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
Year-End Land And Equipment Recap
Predictions pointed to a slowdown. The Upper Midwest answered with record-setting land sales, resilient equipment demand, and grassland values that surged on the back of a powerful cattle market. We break down why 2025 refused to dip and how smart marketing, live auctions, and confident buyers kept the momentum rolling.
We walk through the year, from a fast start in Pembina and Traill Counties to a standout run in Cass County, where multiple quarters hit five-figure per-acre prices. Minnesota held a tight $8,000 to $8,700 band across thousands of acres, and South Dakota delivered wins where they mattered most: local operators secured legacy tracts, irrigated ground topped expectations at $11,500 per acre, and pasture demand accelerated as supply tightened. In the Black Hills, a rare Custer County property with direct views of Mount Rushmore demonstrated how scenery, access, and adjacency to Custer State Park can create its own category of value.
On the iron side, the story was condition and representation. Magnum 310s, 8R410s, and S770 combines led a strong set of results, proving that clean, well-documented machines still command premium bids—even with historically high combine inventories. Livestock strength spilled into machinery, lifting loaders, balers, rakes, and portable panels. Most importantly, shifting our Upper Midwest sale from timed online to a live, multi-platform format unlocked fivefold growth, blended the urgency of the chant with nationwide reach, and showed exactly how to build competition without forcing consignors to move equipment.
You’ll hear how we structure complex multi-parcel ranches by following natural boundaries—water, fence, power, access—to protect legacy while widening the buyer pool. We also unpack a simple truth: fewer registered bidders doesn’t mean fewer buyers when confidence is high and information is clear. If you care about farmland values, pasture demand, high-horsepower tractors, and the future of live auctions, this recap is your roadmap for 2026.
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Welcome to America's Land Auctioneer. I'm your host, Andy Murnock, here every Saturday morning, right here with you. We're getting towards the end of the year, but I'm lucky to have side by side with me here today uh Chris Bear. We're going to do a kind of a dual podcast here today uh with America's Land Auctioneer. And Chris is also the host of The Legacy of Agriculture. You can listen to any of these shows on WNAX, KFYR, The Flag, and W D A Y. So also stream each of our broadcasts or each of our programs on your favorite streaming platform, whether it's Apple, Spotify, or anything that you can find off of Google Play as well. So America's Land Auctioneer and LOA here side by side today. Chris Bear, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me on, Andy. It's great to co-host with you again. You bet. And as always, both programs are sponsored by Piper's Auction Realty and Land Management. Whether you're in the business of buying or selling land, equipment or real estate, trust the team that's built on experience and results. Pipers Auction Realty and Land Management. Their farm and ranch auctioneers, land brokers, and land managers are the best in the business. Visit Pipers.com today because when it comes to land auctions and equipment sales or management, nobody does it better than Pipers. Chris, we have had a tremendous year. It's been uh one of those, uh, one of those years that we can just kind of piggyback off of 2024. 2025 was absolutely no slouch. And and for all of the indicators in the market, all of the economic trends that we were looking at here, uh, maybe at the beginning of the first quarter or even midstream of the second uh end of the second or into the third quarter this year, all sorts of indicators out there saying that we should start seeing some market drawbacks, some market pullback. But when all reality we start looking at all the results um across the upper Midwest region of the United States, we really didn't see it.
SPEAKER_04:You know, that's right. And exactly a year ago at this time, Andy, we were having those conversations that we were we were anticipating a tougher market in 2025. We came out of the chute with our Bowman sale, our Suffolk sale, and then our steel sale, and uh the markets absolutely proved us wrong. And it's remained consistent all through 2025. There's a little bit of an ebb and flow here and there, but the end of 2025 is as strong as we've ever seen, without a doubt.
SPEAKER_03:You know, and we were you you talk about some of the up and down, but I think a lot of the standard practices when uh we kind of shifted over uh to equipment right away, and we can we can touch on that here first. We've always said for for many years that when we start looking at the equipment market, what are the what are the key what are the key factors that keep strength in the market, right? And number one is the quality of the equipment. If you have good quality equipment, it's well taken care of, well maintained, and well represented, if we have the ability to to represent it you know with confidence on our end, that obviously transpires to buyers as they call you know all across the country. And we've shipped we shipped equipment to all 50 states of the of the United States this year and uh many provinces of Canada and to Mexico and overseas this year. So um a lot of the way we can uh represent that equipment is really what kind of pushes value.
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely. You know, we and and and you talk about where this equipment is going with transportation, the way transportation is, we are seeing these buyers coming from further and further away all the time. I know that uh we've shipped, especially in our August sale and the December sale that we just had a couple of weeks ago, is as uh the foreign markets are participating in these auctions very heavily.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, without a doubt. Now, to kind of shift it back into land a little bit too, talking about the land market, as we first entered into the year, we had a lot of great sales lined up for January, and we'll touch on some of those here in a minute, and into that first quarter. And again, we we really felt uh initially that the the momentum of 2024 was going to carry into the spring of 2025, and it certainly did. And then as we anticipated maybe a little bit of pullback, just seeing less bidders registered at the at the tables um at each of these auction sales, there were noticeably less bidders at the table. However, the perception of value and the realized value never really saw much of a negative impact.
SPEAKER_04:The demand, the demand stayed in, even though there was less registered bidders. I think we still had the same amount of buyers. And there's a big difference between a registered bidder and a and a buyer. The buyers seem to be uh uh moderately aggressive, they seem to participate, they seem to participate well and participate up front. I know that uh on the equipment side, I don't want to flip back and forth very much, but the pre-bidding on a lot of the equipment sales reflected that same thing, Andy.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, without a doubt, without a doubt. So let's kind of get into uh what I want to do for this show for all of our listeners and our loyal listeners who listen to us every week on our on their favorite radio station or or uh uh broadcasting platform, kind of go back and give a full recap of what we saw on the markets in 2025. As we get closer to the holiday season, and from all of us at Pipers, we want to wish you guys all a happy and safe holiday season. Uh, we had a great Thanksgiving, and now we're working into uh into a Christmas. I can't believe it's even that time of year. Can't believe we're even talking about this, Chris. But we let's go back into a full recap of 2025. We really started the year off with a bang up in Pembana County and uh where we sold 320 acres. Uh the first parcel went out to shoot at$11,550 an acre, and the second one followed up at$10,350. And that really initially gave us a lot of strength and momentum going into the cropland market in northeastern North Dakota. The um the next really noticeable uh trend that we were looking at in January and February was there was a lot of land coming up for sale throughout Clay County, Minnesota. And and kind of a neat thing to note here across the board uh and and over the course of about two and a half months, uh from the 29th of January all the way to the 11th of March, there was probably 2,500 to 3,000 acres of land sold. And it basically averaged right at 8,000 an acre, topping out at 80, 8,700 for uh for some uh land from the Grover farms and all the way down into the 78, 7,900, uh, you know, for for some similar property across the county. And really for to have four or five different auctions that talk about land in the same in the same county to really maintain that market between 8,000 and 8,700 really showed a lot of strength in western uh uh western Minnesota. Um, you had a couple of auctions that are notable too um in uh dual county, South Dakota, Chris. I'll let you touch on that one. That was uh all the way back into February on the 17th of February last year or this of this year. Uh the first parcel went out the out the gate. It was 80 acres at 8,600, and the second one was 148 acres at 7,400. What did you see for a market and interest in the market in Dual County?
SPEAKER_04:So, Dual County, uh, those of you that are not real familiar with Dual County, you're not far away too far away from Watertown, is probably your closest town. And what we saw in that sale was um uh we did a a very aggressive advertising campaign. We capitalized on the social media, uh, we had it at a local place where everybody knew where it was, and we filled the room with people. Um, in that bidding uh arena that we saw that particular day, Andy, is is is as, and I know you do this too, is is how many, how many people are bidding that are investors, or we we call those wholesalers in the in the machinery world, and how many of them were end users or farmers, and almost all the way through on that dual county sale, the active bidders, the guys that were bidding to buy were farmers that were were were locals. Now, those three parcels were not contiguous, but they were close to each other, had been in the family for about 60, 70 years. As a matter of fact, the family cemetery was on uh one of those pieces of property. But uh, long story short, is is that at the end of the day, it was the local farmers buying that land for their own use to grow their own farms, which that pleases me as an auctioneer to see that happen.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely. You also had a sale in Charles Mix County, 160 acres, brought$5,000 an acre, real similar in the as far as the market was concerned, seeing a lot of the same uh style and type and demographic of buyers there as well. So uh really strong market into the first quarter in South Dakota, uh, really strong market into the first quarter all the way throughout Minnesota and the entire upper Midwest uh region of the United States. And we had a lot of great sales. We'll keep touching on uh these sales and more uh as we continue here throughout the rest of the program. Now, as we uh look forward into the into the second quarter here, uh ladies and gentlemen, we've got a lot of great sales throughout uh throughout central uh North Dakota as well. In Emmons County, uh though this sale happened on the first of April, we had auction, uh had an auction there with a lot of good cropland, uh traces of of grassland throughout scattered throughout the property as well, topped out at$7,500 an acre. So in Emmons County to look at$7,500 an acre ground was actually quite remarkable to uh to see where that market was gonna start trending here for the early part of 2025. Uh a lot of other great sales here. I want to jump in.
SPEAKER_04:Andy, I want to I want to ask you one question. Um, I'm very familiar with the South Dakota land, but let tell the listeners why you think that the market reacted that way in North Dakota.
SPEAKER_03:There was a lot of spring optimism, you know, basically across the board. And that's I was just gonna touch on as we get into western North Dakota too. But uh we really had a lot of strength and a lot of a lot of really positive registered bidders throughout the region. And it kind of goes back to what we talked about with uh with equipment, and the quality of the land really carried uh carried the weight here uh throughout the entire year. Um good quality land always yields good quality value, and there's always interest and there's always productive, uh, productive interest and production buyers looking at buying good quality cropland. And and we're just not seeing anything uh even with economic impacts that that people can talk about, whether it's interest rates or or commodity prices or what or what have you that are pulling back any extra value, which tells us that there's an amount of net worth out there that's been accumulated over time. There's certainly uh disposable income still at the fingertips of a lot of our producers. And there's, you know, we're talking producers that have been in the business for generations, and I think that that's where a lot of the strength and confidence comes from. And there's obviously a lot of comfortability in buying real estate. Real estate's still one of the most secure investments that you can ever make, and that's still uh yielding great results as we uh continue down that same path.
SPEAKER_04:One thing that's interesting about uh the buyers in this day and age, Andy, versus what they were even two decades ago is the knowledge of the land. There's so much more information out there through government programs, production reports, uh uh production indexes that is also allowing these buyers to be more confident with what they're buying they're bidding on. Would you agree?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, without a doubt. Without a doubt. Confidence in the real estate market is definitely the name of the game. And that's why we're seeing a lot of these, uh, a lot of these sale results uh trending in the in the positive direction that we are. And ladies and gentlemen, again, just uh always uh keep in mind this broadcast is always brought to you by Piper's Auction Realty and Land Management. If you're in the business of buying or selling farmland or real estate, or if you have a generational farm of your own to uh to manage, give us a call. Nobody does it better than Piper. Welcome back to America's Land Auctioneer and the legacy of agriculture with your hosts, Andy Murnoch and Chris Bear. Again, we want to thank Chris for joining us here today and and kind of tag teaming these two broadcasts together as we give a full market recap of what we've been seeing throughout the Piper's auction uh uh schedule throughout the entire year of 2025. It's been a tremendous year. We've talked about a lot of the strengths that we've been seeing. I want to jump over and stay kind of focused in the land side for now, Chris, and we'll jump into the equipment side here for the next uh next couple of segments. But initially, what we had talked about is a lot of strength on the eastern side, the huge numbers that we were uh seeing in the on the Minnesota side, and then a lot of great, uh, great positive uh markets uh in in South Dakota. Now, as we come back, I want to touch on South Dakota one more time as we look at one of my favorite sales of the year, and that was uh in Custer County, South Dakota. Hands down, one of the most unique properties I've ever had a chance to be on. I can't imag uh can't explain how many uh days and hours we spent out there uh giving tours of the property, showing it, but really a beautiful setting. This is not cropland, this is not production ag value, but we are looking at uh uh quite a market in that Hermosa, South Dakota area, um, just south of Rapid City. Again, parcel number one. I've said this a thousand times in this broadcast because I couldn't brag about this property enough, but parcel number one, you can see Mount Rushmore from it. Um, and that's just kind of where the rest of the world is.
SPEAKER_04:How often do you get to sell a piece of property like that? That's what's unique about it.
SPEAKER_03:Once in a career so far.
SPEAKER_04:So that's right. You know, I mean how many how many, how many tens of thousands of acres has Pifer sold over the last 25 years, and now we get a land right in front of Mount Rushmore.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and there, you know, there's well, there's so few properties that can even say that. So that likely will never happen again. Hopefully, the buyer invites me back there someday to see what he's done on top of that hill so I can go uh view it, hopefully on 4th of July and check the fireworks out. Um but we saw we saw a lot of great numbers on that sale, anywhere from$9,600 an acre down to$4,600 an acre, offered in smaller tracks, larger tracks. Uh, the majority of the property was up against the the Custer State Park fence and had direct access uh through through one of the trails, heads right into the park off of wildlife loop. So a lot of great positive things that were that was part of that sale. We are blessed and honored to be part of it. And uh when you were talking about marketing, which is what we are, Chris, I mean, we are marketers first. If if the people who are interested in buying these properties don't know about it, it's really hard to achieve the value. And so it's it's our job, and that's that's where we really set ourselves apart and and and why I feel that that these sales are as successful as they are, is because of our marketing team and and our sales team that get together and really figure out the best way to market these properties. Um, to kind of jump back into North Dakota, uh, Golden Valley County is kind of in the heart of Western North Dakota, and this was really gonna give us the first pulse of what the livestock industry and what the strength in the livestock industry and how it was gonna uh give a positive reaction and positive uh influence onto the land market. And we certainly saw it in Golden Valley County as we sold about 3,000 acres there um on the 8th of May, right before grazing season. We uh uh kicked this off at the uh actually it was at the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame, is where the auction was at, upstairs overlooking the um the Little Missouri River. Awesome setting by itself. Uh, we thank our friends at the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame uh for allowing us to do that. And initially you would you really would have believed that you're gonna start seeing grassland in that region probably kind of overall have a value somewhere between 1100 or 1,000 to 1200, maybe around$1,100 an acre. That sale by itself averaged right at$1,700 an acre across the board. And so that was our first um influence on the livestock industry where we saw about a 25 to 30 percent gain in market value.
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Are you seeing any? Uh are you getting more calls in South Dakota? Are you getting more uh more buyers interested in grassland in that part of the in the world?
SPEAKER_04:The grassland over the last 24 months, Andy, has increased in value substantially. Uh grasslands that were selling for$2,500,$3,000 an acre is now selling for$4,500,$5,000 an acre. We've seen and heard of some uh pasture land, depending on where it is and the size of it, as much as$6,000 an acre, which is phenomenal to me. Uh part of that is being driven by the cattle markets, obviously. And part of that is being driven, if you follow the acres of corn that is produced and beans produced, uh, here about seven and eight years ago, uh, there was a tremendous amount of grassland that was taken out for crop production, especially when corn was seven, eight, nine dollars a bushel. And now we're seeing an increase in crop acres and a substantial decrease in grassland acres. But now, as the cattle market has reacted in such a positive manner, the demand for the grassland has gone up. And now we're seeing grasslands as chasing chasing cropland uh acres and value. So that's what we're seeing, especially here in eastern South Dakota, is there is a huge demand for grassland. As a matter of fact, Andy, I have it's it's it's not uncommon for me to get a telephone call from somebody that says, Hey, I need grass, I need grass as soon as you can find it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, without a doubt. And and we're starting to see a lot of opportunity here in western North Dakota, eastern Montana for grassland coming available. Uh just just last night we sold a 2,500-acre property uh just outside of the Badlands of Marmouth, North Dakota, in the very southwest corner. And then coming up right away next year into March, we're gonna have a 7,000 acre property right on the North Dakota-Montana border uh in Bowman and Fallon County. So there's there's good opportunity coming up on the uh you know on the horizon for guys who are looking uh to you know to cure that issue.
SPEAKER_04:Andy, I want to ask you this question for our listeners is is when you're looking at a massive undertaking of 7,000 acres, uh, some of our guys will say 7,000 acres, but this is a lot of it's grassland, so it's a you're dealing with a little different cat for sure. But as you're preparing for a 7,000 acre uh auction, Andy, uh educate the listening public to what you're doing and how you're working on something that big.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, the uh you know the main thing is making sure that the entire operation is marketable. We wanna we want to preserve the history of that operation, we want to uh um streamline the marketing to the best of our ability, but regardless of how uh we we look at multiple parcels, uh especially for an auction setting like this, we've got that property uh into seven parcels, I believe. And you know, when you're when you're looking at a 7,000 acre property, we're not here to to to chop it up into 500 pieces and and and offer that. In in in most cases, the landscape doesn't allow that. Uh in this particular property, we got one parcel that's over 2,500 acres. We got another prop uh parcel that's over well over 1,500 acres, another one at 1,000, and then some smaller uh half sections of cropland that that are kind of off on their own anyway. So they the landscape allows for multiple parcels there. We look at the fences, we look at the water, we look at the electricity and the access. Um, obviously the marketability of each individual piece is is the is the primary goal when looking at the options on how to break that down into marketable pieces so we can get multiple bidders to have an interest in that property. It's not an easy undertaking. It takes a lot of hours, a lot of time, and the and the commitment to drive around and and and learn about the property, visit with the owners and and and see what uh the best way to handle it. Um, we get a team of people put together, uh Jim Sabby and myself and Kevin Piper, Steve Link, and yourself. And um and we really dissect it to make sure that um no matter what decisions made as far as doing a multi parcel method, that that again every parcel is. Marketable, every parcel has a purpose, and that we can still preserve the legacy of that operation.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, putting a 7,000-acre uh piece of property together is not an easy undertaking and it's a lot of decisions. There's a lot of pros and cons to all of it. But I did notice on that Hermosa sale that we had talked about, where that one parcel was uh you could see Mount Rushmore for you, you, your team out of Bowman did an absolutely phenomenal job dividing that property up so that it was equitable, so that it made sense, so that if somebody wanted to buy more than one parcel, it made sense. Job well done.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you. And that's the uh that's that's that really kind of also comes into play is uh what what laws you have to follow within which counties, right? You know, you get into subdivision laws and you can only go um into you can only make parcels so small without without entering into uh into subdivision and and stuff like that. But that's you know, that's what we do. That's what we that's where you know it's our job to know those rules and those regulations and and assist our our sellers in that process and then also assist the buyers, like you said. If if they didn't want that 40-acre parcel, they wanted you know 80 or 120 acres in that scenario, we we we coach them on how to how to make that happen during the auction process. So uh it's a lot of hands on deck to to make sure that we can accomplish not only the goals of our seller, but we also have a responsibility to accomplish the goals of the buyers involved as well. Yeah. So again, to kind of just touch on where we'll before we enter into our second break here, um a lot of great sales kind of going into the first uh first two quarters. I did want to touch on one that Jack Piper had in Trail County, uh Minnesota, and I think I put my page here, in or Trail County, North Dakota, and was a really, really good sale, topped out at$11,500 an acre. So so after looking at the first two quarters of uh the first two quarters of the land market throughout the upper Midwest, it's been a great, uh, great time. We'll come back right after this and bring out the the second two quarters of 2022.
SPEAKER_01:700,000 dollar bill, 700, 500.
SPEAKER_03:Welcome back to America's Land Auctioneer. I'm your host, Andy Murnoch, America's Land Auctioneer, Piper's Auction Realty and Land Management. Also side by side with your host, Chris Bear from Legacy of Agriculture.
SPEAKER_04:Thanks, Andy.
SPEAKER_03:Uh well, welcome to uh back to the third segment here. I'm gonna keep you on the rest of the show. We've got two more segments to talk about. We've been talking about the first uh two quarters of the land markets here as we've been uh we've been working with uh uh Piffers Auction and Realty and looking at all of the uh results from the first two quarters. But let's talk about the second two quarters as we really finished a strong year. We're not quite done with it yet, but here's we in our in our year-end recap show, just what certainly want to bring up, bring everybody up to date as we uh look at the land markets through November and December. So um back into into July, which is when we had the Custer County property, we quickly went from there over to uh to Cass County, sold a lot of really good land at 5,000 an acre, went straight uh straight from Cass County up to Divide and Williams County in the very northwest corner of the state, uh the extreme northwest corner of the state. And we've sold a lot of land in this part of the world in that$1,800 to$2,300,000,$2,400 an acre, Chris. And this year it was pretty consistent to see good quality cropland in that$3,000 plus range.
SPEAKER_02:Yep.
SPEAKER_03:And so as we kind of just continue to broad uh broad scope, Ransom County had uh a lot of really good uh good auctions between$4,900 and$6,000. That happened on the 22nd of September. And then to get back to the center part part of the state, uh in Morton County, just west of Bismarck, we had an opportunity to sell about 300 acres, and that topped out at 7,700 an acre for a couple of smaller parcels, and then$5,900 an acre for a 208-acre parcel on the same day. Now, those are extremely good numbers for the center part of North Dakota.
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely phenomenal numbers for North Dakota, and and and some of those parcels are very difficult to get sold and to get that type of value out of. But uh, once again, Piffers hit a home run.
SPEAKER_03:Uh in McLean County, just straightened north of Morton County, north and east a little bit. Uh a lot of a lot of land uh offered here in in October of this year, uh,$5,000 an acre. There was um a smaller tract that brought$90,000 total for a five-acre parcel. But then on the same day, the very first parcel that was selected was at$7,500 an acre. So a lot of a lot of strength in in um Morton and McLean County as well. So uh one of the highlights of the year, honestly, though, Chris, and highlights of uh uh of Piffers and as a as a career in total is looking at what happened on the first week of November when we were selling in Cass County. So we had the the wool auction, the land auction there. We did their equipment auction a couple weeks prior to that. It was a really good sale, a lot of great uh local support and interest in that sale. But when it came down to the land auction itself, it was nothing short of spectacular uh in excess of 20 million. And the uh uh the top parcels of the day, there was three quarters of land that were uh right around the city of Castleton, sold at twelve thousand three hundred dollars an acre. Uh uh a couple other parcels sold at$11,000, went down to$10,600 and$10,500 for the next couple of rounds. And then uh, you know, I guess the the low the low of the day was$8,650. So to give you kind of an overall broad scope of how how great that sale was, um, it just doesn't get any better than that. Sorry, that one had a low of 9,500. 9,500. There was another property the same day in Cass County that brought 8,650. So anywhere from 9,500 up to 12,300 really setting high expectations in in central central Cass.
SPEAKER_04:There's a couple other sales to note, Andy, that was that did very well down here in South Dakota. Is we had a sale uh the first of November in Walworth County uh with a piece of property that was not too far from the Missouri River that brought$4,800 an acre. And uh and we also sold 73 acres of irrigated ground uh uh down in Turner County, which is just southwest of Sioux Falls that brought eleven thousand five hundred dollars an acre. Uh that was a very, very strong sale with a couple of pivots on that ground. Uh the the sellers were very happy with the results there.
SPEAKER_03:So in Turner County, where was the eleven thousand dollar where did that eleven thousand dollar an acre um sit as far as expectations?
SPEAKER_04:You know, our when we went in and we gave the opinion a value on that piece of property, Andy, our our clients were thinking in that eight, nine thousand dollar an acre ground, it was it was it was uh above average uh production indexes. Uh it did yield a beautiful green uh uh bean crop this year. Um and even though it was irrigated, the irrigators on that, the pivots that were on that piece of property were low hour because not very often did that uh land need to be watered, but the owner of that property decided to put those pivots on there, which added a lot of value. And so uh a local investor here in Sioux Falls bought that and will be renting it back out to one of the local farmers. So everybody won on that sale.
SPEAKER_03:Yep, without a doubt. Without a doubt. So with that in mind, Chris, uh there's obviously a lot of strength that we're seeing across the upper Midwest, especially in your South Dakota auctions. But now let's kind of transition to the equipment side here, where we started in 2025 with a bang, and we really started off with your sale down in Sioux Falls for the South uh Southern Dakota sale.
SPEAKER_04:What a fun sale that was, Andy. We had some terrific results. Um, we sold we sold a John Deere 1575 cell-propelled lawnmower for 30,500. Then we moved into some Kubota tractors that did very, very well. Uh, probably the star of the show was a Magnum 310 that we sold uh very low hour for 182,500. We had some loader tractors that also uh were shining stars, a 2017 John Deere 6155R with a loader that we sold for$86,000. Uh a couple of nice case international tractors that did very well in that 88 uh high 80s uh for values. And then we had a case international 2021, case international 2150, 24 row 30 planner that brought 150,000. The tillage that came in behind it also was very, very strong. And then we were around to skid steer, skid steer attachments, and uh a whole uh uh bunch of hay and equipment that also did very, very well.
SPEAKER_03:And I think it's pretty safe to say that just after that sale, we kind of had a really good direction where the 25 market was gonna go. And really looking at, you know, high horsepower tractors were were in good demand. Uh planting equipment was in really good demand. Corn planters really saw a lot of strength here this spring and continued that uh that trend throughout the the majority of the year. And then livestock equipment was always uh always a strong indicator of where that market was going as well. But the South Dakota sale really kicked us off with a bang.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it was a great, it was a great auction to start the 2025 season. We're not gonna have that luxury this year because I think Bowman snuck in on 2026 and is gonna be our uh flagship uh show uh because our sale isn't going to be till the 31st of March of 2026.
SPEAKER_03:That's right. Well, we got a lot of great uh lot more sales to talk about.
SPEAKER_04:Yep.
SPEAKER_03:So there was a lot more sales uh to to really recap in 2025, Chris, and and we went basically from your sale to the Bowman sale. The Bowman sale again uh continues the market trend. We really had the ability to rally off of the strength and momentum gain from the South Dakota sale and and continue to see the same trend. You know, loader tractors were were in strong demand, uh four-wheel drive tractors were in strong demand. We sold a 9560R tractor there that was an you know incredible machine, and it brought record prices there that day as well. Moving on from that sale, we went into a whole uh array of retirement auctions throughout the upper Midwest region, shot all the way across the other side of the state over to the uh to Carrington, North Dakota for the Harman Farm retirement sale. The highlight of that one was, of course, uh the big Fent Verio uh track tractor that that sold that day as well. Um, the rest of the sales throughout the spring really kind of continued to show a lot of strength and improvement in the market. And again, we kind of started looking at there were uh it was still dry in portions of the region. We hadn't had a lot of rain moving into the first of April, uh coming off of an extremely dry year in western North Dakota in 2024, a lot of uncertainty, but it really didn't have a major impact on what we were looking at as far as the markets were concerned on the equipment side.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. The the equipment markets, and and it didn't seem to matter if it was a high-houred skid steer or really low-houred mechanical front-wheel drive tractor, Andy. It seemed like that the buyers were active. Uh, they really wanted to be in, they wanted to be bidding, and they wanted to be participating on the auction. Um, to talk about a couple other highlights through the summer months, Andy. On our upper Midwest sale that we had in June, we sold a 2020 John Deere Side Hill S770 Combine for$220,000, uh, which was was was stellar. Then we came right back and sold a pair of 2023 John Deere 8R410 tractors, mechanical front-wheel drives for they sold for$365,000 a piece. And the same buyer bought both of those tractors and a John Deere 2021 John Deere 6155M with a loader and no grapple that brought almost$120,000.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and in it was basically April, May, June when we first really started to see the rally in the in the mechanical front uh tractors on the market. Um, back to the Lee retirement sale up in Berthold. There was a couple on that sale that really uh showed a lot of strength in the market there. You touched on the combine, which is a very important thing to talk about here in today's world. When we entered 2025, it was probably the largest inventory of combines on the market in history. And we really had no idea what direction that market was going to go. It could have gone either way, and it kind of comes back to what we talked about originally. If there's good quality equipment, the market will follow. We had good quality, your side hill was was was a great machine. Uh, the one we uh sold a couple couple days ago, the S770, is a great machine and and well represented, and and we still continue to see a lot of strength in the combine market, which initially had all indications that it could be pretty volatile.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, and and there has been some volatility in that combine market, but as a rule of thumb, when those combines are marketed properly and there's a good foundation, those combines have done well at auctions, but you have to do it right.
SPEAKER_03:Yep, without a doubt. And that brings us to uh the end of our third segment here. Chris, I hope you join us here for our fourth one coming up. We want to talk about more of the equipment markets and uh kind of what we've maybe expecting to see in 2026. Again, thank you for listening to America's Land Auction here each and every week, always brought to you by Piper's Auction Realty and Land Management. Thanks for joining us on your favorite radio station or podcast streaming service. We'll be right back. Welcome back to America's Land Ox here. I'm your host, Andy Murnock, along with uh legacy of agriculture host Chris Bearer here on our fourth and final segment. We appreciate everybody for uh joining in and listening in uh each and every week here on your favorite radio station and or podcast platform. Well, appreciate everybody for streaming this. You can always find our episodes at Pipers.com. And it's brought to you by our friends at Pipers Auction Realty and Land Management. When it comes to buying and selling farmland, ranches, and equipment, experience matters. Pipers Auction Realty and Land Management has a team of industry-leading professionals that are ready to serve you. Nobody does it better. Chris, before we uh got into our break here, we were talking about some of the spring sales, um, kind of moving into some of the summer sales and then into the fall. Uh, before we close out today's show, uh, one thing I kind of want to let everybody uh know what we've been doing is next year is going to be our third annual um classic car auction in Bowman. That's been an unbelievable event. This year we had an opportunity to sell anything from uh uh classic Corvettes to uh modern Mustangs that you know just top the markets. The you know they're they're extremely fun sales. It happens on the on Main Street right here in Bowman. So it's a uh tremendous event as part of the um the classic car show, which the Dakota Territory Car Club puts on and is probably one of the best car shows in the upper Midwest by itself.
SPEAKER_04:So that's and you had a massive crowd at that system.
SPEAKER_03:It was unbelievable. We sold uh we sold a uh motor home that was where the proceeds are donated to the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame. I'll get it wrong, but I think we sold like 235,000. So it was a uh really, really great sale, a really good day. So a lot of great sales throughout the upper Midwest, and really talking about the uh the the generalized market, what we saw in 2024 or 25 uh really rallied off of the 2024 market. Four-wheel drive tractors were still in high demand, high horsepower machines are still in high demand. Obviously, with the livestock market, what we see how that can impact. We talked about how it impacted land, the livestock market, and the strength of the livestock market, how it's impacting the machinery is still pretty impressive as well. 140 to 195 horsepower uh front-end loader, uh loader tractors, really high demand. We had a really good market this year for balers and hay equipment, uh, good usable rakes, obviously, still in high demand there as well. And of course, we sell a lot of uh portable panels and freestanding panels throughout the region, and we just really never saw a slip in the market in any of the 12 consignment sales that we do across the region, and uh specifically what we were uh even saw here last week with the upper Midwest sale. Where do all the portable panels and continuous panels disappear to, Andy? I don't know, but it we it it seems like we never get them back, so they must last.
SPEAKER_04:You know, that is true. We never sell them a second time, but we do sell a lot the first time.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and that's exactly right. We did have retirement sale as part of our upper Midwest sale here last week, and uh we we had 150 uh freestanding panels. That was uh probably the first second handers we've sold in a really long time. So once in a while, when we get into the retirement sales, that's about it. But very seldom does anybody want to cash them in uh for a second trip. That's right. Uh they do hold their value though. If we it whether they're a brand new panel or they're uh been uh experienced for 10 years, they they still seem to uh to bring new price on them. So uh those type of markets are good.
SPEAKER_04:But over over the over the last 35 years, I will tell you that the more experience that a panel gets and the more bends it is, the it's worth more money.
SPEAKER_03:That's right. That's right. No, no cow ever got away from that one. That's right. So uh there were tremendous uh retirement sales. Uh uh Piffers did about 40 uh retirement auctions throughout the upper Miss Uh Midwest, scattered throughout South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota. Uh last year we did a really nice sale in Minnesota or in Wisconsin rather, uh, on a on a cold, blistery day there as well, if you remember Chris. But really, kind of the highlight of what I wanted to uh wrap today's show up is the difference and the changes that we've seen in Piper's Upper Midwest sales. Now, for our listeners who don't know, the Upper Midwest sale was designed about seven, eight years ago to be an online only sale that allowed people to consign items to it that didn't have to travel, they didn't have to relocate their equipment. You didn't have to bring it to one of our regional auction headquarters, although you certainly could. There's a lot of value in having your items sitting on Highway 85 in front of our office here in Bowman or on I-29 sitting on your office, uh, in your office down there at uh Worthing, or it could be sitting up on Highway 2 at our new facility in Devil's Lake, I I-94 at Steel, uh looking at another another facility on I-94 as well as I-29 around the far uh Castleton and Hillsborough areas. You know, there's a lot of value in having that equipment, you know, uh getting visible. And if it's at the auction yard, people know it's for sale. They always come in and check it out. There's tremendous value in that. However, you don't have to. The option to be a part of the upper Midwest sale allows it to be here or it can stay at your operation. And the timed online method for how Piphers did it certainly worked really good. I believe it was gangbuster. Uh, we had a really good response on the timed online method, but we transitioned and we got rid of the timed online method for a couple of reasons this year, and we're going to talk about that for a second here, Chris. The upper Midwest sale, we saw five times growth in 2025 because we went to a live auction. And we went the decision on our side to transition it to a live auction really came off of uh uh two or three factors. Number one, you and I beat this dead horse a thousand times. We believe in the live auction method. We're auctioneers. We either like to listen to ourselves speak or or or want to make somebody listen to us, but the the momentum that we can gain in a live auction is second to none. And number two, in today's online world, we want to integrate as many buyers as we possibly can. And if you're only utilizing one platform, which a timed online auction can only utilize one platform because you can't tie multiples together, we can tie multiple uh online platforms together during a live sale.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and and that's where we're seeing a tremendous amount of the strength in these live auctions, Andy, is as That we're not so prideful to be able to say that we have all the solutions in one platform. But when you're able to combine two platforms together, and I will say that on our sale that we had here a few weeks ago in just South of Sioux Falls on I-29, is that when you saw both platforms bidding uh simultaneously, it was definitely a testimony to how well that works, without a doubt.
SPEAKER_03:And then in the upper Midwest sale, we even brought a third platform into play here for this la uh for this last sale of the year to try to test the waters in that. And it and it seemed to be uh pretty streamlined and pretty stream uh seamless as well. And so the more the more bidders that we can integrate into the equation, obviously the stronger value that we're gonna that that we're gonna realize on the auction block. And that's again is our ultimate goal for our for our sellers. But the live auction process right now, in my opinion, I think you and I are always on the same page in this matter, but the live auction process is hands down blowing the doors off of the timed online only methods. There's a time and place for the timed online only. There's definitely the opportunity to utilize that in certain scenarios.
SPEAKER_04:You know, and Andy, it's been a couple of weeks, and I want to say this. And and you're right, we beat this dead horse, but I I do want to say this since our winter auction, the first of December, you wouldn't believe the people that have come in our front door into our lobby and theater and said, It is so nice to go to a live auction. We love the live auction method, yeah, without a doubt.
SPEAKER_03:And even the in the upper Midwest, you're still allowed to come to the host city, you know. So, like this last one, we hosted it in Bowman. Um, I'm sitting on the auction block right now, uh broadcasting this show, and the chairs are still set up from the sales uh this last week, and we allow people to come in and and and bid on it. You can look at the equipment that's here on site, you can we can answer any questions that you may have about the equipment that's not that's not on site. And if we're not we're if we don't have the answer, we know that we know who does. We're gonna get you in contact with that person because making our buyers comfortable is the second most important job, right? We're gonna market it, we're gonna make our buyers comfortable, and we're gonna try to realize that value as best as possible. But the upper Midwest sales this year, I think, is the key to the key to success here for 2025 on the Piper's auction block. It's been one of the uh one of the the real key factors as to why we were able to maintain some value when other when other auction platforms were not. And we we continue to see that strength, whether we were getting into the the quad track uh John Deere tractors or what have you. So it's been a tremendous tool. We're gonna continue to use it exactly this way for 2026. So stay tuned, everybody. It's gonna be a tremendous ride.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, without any, without a question, Andy. And people love the live auctioneer. They want to come listen to the live auctioneer, whether it's through their computer or whether it's in one of our theaters.
SPEAKER_03:Yep, without a doubt. Now you've had a uh a tremendous run there in Sioux Falls uh for 2025. I want to congratulate congratulate you and your team. Uh, we've got a uh great set of sales lined up for 2026, and I think that uh we're looking at uh at a real positive year. And uh it it all in all, I guess uh the the end of the end all be all in the market recap is we saw strength in the equipment market, we saw strength in the land market. We're gonna continue this strength moving forward as we have a tremendous, tremendous year. We want to wish everybody a happy holiday season and uh thank you one and all for everybody who joined us at any one of our Piper's land auctions throughout the upper Midwest uh and equipment auctions. Uh when it comes to buying or selling farmland, nobody does it better than Piper's. We'll visit you guys all next week.
SPEAKER_04:On behalf of the Legacy of Agriculture and Piper Auction Realty, we'd like to thank you for a tremendous 2025 season and have a happy holiday.