Close Partnership with Prominent Seller Leads to Outstanding Results
This week’s successful auction of machinery and equipment for a prominent farming family brought home an important principle: The very best auctions are those in which the auction company and the seller work in partnership.
We saw this in dramatic fashion in the case of the March 29 auction for the Mark Yaggie Estate and the David Yaggie Farm Retirement in Breckenridge, Minnesota. The tragic death of 41-year-old Mark in a 2017 airplane crash created such a community response that up to 30 friends came out last Fall to help harvest the family’s crops. His father, David, known for his commitment to advancing agriculture and improving production, decided to retire due to health problems.
This created the need to auction the family’s large inventory of equipment, including pieces that David and Mark had engineered and customized in their own shop.
“David approached the auction with the same commitment he and Mark always put into his crops,” said Steffes representative Brad Olstad. “He knew that people will pay a premium for equipment that is well cared for. So he brought in a professional detail company to clean the older equipment so it would show well. He even changed tires on some equipment so it would look better,” said Olstad.
That, combined with solid marketing, led to great results. “Eighty percent of the items brought more than the price expectation. The extra effort probably added $5,000 to $8,000 to the selling price of some of the trucks,” he said.
Most importantly, the market for equipment remains stable. “We had some 850 bidders – about 350 live and 500 online. Live bidders showed up from five to six states and Canada for this auction,” Olstad said.
Mark Yaggie Estate & David Yaggie Farm Retirement Auction Results
