The used tractor market has softened again. Across the auction houses and dealer listings tracked by Equipment News Live, average hammer prices for row-crop tractors between 200 and 300 horsepower fell 2.4% in October and are now 7% below where they stood a year ago.
The cause is supply, not demand. Machines bought during the 2021 and 2022 ordering rush are coming off their first trade cycle at the same time, and they are arriving with 2,500 to 3,500 hours on them, which is exactly the band most second-hand buyers want.
Compacts are the exception
Under 75 horsepower the picture inverts. Low-hour compact and utility tractors with a loader attached are selling at or slightly above last year's prices, because the acreage buyers who want them never placed those 2021 orders and there is no glut to absorb.
“A clean 60-horse utility with a loader and 400 hours still brings a crowd. A five-year-old 280 with a worn hitch does not.”
Dealers expect values to find a floor in late winter once the trade-in wave clears, though several warned that interest rates on used paper are doing more to set monthly payments than the machine price itself.