Deerline Advances, a small-business funding broker in Prescott, Arizona, looks at what building permit figures mean for a Prescott Valley, AZ contractor planning an equipment purchase. Yavapai County authorized 1,718 new housing units in 2025. County totals describe the market; your own signed work decides whether a machine pays. Partners decide on any financing.
What the permit numbers say
Yavapai County authorized 1,567 new privately owned housing units in 2023, 2,068 in 2024 and 1,718 in 2025 (U.S. Census Bureau, Building Permits Survey, county annual files). In 2025, 1,347 of those units were single-unit homes, 52 were in two-unit buildings, 15 in three- and four-unit buildings, and 304 in buildings of five or more.
Three things these figures do not tell you: anything about commercial construction or remodels (the survey counts new residential units only), anything about Prescott Valley, AZ specifically (these are county totals; place-level permit files were not collected), or what next year will bring. We make no forecast.
Who is competing for that work
Construction had 971 employer establishments in Yavapai County in 2023, 626 of them specialty trade contractors and 300 builders of buildings (U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023). In ZIP 86314, the main Prescott Valley, AZ ZIP, there were 148 construction employers, and 65.5% had fewer than five employees (ZIP Code Business Patterns 2023). Another 2,618 construction businesses in the county had no paid employees in 2024 (Census Nonemployer Statistics 2024).
For a small crew, one machine is a large share of the balance sheet. That is why the decision deserves its own arithmetic.
Checking permits on your own jobs
Owners search for the Prescott Valley building permit search because a pulled permit is the clearest sign that a job is real and scheduled. Before you finance a machine against expected work, look up the permits on the jobs in your pipeline and note their dates.
Make sure the job address is in the municipality you think it is; the Prescott, AZ page explains why ZIPs and town limits differ.
Own it, rent it, or sign an EFA
- Equipment loan: you own the machine, the partner holds a lien until it is paid off.
- Finance lease: the lessor owns it during the term; there is often a purchase option at the end.
- Equipment finance agreement: you own it subject to the agreement, which ends when paid.
If you expect to run the machine for years, ownership usually wins. If you might need a different size within a year or two, a lease can be easier to exit. Equipment financing lays out the structures in more detail.
Used machines and the hours question
A used compact loader or excavator can cut the payment, but partners finance used equipment against its age, hours and remaining life. Expect a shorter term on an older machine, and bring the hour-meter reading, service records and a photo of the serial plate. A private sale also needs a bill of sale and proof that no lender still holds a lien on the machine.
A quick test before you buy
- List the signed or permitted jobs that need the machine, with dates.
- Estimate the rental cost you would pay for those jobs without owning.
- Run the financed payment through the commercial loan payment calculator at a few terms.
- Compare: if the monthly payment is close to what you would spend renting for the booked work alone, owning starts to make sense.
The calculator shows the monthly payment, total interest and total repaid for a fixed-payment loan; it does not compare rental costs, so step 4 is done by hand.
Payments already on the books
The new payment does not stand alone. A partner adds it to the truck, trailer and tool payments you already carry and compares the total with your deposits. List every existing equipment payment with its end date before you shop; a loan that ends in four months changes the picture more than owners expect.
What partners look at for contractor equipment
The dealer quote, the machine's age and hours if used, recent bank statements, and how existing equipment payments fit. More on how partners see the trades is on the construction financing page, and other posts are on the blog.
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