Rental vs Non-rental Equipment: Price Analysis Reveals Best Time to Buy

When purchasing used construction equipment, there are various elements to consider. The manufacturer, age of the equipment, and utilization are key factors when making the decision. One element that may not be considered often is the equipment’s seller. Is it more advantageous to buy from certain contractors, rental companies, or some other construction entity?

Analyzing rental equipment sold on the resale market, we found that crawler mounted compact excavators are popular pieces of equipment. An analysis of 120,000 data points from EquipentWatch’s Green Guide, was conducted to determine if there is a difference between equipment coming off the rental market (rental equipment) vs non – rental equipment. The analysis determined there were notable differences in the pricing trends and meter reads. 

Most crawler mounted compact excavators enter the market at 4 years of age, with an average age of 6 years old. The prices are very similar between both the rental and non-rental companies as they enter the market, but begin to diverge as age increases. The average difference between the rental and non – rental equipment price is 23.7% with the largest gap at age 8 of 40.7%.

This graph shows the average price between non–rental equipment and rental equipment with a 95% confidence band around the non–rental equipment average price:

For more analysis of this data and additional statistics, read the full article on EquipmentWatch.