Used Boom Lift Financing

A good used boom runs the same crew as a new one. A 2018 JLG 600S with 1,200 hours on it will still put you 60 feet up with 500 pounds of restricted capacity, and it costs 40 to 50 percent less than a new unit off the lot. The market for pre-owned booms is deep right now, and the buying opportunities are real. Where things get complicated is the paper. Some lenders balk at units over a certain age or mileage. We do not. We fund used telescopic booms, used articulatings, older diesel rough-terrain units, and platforms that have real hours on them, as long as the machine makes sense for the work you are doing.

Our floor is $50,000. The sweet spot is $100,000 to $150,000 and up, which covers a healthy share of the used market. We operate short-doc to $400,000, meaning no tax-return package or CPA statements, just the application and recent bank statements. B and C credit are fine. Many files fund inside roughly two weeks. You find the machine, we fund it.

The key variable on any used boom is hours relative to the model's expected service life. A diesel rough-terrain like a JLG 800S or a Genie S-80 is built to run 10,000 to 12,000 hours before a major rebuild becomes the smarter call. A unit with 3,000 hours and clean maintenance records is well into its useful life with plenty of productive time left. A unit with 8,500 hours and a patchy service history is a different conversation.

We look at a few things when we structure a deal on a used machine:

• Year and hours on the meter
• Platform height class and whether it matches your declared use
• Whether the seller is a dealer, a rental yard, or a private party
• Current market resale value for that model and age

Buying from a rental yard or a dealer typically means the machine has some documentation behind it. Private-party purchases are also fundable, though we may need a bit more time to verify the unit. Either way, we move. The goal is iron on the jobsite, not paperwork sitting on someone's desk.

If you are buying a used machine to run alongside existing owned equipment, a sale-leaseback on a free-and-clear boom you already own can generate the down payment or supplement your working capital while we fund the new acquisition at the same time.

A new 60-foot diesel telescopic from JLG or Genie lists somewhere in the $140k–$180k band depending on configuration. A comparable used unit in good condition, five to seven years old with under 3,000 hours, often clears at $70,000 to $100,000 through a dealer or auction. That price difference either frees up capital or lets you add a second unit for the same monthly payment as one new machine.

There are real tradeoffs. New iron comes with a factory warranty, current emissions compliance, and the latest safety interlocks. Used iron has no warranty, may need near-term maintenance, and older models may carry Tier 3 engines that restrict use in certain municipalities. Rental companies and contractors who run high utilization often prefer new because downtime on a busy unit costs more than the price difference over a lease term.

That said, plenty of profitable operations run a mixed fleet: one or two newer units for high-utilization work, used machines for backup capacity or specialized height classes they only need a few times a year. We fund both sides of that strategy. Fleet financing lets you structure the whole order as a single deal rather than chasing individual transactions.

The most common concern we hear is that a lender will decline a used machine financing because the credit is imperfect or the equipment is too old. That is not how we work.

B and C credit situations are part of our normal volume. A business with a few derogatories, a lean cash flow year, or a recent restructure can still get a used boom funded if the operation makes sense. We are underwriting the business and the machine together, not just running a score.

Short-doc financing up to $400,000 means no tax-return package, no P&L packet, no CPA-compiled statements. Recent bank statements, the signed app, and the invoice or purchase agreement gets us most of the way there. Above $400,000 we bring in more documentation, but we keep the process moving rather than going quiet for three weeks.

One thing to note: if the machine you want is priced under our $50,000 floor, we cannot help with that unit straight through. But if you are bundling two or three smaller used units into a single transaction, we can often structure the package to qualify.

Send us the machine details and recent bank statements. We will have terms back to you fast, no runaround. Used telescopics, used articulatings, diesel rough-terrain, electric slab booms: if it makes sense for the work, we fund it. See our full used boom financing overview or learn how we fund rental yards looking to grow their pre-owned fleet.