America’s Land Auctioneer
Captivate and celebrate the dynamics of rural America, American Agriculture and inspire and teach others how to live a bold and abundant life in rural America. Background: The intrigue, endless opportunities, and romance of rural life in America have never been more on the minds of Americans. The recent pandemic and civil unrest have Americans of all ages earning for a more peaceful, less hectic life. Even billionaire Bill Gates is now the largest crop landowner in America. As many Americans look for peaceful refuge in the rolling hills and wheat fields they are faced with a richness of opportunities. But where do you begin to look? This show will highlight and feature endless opportunities in every state. What is it that is so unique about rural America, the land and what it produces? How can I live that life? The American Land Auctioneer will tell stories and weave into those stories a place for you to dream, live and enjoy the abundance of all that rural America has to offer.
America’s Land Auctioneer
Auction Technology Should Complement, Not Replace, The Auctioneer
The agricultural equipment market is experiencing a remarkable recovery in 2025, defying early predictions and showcasing surprising strength across multiple categories. This episode of America's Land Auctioneer dives deep into these market dynamics with Chris Bair, Regional Manager at Pifer's Worthington-Sioux falls office, who shares firsthand insights from recent highly successful auctions.
Bair reveals how their March auction became "the strongest sale in almost five years," setting the stage for a robust spring season. The conversation explores the fascinating phenomenon of pre-COVID equipment commanding premium prices, with examples like a 2012 John Deere 4830 sprayer recently fetching $171,000—breaking a three-year price ceiling. Meanwhile, newer equipment faces accelerated depreciation of $1,000-1,500 per hour, creating a market environment where quality used machinery has become increasingly attractive to buyers calculating operational costs.
The heart of the discussion focuses on auction methodologies and how Pifer's has evolved to maximize returns for sellers while maintaining their commitment to the live auction experience. Despite technological advances, over 50% of auction value still comes from on-site buyers, and research indicates roughly 16% of American farms lack internet access altogether. This reality has shaped Pifer's hybrid approach—combining the energy and momentum of live auctions with sophisticated online bidding platforms that together engage up to 1,400 bidders per event.
Particularly fascinating is the company's strategic pivot from timed online-only auctions to "live online" formats that allow equipment to remain at owners' locations while still benefiting from live auctioneer engagement and multiple bidding platforms. As Bair eloquently states, "Technology should never replace the auctioneer. Technology should always complement the auctioneer."
The episode concludes with previews of upcoming auctions, including the May 13th Summer Equipment Auction in Worthington featuring construction equipment, vehicles, and recreational items, along with several farm retirement auctions throughout the Upper Midwest. Whether you're looking to buy or sell agricultural equipment, this episode provides valuable market intelligence and strategic insights that could significantly impact your next auction experience.
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Contact the team at Pifer's
Welcome to America's Land Auctioneer. I'm your host here this fine Saturday morning, andy Murnau, sitting side by side here in studio with Chris Baer. He's out of our Worthington-Soufales Regional Office down in South Dakota and I always appreciate all the insight that Chris and his team can provide. We've got an exciting couple of months still ahead of us, chris, and an exciting couple of months behind us, actually, and it all kicked off with you down in Sioux Falls at our Worthing facility with a tremendous sale to start off the spring in March and coming up in a couple of days we're going to be in Sioux Falls again. How are you?
Speaker 3:I'm doing great. Thank you, Andy. Good to be in Sioux Falls again. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you, Andy. Good to be on America's Land.
Speaker 2:Auctioneer. Yeah, you bet. Well, let's get into some equipment. I know we're the land auctioneers here for this show, but every time I get on we kind of want to provide enough insight on what the equipment market's been doing. And again it all started with your sale picking up speed for what has seemed to be just kind of a blur of a spring, with dozens of equipment auctions throughout the upper Midwest.
Speaker 3:It really has. That was a great auction to start the year with for Pifers in 2025, and it just carried a tremendous amount of momentum. We've got our sale here on May 13th, which is going to be a great sale. We had two rings, ended up with over 800 lots, so we went to a third ring and we're going to have we're locked and loaded, Andy. We're putting lot stickers on now and we're ready to go here in a couple of days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you bet, and it's going to be exciting time. So if anybody wants to check out the inventory or the details of any specific item, how do we do that?
Speaker 3:You'll go to piferscom that's P-I-F-E-R-S dot com or you can just give us a call at any one of our three locations in Bowman Steel or down here in Worthing, just south of Sioux Falls.
Speaker 2:You bet it's going to be a pretty good sale here. We've had a tremendous run of equipment sales here in the last well, I'm just going to say two months. I mean March, april. We're just kind of a blur and we really saw a lot of strength in the market and I think this market is probably as strong and confident as we ever expected it to be. You know the anticipation of what these markets were going to do in our January and February trade shows and seminars that we put on throughout the countryside, either North Dakota, south Dakota, minnesota, we did one in Florida, we also did one in Arizona and California and we've got, you know, all of these different insights coming up in January, february and for me, honestly, I don't believe that all the crystal balls that were out there could foresee the strength that we've been seeing here in March and April.
Speaker 3:The auctions have been incredibly strong. I'm going to tell you that the sale that we did have in March was the strongest sale that we've had in almost five years. I was really I lost some sleep going into that sale, andy, I could tell you that if my emotions are high and I'm nervous, I don't sleep real well, and I didn't sleep very well for a week before that auction because we had a lot of commitments, we had some pretty high mountains that we had to get over the top of and at the end of that day, when we closed everything out at 4 or 5 o'clock in the afternoon, it turned out to be a wonderful sale. It was very, very good, the best that we've had here so far.
Speaker 2:And it certainly gives you a lot of confidence coming into that sale that we're going to see here on on Tuesday in in Worthing again, and you know not only confidence in the market but confidence in the type and kind and quality of equipment that you guys have got in there. So why don't we tell the listeners a little bit about what you have coming up here just just on Tuesday?
Speaker 3:uh, tuesday, uh, so our May auction is kind of uh, it's, it's, it's a good time of year to sell. It's more construction oriented, oriented and oriented, and so we've got skid steers. We've got a crane out there that we're going to be selling. We got wheel loaders, we've got actually got some RVs, we got some boats that we're selling. That's more post-planting, maybe early part of the construction season type equipment, and that's where our focus has been is coming into the construction season. As you know, down in our part of the country, construction is just going wild. There's buildings that are being built, roadways that are being built, bypasses around Sioux Falls that are being built, and so it lays the foundation for a very, very good industrial equipment market. Late spring, early summer auction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it really gives us a lot of access to really good equipment in that part of the world too. For all the equipment that's being used, you know there's obviously some that isn't, and if equipment's sitting still it's not gaining any value. You might as well capitalize on turning it into cash. And that's why in that specific sale I'm excited. We've got a lot of good skid steers, there's a couple of really nice telehandlers or telebooms and some wheel loaders, lots of good semis, lots of good vehicles, trailers, you name it. It's kind of an auction that has something for everybody.
Speaker 3:And there is some good farm equipment as well. Well, yes, and, and not only that, but but it it has grown. The first auction that we had here in may, we only had a couple hundred lots. It, um, we struggled, we struggled with it putting it together, uh, almost five years ago, but now we're, we're right at 900 lots handy and and our yard is full and, uh, we, we got some rain. That uh was was a little bit tough on us getting the yard set, but there's, there's something for everybody here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, without a doubt, and that comes with being a little more established now. I mean, five years ago when we first had our first sale down there, uh, I think you and I were both probably nervous wrecks going into that deal, but it was a new territory for Pifers, it was an expansion zone. It's an expansion area and we were fortunate, at least from the Pifer side, to have a good management structure in place and have the right people in place from the beginning. And you've got one heck of a team down there now. I mean between Jasmine and Kyle and Josh and yourself and everybody else that you, lucas, yeah, lucas Everybody works tirelessly to ensure the success of that sale, as well as some of the other sales we've got coming up too, including the Upper Midwest sale, which we're utilizing a new auction method for our well, what used to be our online only. So we'll talk about that here in a little bit, probably in the next segment. We'll talk about that here in a little bit, probably in the next segment.
Speaker 2:But with what we're seeing right now and the strength of the equipment and what we saw here in the last four or five weeks, specifically in northern North Dakota, there's been a tremendous, tremendous run of sales with extremely good results. What would you anticipate? Or just in a you know, in a general sense, what would you call the strength of the market? What's the economic indicators? Because everything was kind of indicating this spring that we weren't going to see this kind of strength. Where's the strength coming from?
Speaker 3:I've lived farm equipment. I've lived machinery for the last 35 years, being raised on a farm. I absolutely loved equipment, Andy, Andy, and so in the equipment market and in the equipment world, there's been twice in my career where I have watched machinery that actually appreciated in value. One was in the early 2000s, but the other was coming post-COVID. And if something goes up as high as it did, there's always an equalization that takes place in value. And we saw last summer about this time where the market really kind of fell and created everything to equalize.
Speaker 3:So, coming into as we came through 2000, the fall of 2024, Andy, I think that machinery started to increase in value from summer of last year and through the wintertime the crops came off. The cattle market has enjoyed record-breaking prices in the cattle industry and now in 2025, it kind of laid the foundation for the machinery market to continue to recover. And so, from what I've seen from the auctions and I'd like to hear what you have to say about that, because you were behind the microphone up there is that the machinery values actually came back in the spring of 2025. But there's some things that it requires, Andy, when one of those things that it requires is that it requires a good auction platform, it requires the live auctioneer, it requires several different platforms to accept those bids from absentee bidders, people that can't be there. And so I think in 2025, in the spring and coming into the summer of 2025, I think the machinery markets are going to continue to recover and I think we're going to see good things throughout the rest of the year. Andy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, without a doubt, and it started in March. We had a lot of John Deere R-Series tractors that everybody got nervous about and in the fall there was a kind of a massive dealer dump of 8R and 9R-Series tractors across the countryside and we saw a lot of the 2022 and newer model tractors basically being shipped out the door with a $1,500 or $1,000 per hour depreciation rate on them, and that's just getting to the point where it's too expensive to operate or too expensive to buy that new equipment. That, in essence, turns around and increases the value of the used market in my opinion, and it's just through natural inflation. Now that we're back to kind of a depreciating market, we can now calculate again that it costs you X dollar per hour to run X type of equipment, right, and so if you're buying a brand new piece of equipment, we know it's going to cost you a thousand or fifteen hundred dollars or two thousand dollars an hour, unless you're going to run the wheels off. Most guys buying million dollar tractors or sprayers aren't aren't the type of operators to run the wheels off, so they have to calculate a different style of depreciation and make sure it works within their operation.
Speaker 2:On the pre-COVID inventory, we're seeing a lot of strength because the natural inflation caught up. It brought the value up. Just a few weeks ago in Voltaire, north Dakota, we sold a sprayer for $171,000. It was a 2012 4830. Voltaire, north Dakota, we sold a sprayer for $171,000. It was a 2012 4830. We haven't seen a 2012 4830 or any 4830, for that matter sell for higher than $140,000 in probably three years.
Speaker 2:And so the economy will never tell you what quality equipment's worth. You know it'll never tell you that quality and good reputation from a good retirement that's never gauged on a national economy right, where the comfort level that the neighbors have with that specific style and type of equipment will always prevail and always dominate a market. However, with all of the things that we've seen over the last few years, now we're back to depreciating market Equipment's not gonna be worth more in three years than it is today when you buy it, but now you can calculate it and you can figure it into your expenses. Managing depreciation within every operation is probably the key component right now for success.
Speaker 3:I think you're exactly right and, being able to be in front of that, I know that years ago you could calculate on a per hour basis with a combine as to what that's going to cost you per hour and that kind of went out the window from 2020 to 2022. But now it's starting to come back into that same way of thinking.
Speaker 2:Yep, you bet. Well, thanks for joining us here today, chris. We've got a lot, a lot, a lot left to discuss here over the next half hour or so. But, ladies and gentlemen, we want to thank our sponsors and, whether you're buying or selling land, equipment or real estate, trust the team that's built on experience and results. Pfeiffer's Auction Realty and Land Management, their farm and ranch auctioneers, land brokers and land managers are the best in the business. Visit Pfeiffer'scom today for dozens of land and equipment auctions, as we are getting ready to let them off in the upper Midwest. Because when it comes to auctions and land sales, nobody does it better than Piper Nobody. We'll be right back after this break.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to America's Land, auctioneer, I'm your host this Saturday morning Andy Murnock, america's Land Auctioneer, and we are in studio today with Chris Baer, our regional manager, out of Worthing, south Dakota, pfeiffer's regional manager out of the Pfeiffer's regional office in Sioux Falls. Appreciate everybody for joining us once again. Again, this show is always sponsored each and every week by Pifers Auctioneers, your trusted partners for land and equipment auctions. So, ladies and gentlemen, we got a great show behind us and ahead of us and lots of good things to talk about. We talked about the strength of the equipment market, which I believe is still kind of awe-inspiring. I think we've had a tremendous run here. We look forward to a lot of good farm retirements, estate and consignment sales coming up as well.
Speaker 2:And, of course, we got the Upper Midwest sale coming up, chris, and we're going to incorporate kind of a new strategy, a new design, and why we're doing that. We can talk about that. There are basically three different styles of auctions that that Pifers will will promote and utilize. So let's talk about the different strategies and behind each method. And, first and foremost, we're a live auction company. Right, you're an auctioneer. You've been an auctioneer for 60 years. I don't know how old you are, but you've been an auctioneer for quite a while. I've been in this business a long time.
Speaker 3:Sometimes I, when I auction, I sound like I've been an auctioneer for 10 minutes right.
Speaker 2:But you know, I'm I'm an auctioneer now and have been for almost 20 years, and we're we're just really working on the, you know, implementing all the new technology or not, not just working, and we've been doing this for for quite a while now, but trying to always incorporate the new technology and really trying to stay ahead of the game. And while a lot of people are going to online only and there's a lot of pop-up companies that are strictly online only and a lot of new companies coming into the game, because the online only side of it just looks so easy Go get the asset posted on a website and hope somebody bids and that's not necessarily the direction that we want to go. If we utilize an online only method, we actually incorporate the idea that it's going to be more work, you know, because we want to, and we'll get into that here in a little bit too. But talk about the, the live auction method number First and foremost. Why do we want to be a live auction company?
Speaker 3:The reason? I think it's very simple. The auctioneer, or the auction industry, is one of the oldest professions in the world and they live auctions have been conducted from clear back in Roman times. Andy, we did, I did some research on the auction industry and it's an incredible industry. And when down here at our Southern facility down here in Sioux Falls, you would be surprised at the amount of people that walk through our door and they say you know what, chris, we love that you guys are doing live auctions.
Speaker 3:We want to go to live auctions. We want to listen to the auctioneer, we want to participate in the auction. We want to see who we're competing with at the auctioneer. We want to participate in the auction. We want to see who we're competing with at the auction. But they also enjoy the technology side of it too, andy, because we're selling on two different platforms. We're selling on our Pifers platform. We're also selling on the Equipment Facts platform and we broadcast those on big screens in our theater, in front of the, in our theater, in front of everybody, so they can see who's bidding online as well.
Speaker 3:It used to be a little bit of a mystery as to who was really bidding online, but because we believe that complete transparency. We put it right up in front of everybody to see and it's interesting to watch. Andy, we've got some old, old war horses in the auction industry that you know. You watch the auctioneer very closely to make sure that the auctioneer is being honest with you, that there isn't anything shenanigans that are going on. But as we have developed this platform, I watch very closely the bidders as they're bidding in the crowd and their eyes are fixed on the screen. They're not fixed on the auctioneer, they're fixed on the screen because they're so interested in what's going on. And the reason why I point that out, andy, is you want your buyers to come into a setting where they're completely comfortable, where their bellies are full, where you've got good lighting, you've got all the technology in the world so they feel comfortable bidding on the items that you're selling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, without a doubt, and we've incorporated that method in every one of our facilities that we're currently operating out of and we'll continue to incorporate that in the new facilities that we retirement side or any business retirement side, liquidation, whatever we still want to incorporate that live auction method and butts in the seats generates momentum like nobody's business. I mean the live auction method and having a live crowd there and having the ability to walk around and kick the tire and walk around a piece of equipment that you may not have planned on owning, but now, if the value is right and you have the ability to look at it and walk around it, now, all of a sudden, there's that new momentum, there's that new, there's that new excitement, there's that new swing. Uh, you know, people want to be entertained when they come to an auction sale. They want to visit with their neighbors, they want to see whatever all the other operators are doing. They're going to have those great conversations and and have the ability to engage not only with each other but with the auction crew and the auctioneer.
Speaker 2:The other day, up in Voltaire and up in Drake, north Dakota, you know, just an hour prior to the sale, we had, you know, 50, 7,500 people at those auctions. You know, long before the sale ever started. I don't know. I'd have to go back and see what kind of registered bidders we had. But there's been a few sales this spring where we've incorporated over 1,500 people between the technology and the live crowd. We've engaged over 1,500 bidders at these sales.
Speaker 2:Well, you couldn't do that 10 years ago or 20 years ago for a live auction that didn't incorporate online bidding. So we want to welcome that online bidding crowd, we want to bring that technology into it, but still in 2024, over 50% of the value at Pfeiffer's Auctions was sold to on-site buyers. So that tells us that we still want to incorporate and engage those on-site buyers. And we did see a report here and I think you'll have to. I'm going to get the numbers wrong, but I believe they said 15% and there was a news article that you had circulated through the company. But I believe almost 15% of American egg producers do not utilize the internet for for their bidding or their their purchase power.
Speaker 3:That's exactly right. I was doing some research about uh, it was about a year ago or six months ago and I was totally shocked that of the total population of of farms in the United States that there was I think it was 16% of them that didn't have any type of internet access at all. And so if you take, if you want to run the numbers, and you want to take 16% of your buyers out of the mix, I don't know anybody that would want to have an online only auction, knowing that you're not going and you're you're curtailing to the entire buying market, not just 84 percent of it that's right.
Speaker 2:You know, and I know that the argument is well, that demographic of buyers or the demographic of operators aren't your operators that are buying your autonomous tractors, right, they're not buying 2023 um 9rx 640. What they're what they're doing is is picking up the other stuff and we're not here to market just the top five pieces of equipment on a farm retirement sale. We need to market a hundred percent of that sale. We need to find somebody to buy, you know the, the uh, the, the craftsman toolbox. Or we need to find somebody to buy that new Ingersoll Rand air compressor, as well as the eight are in the uh, the, you know the 8R and the 9250 combine or whatever we're talking about. There's lots of different options out there, but we need to appeal to a huge audience for even what could sometimes be a small sale.
Speaker 3:Yep, you know I was watching your sales the other day, andy and you were selling and I was working in my office. So I logged into the to the auction and and just sitting here in my office as I listened to you and Christian and and Cliff selling, just sitting, listening to it, created momentum in my mind and that I could feel that momentum. And I there was lots of times when you were selling, like that 9520R or R4038 sprayer that you'd send Christian or you would send Jim out. Jim, go talk to that bidder, you know, go get that one more bidder and they would come back to you with another bid.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and that's the, that's the, the beauty of having, you know, almost 20 years experience behind the microphone. You can you can really look at some of the buyers and engage with them and talk them into one more bid. Actually, that 9520R is a great example the high bidder who I've known for many, many years. I've seen him bid on stuff for many, many years and he quit me at like $292,000 and he ended up being the high bidder at $310,000. So you know, being able to engage these guys gets an extra. You know, $20,000 for a really nice tractor. That brought a lot of value.
Speaker 2:So, chris, when we come back, I want to talk about the other methods. So we're very fortunate to be incorporating some new stuff with Pifers. But, ladies and gentlemen, we'll be right back after a break. But if you're looking for professional auction services or expert land management, pifers Auction, realty and Land Management delivers proven success across the Midwest With the best farm and ranch auctioneers and brokers in the industry. They'll help you get top dollar. Visit Piper'scom and see why nobody does it better. We'll be right back after this break. Welcome back to America's. Land Auctioneer.
Speaker 2:ladies and gentlemen, I'm your host, andy Murdoch, and this Saturday morning you can always find America's Land Auctioneer on your favorite radio station Saturday mornings or your favorite podcast recipient, I guess Apple, spotify, google Play, I'm not even sure the rest of them, chris, but we've got lots of different places. You can always find Piper's Auctioneers and you can stream any of our past episodes and there certainly is a lot of them, a lot of good expertise and advice across the agricultural industry. We do a lot of shows with tax professionals and attorneys and and basically anything to deal with agriculture and all the sorts of technology. But today we're with Chris Bear. He's our regional manager out of our Pifers regional office in Worthing, south Dakota, just South of Sioux Falls, right on I-29. We're getting ready for a really nice sale coming up here on Tuesday and that'll be the'll be the summer sale and we're going to talk about that again in your final segment here.
Speaker 2:But we just finished previously talking about the live auction method and why we still so wholeheartedly believe in this. I know we kind of beat this dead horse a lot, but you know it's honestly probably the thing that I'm the most passionate about when it comes to this industry in general, and I know you are too, and we talked about the many years of experience that that, uh, that we bring to the table as far as the, the live auction method is concerned. But but now we are entering into the, into the, the new era right, the new age and we want to bring as much technology to the plate as possible, and the reason for that, in my opinion, is we want to engage as many buyers at every auction, for every item that we possibly can. First and foremost, we're marketeers, we're not auctioneers. The auction day is easy. The auction day is where everybody you know comes to play, but if they don't know about it, they won't be there.
Speaker 3:Yep, you know, andy, I've always said that technology should never replace the auctioneer. Technology should always compliment the auctioneer. And I don't know what made that come to my mind. But as I've watched in my career, as I've traveled, I've done auctions in 18 different states. I've participated in auctions in Canada. I've been to a lot of auctions in my day. But I can tell you, when you put a live auctioneer a good live auctioneer in front of a crowd, he's always going to get more money. Yeah, without a doubt.
Speaker 2:Now we talked about the live auction process and how we do our consignment sales and our farm retirement sales and our estate auctions. And you know previously, for the last three or four years we've been building up this auction that we do on a quarterly basis. It's called the Upper Midwest Auction and basically this allows a consignment sale without having the consignment sale right. Previously it was always a timed online only auction. You could have your equipment at any one of our regional offices. You could bring it in for either interstate or major highway frontage.
Speaker 2:Good exposure at our facilities is second to none, in my opinion, the amount of people that drive through all of our facilities and our brick and mortar that have the ability to come and inspect the equipment and talk to an agent about it. If you have the ability to bring it to us hands down, that's your best option. If you don't, and you want to leave it on your farm or you want to leave it at your construction site or wherever the case may be, as long as it's in a presentable fashion, you can leave it there. It eliminates your transportation costs. So that was the idea behind the timed online only method. But, chris, you and I and the rest of the team have had the ability to talk over here over the Christmas season and the holiday season, and in 2025, we can convert this from a timed online only auction to be in a live online sale. What do you believe is the best benefit to the method behind this?
Speaker 3:One of the major benefits and we struggle with it here at Sioux Falls, I know you guys do is once you get a piece of equipment that is 100 miles away or 200 miles away, and the bigger that it is, the harder it is to move it and the more expensive it is to move it.
Speaker 3:So in going to these simulcast auctions that we're working on for June, it allows our consigner or it allows our client to leave that piece of equipment in their yard, but they get to take advantage of the live auctioneer, and so the live auctioneer will be able to sit up in the podium, whether that's Sioux Falls or Bowman or Steele, and cry that sale and utilize all the technology that's available in the auction industry to get every single dollar that you can out of that piece of equipment. Now we're a little bit like you, andy. We would prefer that piece of equipment to come into our yard Right here in Sioux Falls. We get 20,000 vehicles a day is what South Dakota DOT tells us that we get and so they get a lot of exposure. That is free, that's absolutely for free, but sometimes they that you just can't make that happen, you can't get that piece of equipment in, and so that the live simulcast platform provides the best opportunity to get that equipment sold.
Speaker 2:Without a doubt. And now the idea behind eliminating the timed online only portion of this sale and bringing it back to the live method. You know, for me, the biggest decision was it allows us to incorporate multiple bidding platforms. When we were doing a timed online only sale, you can't synchronize a timed online bid from multiple different platforms to each other. You have to have the ability, you have to be on one specific platform, you have to have one specific bidding site and, in my opinion, you cut your buyer base down by half. And we just got done talking about the idea that we have to bring a buyer base in for every item, for every sale. So the amount of bidders actually makes a huge difference in some of these sales. Again, we talked about it earlier, I believe in Sioux Falls, we had over 1,000 people between all of the websites and all of our online buyers. Actually, it was a little over 1,400. 1,400. So we had 1,400 bidders engaged in that overall sale and that's a tremendous, tremendous feat. We actually had some private farm retirement sales here this spring that achieved the same numbers or better.
Speaker 2:And in order to do that for these upper Midwest sales, in the order to do that for for our clients and the major benefit of utilizing Pifers is number one. We want that momentum of the live auction. You don't have to be on site. You're welcome to be on site. You don't have to be on site, you don't have to be in the crowd. But we still want that live auction presence. We want that momentum carrying. We still want our team working diligently to ensure that we can get the best results, and the best way to do that is to incorporate some additional websites. So our Upper Midwest sales are going to be quarterly sales. It doesn't matter where you are in the region. You can be in North Dakota, south Dakota, minnesota, montana, wyoming, nebraska, iowa or Texas and you can incorporate and be part of this wonderful event that we do on a on a every three months.
Speaker 3:Yeah, when you came to me with this idea, andy, and we talked about the simulcast auction a while ago back I I still have the same opinion now is when we had that conversation is is that this is absolutely 110% the right thing to do. This is the right thing for our clients. It's the right thing for our customers and it's the right thing for the buyers to go to these simulcast auctions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, without a doubt. Now those are the live auction methods and we just said we got rid of the timed online. Right, we're not utilizing the timed online only, but we still do. Right, we still have some opportunities and there's still methods and and there's scenarios and strategies and there's there's different angles as to why we would still use a timed online only auction and and why don't we talk about that a little bit too?
Speaker 3:I I'm a time and online only fan. Andy, I never want to take away the idea that that the online method doesn't work, because it does. It works very, very well. But when you're sitting across the kitchen table or you're sitting across the business desk from a businessman and you're trying to make the decision as to what platform to use whether you want to go with A the live online auction or B a simulcast auction or three the online auction you're providing the best of all three worlds.
Speaker 3:And I know that I probably booked more online sales this spring on the real estate side than I have in a long time. And when I sat and I listened to the needs of my client and I listened to what they were trying to accomplish and where they were trying to get to go, I realized that probably the best method would be to go to an online auction. And so it becomes the art of the Piper's representative to be able to sit in that meeting with that potential client and decipher what their needs are in that meeting with that potential client and decipher what their needs are and and that's how I came to the determination and then I would present it, presented it back to them and ultimately, they make the decision as to whether they want to go which which platform they want to sell on, but it was very clear to me that the online side was the way to go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, without a doubt, and every, every individual client requires individual strategies to accomplish individual goals, and that's what we're here for. We want to make sure that that everybody is heard, everybody has the ability to, to be part of that decision-making process, and we'll talk about the pros and cons and benefits of of going each and every direction. For me, we had a couple of sales. One, one that we're working on together, is up in Corson County, south Dakota. We've got a tremendous sale. It's 1,800 acres, and that's coming up here soon, towards the end of June, and on the 17th of June, I believe, is when that closes out.
Speaker 2:And so that will actually close out the day after the Upper Midwest sale Tremendous, tremendous auction sale. But what we want to do when it comes to providing that timed online only method is not put it on a website and hope that people bid. This allows us to see who's registering. It allows us to engage with the, with the buyer base well in advance, answer any questions, cause there's a lot of representations. There's leases to deal with there's there are state leases to deal with there, there's tribal leases to deal with. There's water issue you know, not issues, but water pipelines and stuff that we want to incorporate. We want to be able to represent that and it allows us to to talk individually with every individual buyer and engage them and make sure that they're comfortable in the process, which is number one. Number two we have got a tremendous sale coming up in Custer County, south Dakota, right on the edge of Custer State Park, that I'm extremely excited about, probably one of my top five favorite properties that I've ever been on in my career and Probably one of my top five favorite properties that I've ever been on in my career, and that's saying something because I get to do a lot of stuff in the Badlands and the Missouri Valley and through the Red River Valley and all the pretty areas of Wisconsin and Minnesota and Montana. But I'm really excited about this one outside of Custer State Park On the top of parcel number one. Chris, you have a direct view of Mount Rushmore. You could build a house on top of Mount Rushmore and be one of I'm going to guess this is not a representation I'm going to guess one of 20 or 25 properties in the world that have a direct view of Mount Rushmore, where the light, you know, where the faces light up at night, you can see all four faces. I've got a picture of that here the other day. It's absolutely stunning. And then this allows us to work individually with every buyer throughout the whole process. We're going to actually be on site for five days and we'll give tours, and so if you get outbid on parcel number one and you want to go take a look at the rest of the ranch, we'll hop in a side-by-side, we'll buzz down the road, we'll go take a look at parcels two or three or five or seven or nine or whatever you want to look at, and it allows you, as the buyer, to engage in the entire sale from from beginning to end and it allows us as an auction company to just work that much harder for our client and getting that many more bids. Um, chris, we're going to come back for our fourth and final segment right after this break.
Speaker 2:When it comes to buying and selling farmland, ranches and equipment, experience matters. Piper's Auction Realty and Piper's Land Management has the team of industry-leading professionals ready to serve. You See upcoming auctions and listings at Piper'scom. Piper's is our sponsor for America's Land and Auctioneer. Each and every week you can find us on your favorite radio station or podcast, because when it comes to getting results, nobody does it better than Piper's Nobody.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to America's Land Auctioneer. I'm your host this Saturday morning Andy Murnau, piper's Auctioneers, and we're sitting here again with Chris Mayer, sioux Falls Regional Manager. He covers the eastern half of South Dakota, southern half of Minnesota, all of Iowa, eastern, actually, all of Nebraska. Now You've got a sale coming up in Chatham. That's going to be pretty exciting too. We've got lots of things happening here, pipers.
Speaker 2:It's been a great spring. We're basically stacked up from now until the 4th of July. We're going to pick up again here in the middle of July and auction sales are starting to fill in all the way into October, and lots of great properties, lots of good equipment auctions, lots of good retirement sales and lots of avenues yet for for you as a, as an owner of a of an asset, to to give us a call and come up with some options. You know the. Basically, the main thing we want to do is talk about the. You know your goals as a, as a seller, your tax strategies, as somebody who may be entering retirement or handling an estate, or being the PR, if you're a trustee, or maybe the different scenarios that come with the different legal options of what you're entering in individually. Like we said earlier, your individual goals can only be achieved by individual strategies and in order for us to come up with those type of strategies, we want to incorporate your professionals, your tax professionals, the attorneys involved and make sure that everybody is heading down the right path. To ensure one thing we want to make sure that your goals are met and that you can achieve the highest value possible and the different methods that we use at Pifers. We believe that that's the best way to achieve that. The best way to achieve that.
Speaker 2:Chris, we talked about the three different auction methods, the live auction that we believe so wholeheartedly with and incorporating the live audience with the simulcast online bidding, we are now utilizing a live online sale. It could be conducted as a virtual auction or a live online only sale, however you want to explain it, but we're not going to call it a live online only because we do welcome people to come to our facilities and bid directly with the auctioneer. We're going to have auctioneers at each of these facilities throughout those processes and we'll allow bidding to happen just like we would at any of our other auction sales. We talked about some of the benefits of the timed online only. Still, there's no reason to completely abandon that method. There's obviously different ways that we want to.
Speaker 2:When we're talking about the Custer County property and and why we're, we chose to do it. That direction is really. It gives us a one-on-one uh communication line or one-on-one direct contact with the buyers. We want to make sure that the buyers are are definitely engaged in that process from beginning to end. Now there we're not dealing with, in my opinion and there's some of them Will, but most of the buyers are not going to be your general egg producers or livestock guys who, honestly, are professional buyers.
Speaker 2:Farmers and ranchers have been buying at auctions for centuries and for the most part, everybody's a professional buyer that we deal with Down in that part of the world.
Speaker 2:We're dealing with people who may or may not have ever been to a sale. So to do it this way allows us to set up on site for five days, go through the process and make sure that everybody's comfortable with the process and work directly with each and every bidder to ensure that their questions get answered and that they're comfortable making that decision. It takes a thousand reasons for somebody to say yes, I want to bid on that property and it's going to cost me a million dollars. It only takes one reason to say no. So we want to make sure that everybody's comfortable through that process and that's where the benefit, in my opinion, is of the timed online only sale. Some of these time online only companies, chris, I believe they put up the asset on the website and they hope for bidding. When we do it, we want to make sure that we're actively engaged, that we're working harder than ever just to ensure that we're meeting the goals of our clients.
Speaker 3:I know that when we're putting sales together down here and you guys are exactly the same way when I walk through a machinery shed or I visit with a dealership that's got a line of machinery, the thing that's going through my mind is not where am I going to necessarily find the bidder, because I know that I'm going to find bidders, but where can I find the best group of bidders and what strategy should I take to bring a lot of buyers to the table? And you talked about that in earlier, in the earlier part of the show. Here, andy is is to get 14, 1500 people, both live and online. That's a huge undertaking that takes a lot of marketing, that takes a lot of focus and a lot of concentration for our sellers.
Speaker 2:And you got to answer a lot of phone calls a lot of phone calls, a lot of phone calls and and and we got to. You know we're to the point now where we're just kind of spreading that responsibility out across multiple agents. And you have to. You can't take 1400 phone calls. You try your best and you know it's always my goal to have the voicemails cleared out at the end of the day and ensure that everybody gets their questions answered. But it becomes awfully difficult when you're dealing with that many people. So with that side we have to represent every item as best as we can from the beginning to eliminate some of those phone calls. We want to make sure that the best pictures are taken. We want to have the best descriptions. We want to ensure that if there's a disclosure to make about a combine, we have that proper disclosure out there so everybody knows what it is that they're buying and why they're bidding on it.
Speaker 3:You know, it's interesting that you say that we talk about describing all of the good features of a combine or all of the good features of a tractor. But yesterday I was visiting with a client and they said you know, I got a piece of equipment that the head gasket's leaking on it. What should I do with it? I said you know what? We're going to advertise it just the way you said it. We're going to sell it in an as-is basis. But we want to make sure that our buyers aren't getting taken advantage of either.
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah, without a doubt, a lot of great sales coming up here, chris, and it's going to start with you again Southern Dakota 2025 Summer Equipment Auction in Worthing, south Dakota, right at Pfeiffer's Auction Center of South Dakota in the Sioux Falls Regional Office, and tell us a little bit about that. We've got three rings coming up, short and sweet.
Speaker 3:We've got a great line of machinery there's. There's several things that I want to talk about, andy. We have a collection of older 1970s and early eighties motorcycles and three wheelers and and trikes as well. We've got side-by-sides that we're going to be selling. We're going to be selling a good group of skid steers. I think we've got a dozen or so skid steers out there, from clean low hour ones to older, higher-hour ones. We've got vehicles. We have got motorhomes that we're going to be selling dump trucks, hopper bottom trailers, just an absolute beautiful line of machinery that we're going to be selling in ring one. Ring two mostly consists of building materials. And then after on the 14th, we're going to be closing out an online-only auction of a really super nice, clean, die-cast toy sale from a gentleman that has passed away. That was a cat salesman that brought in all of the items that he had collected over all the years that he sold as a cat salesman.
Speaker 2:You bet it's basically going to be one of those sales. It has something for everybody. So join us at pyferscom and join us on Tuesday, may 13th, and we'll be right there at our facility in Worthing, south Dakota. The next day we're going to drive up to Minnesota and on Thursday we're going to have a tremendous sale for the Buttenhoff family and that's going to be at Barnesville, minnesota. There's a tremendous line of equipment there. We've got a John Deere 8120 tractor 9770 combine, which we just had a very good success selling a 9770 here just the other day. So anticipating a great sale for combines even in what we considered earlier as a down combine market. Got a John Deere 8100 tractor. Lots of good farm equipment to tag team with that sale as well Coming up.
Speaker 2:On May 22nd we're going to be in Tuttle, north Dakota, for the Steichen Farm Retirement Auction, offering a 2004 McCormick MTX-165 tractor and an MTX-120, both with modest hours One's at 3,800 hours, the other one's under 6,500 hours. So lots of good tractors and farm equipment here. If you're looking for good hay equipment, look no further than the Steichen Farm Retirement Auction in Tuttle, north Dakota. All these sales are going to be live auctions with Pifers at Piferscom and as well as Equipment Facts. We've got an online-only sale coming up in Raleigh. Lots of good-aged and antique farm equipment there, as well as some real estate going to be included in that sale as well.
Speaker 2:We're going to be in Plaza North Dakota for the Brayflat estate equipment auction coming up in June, and then lots of great sales in June in Columbus and Botano, as well as Carpio North Dakota. So we're going to be up in the northern tier of North Dakota as well. And then don't forget about our live online only auction, the Upper Midwest sale in June 2025. Bidding opens on June 9th and closes on June 16th. You still have time to get your equipment into that sale, no matter where you are. You can bring it to one of our facilities, one of our regional auction facilities in either Bowman or Steel North Dakota or, of course, your place right down there in Worthing, south Dakota. Chris.
Speaker 3:Yep, and then once we get through all of those auctions, andy, we're right back here, down here for our Southern Dakota fall auction on August the 26th. We're already taking machinery for that sale as well, andy.
Speaker 2:You bet Lots of great land auctions coming up here in the month of May and June as well. So pay attention, Get on Piferscom. Dozens of land and equipment auctions can all be found at Piferscom on any given day. You can always find all the full inventory and descriptions of every item that we have coming up, as well as all the land auctions. Chris, thank you for joining us here today. We want to thank our sponsors, Pfeiffer's Auctioneers and Pfeiffer's Land Management. Whether you're buying or selling equipment, land real estate, trust the team that's built on experience and results. Pfeiffer's Auction, Realty and Land Management.
Speaker 1:Their farm and ranch. Auctioneers, land brokers and land managers are the best in the business. Nobody does it better. We'll see you all next week.