Top 5 Reasons to Use Machinery Scope for a Professional Equipment Appraisal

• Succession Planning – Are you considering passing your farm to the next generation or new ownership? It’s important to establish a plan and utilize the right tools to help execute that plan. An equipment appraisal can be a critical component of executing a successful plan.
• Estate, Trust, and Retirement Planning – Life happens and when it does, it is important to have the proper legal advice and supporting documentation. A professional equipment appraisal is a key piece of the supporting documentation to establish and defend your financial well-being.
• Divorce Settlement – Unfortunately, some marriages don’t last. Resolving a separation isn’t easy, but an unbiased appraisal can help bring the parties to a more amicable resolution.
• Farm Reorganization – Your operation has changed and so have the laws. If you need to reorganize your business, an appraisal is likely necessary.
• Debt Reorganization – Many operations borrow money in some form or another throughout the year. However, approaches for taking on the debt might vary, and some have advantages over others. An equipment appraisal can help a lender get a clearer understanding of your financial strength and lead to more advantageous finance solutions.

It’s important to have the right solutions in place to help make decisions on how to maximize your return on investments, limit your liabilities, and more. We do appraisals for a variety of reasons. To learn more or to schedule an equipment appraisal, please email Joe at [email protected].

Technology for Improving and Authenticating Equipment Appraisals

Inspections and appraisals can be time-consuming and challenging to schedule. Historically, we have also preferred onsite appraisals so we can assess the condition and validate the authenticity of the equipment (it does exist at a certain location). We now incorporate TruePic technology that verifies pictures at the point they are taken with time stamp, location, and authenticity technology (not altered, edited, etc.). This adds strength and efficiency to our onsite appraisals, plus makes a desktop appraisal much more practical. We also incorporate this technology on our financescope.com platform with our finance partners to verify for our applicant that the equipment is legit. Never buy equipment sight unseen without leveraging this technology for a Machinery Scope inspection!

If you want to learn more about how we can use this technology for an appraisal and/or an inspection,
please reach out. We would be glad to discuss options.

Value trends

After nearly three years of unprecedented increases in equipment values, values are slowly starting to soften. Late winter and early spring tend to have softer values than the rest of the year, but looking at overall trends, we estimate equipment values to be down about 5% versus 6 months ago. The first indicator is always real-time auction values. These values will indicate changes prior to dealer retail values. As auction values pushed up, the gap between retail and auction narrowed, but both trended up significantly. Auction values have started to soften, interest rates are higher, and dealer inventories are starting to build. Certain segments of equipment will remain high, but on average, we expect auction and dealer retail values will decline over the next 12 months. To what extent is still to be determined…