maybe 12% up to 30% in value. And so combines have been the problem from ‘23 now into ‘24. I've been tracking a lot of combines —S780s especially. I think we had 70 sales on TractorZoom just in the month of July alone, just the S780s. But the interesting thing there is from June sales to July sales, we're not seeing those decline from June, July and more or less stair steps. So late ‘23, we saw S780s down a little bit, and then as soon as you move into the springtime, so January, but especially February and March, those sales dropped another 6-8%. Then you have a little bit of a break for planting, and then you had June happen another 6-8% drop in those."

“But at least for those, the S780, they've been consistent from June and July, and I'd expect them to go the same through August. But you're going to have another break at harvest. And so if things go the way they've been going, there's still too much in the market they're going to drop. Again. I don't know if it'll be another five to 8%, but I would expect those class eight combines to continue to drop. So class eights have been the worst.”

But, Campbell says what he’s most worried about is high horsepower 4WD tractors. He says they held their value well late into 2023 and values were still pretty decent in the early part of 2024.

“I think we could see some downward pressure on large four wheel drive tractors. And then in this summer, larger row crop tractors, especially the eight R series from John Deere, we're seeing those week by week just continue to drop. And I just looked at the eight R four tens, the eight R three seventies, and just from June to July, we're seeing six to seven to 8% drop on just those models in that shorter period of time.

The volumes of those are high, but they're still row-crop tractors, so they should sell throughout the season and they're kind of the cornerstone of the market. So they're usually not that high risk of an item. They are a little higher price, but it's just a little concerning that ad auction. We're starting to see those be discounted by that much that quickly.”

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