According to the latest market trends summary report from Ritchie Bros., the company has experienced record demand in 2020, including for excavators, which has been one of the most popular equipment categories.

“In a year of volatility, excavator pricing has remained relatively stable,” Doug Olive, senior vice president of pricing for Ritchie Bros., said. “The excavator’s cross-industry applications help mitigate massive price fluctuations. We also believe that the uptick in housing starts throughout the United States has had a positive impact on excavator pricing in 2020.”

As Olive indicated, pricing for excavators has held steady in 2020, with median prices of $50,000 in Q1/20 and $47,000 in Q3/20. In the last three years (Jan. 2017 – Sep. 2020), Ritchie Bros. has sold more than 15,000 excavators in the United States for more than $850 million. The top selling brands by volume are Caterpillar, Komatsu and John Deere, with the top models sold all from Caterpillar, including the 336EL, 320EL and 320CL. On average, approximately 27% of all excavators sold in the United States during this time frame were sold to local state buyers, while 57% were sold to out of state U.S. buyers and 16% were sold to international buyers.

Additional insights from the market trends summary report can be found below.