Thank you for the replies, I will be reaching out to you Rob and Derek.

Similar to you I have had 4 edgebanders in the last 4 years. First was a 2006 BiMatic without premill or spray stations, then a 2021 Cehisa Compact PCS purchased at an auction for $25k. It had premill, a spray station and single motor corner rounding. We liked it, but it became too small once we started making fire doors. It was also slow at 10m/m. After that, we purchased a used 2007 Biesse Akron 855 for about $15k. That was a heavy duty machine that needed a tune up. Problem was that Biesse doesn't have local techs that know the older machines and wanted $12k for tech to fly in from Toronto for a week. At the time, I thought it was too much, looking back at it now, it might have been worth it. Eventually, I purchased a new Stefani KD HP a year ago because we make a lot of 1-3/4" 3ft x 7ft fire doors and needed a havy duty machine. It has servos on all the stations, corner rounding, three spray stations, can run PUR and track speed is 20m/m. We recently switched to unfilled PO glue and it's very hard to see the glue line from 2ft away on high gloss white panels. Bec6of the servos, the operator skill level is greatly decreased. All they have to worry about now is making sure the stations stay clean.

I've seen at least 4 of these machines at auctions where the shops are closing down and they end up going for around $50k. I think that's a smoking deal.

If I was in your position and didn't want to go the brand new route right now, I would wait for used one at an auction where the shop is closing down. I wouldn't necessarily be looking only for a stefani, but homag and holzher as well that are 5 years old or less.

I also purchased a return conveyor from China for $8k and it's worth its weight in gold.

What is unfilled PO glue ?
Is that different from eva and PUR ?

I like the idea of keeping cash reserves for now , and going new when I can really afford it.

Also I am not worried about a local tech for any brand as we have several good independent techs here in the Denver area that can service any brand .

That was basically the kind of response I was looking for to confirm my belief that growing as you can afford with cash can work .

PO is polyolefin glue. We prefer to run unfilled glue because it works for 99% of our jobs, it's thinner and burns less. PO gives you a thinner edge than EVA and has a higher melting point once cured. I also find that it doesn't burn as much and lasts longer. Best part is that it doesn't need to be cleaned like PUR. Just run it like you would EVA.

With the higher interest rates scaring away customers and
warehouse costs skyrocketing, I feel like there will be a bunch of shops that will call it quits rather than relocating in the next 6-18 months. To me that equals lots of newer machinery at bargain rates if you can wait.

I like your thinking , that's my current opinion as well .

I will try the new glue and see what I think of it .

We started using polyolefin (Jowat 237.50) with our Vantedge edgebander recently. Last commercial job we did (dark gray textured melamine) was done without scraper, buffer and spraying units - only trimming.
We are able to set glue dosage much better than with EVA glue.
There's no squeeze out glue at all, and yet when we unpeel tape, everything is covered, no gaps. That was not that easy to achieve with EVA glue.
It took me some time to find out who sells 237.50 in US, but pm me if you need help with that.

We purchased new Vantedge edgebander abouth half a year ago; sprayer -> premill -> glue station (with infrared preheat) -> guillotine -> top and bottom trimmer -> sprayer -> scraper -> buffing station.
We also got glue-pot heater/cleaner station with additional glue pot and corner rounding unit as two separate machines.
All this within your base budget.
Additional glue pot is very handy for switching to other colors quickly.

Besides some entry level edgebander, which is nowhere close this machine, I have no prior experience with similar machines, so can't compare it to other ones from the same category, but we've been very happy with this one and the support is awesome. Nothing looks overengineered, so all of the regular maintenance we can do ourselves and I believe most (if not all) of the servicing or repairs we would be able to do ourselves if need be.
This is a big thing for us, since we are a small shop that cannot spend thousands of dollars for someone to fly over here and do some repairs every now and then or thousands of dollars for simple parts, just because they were made proprietary for apparently no other purpose but to make money on after-sale services.
With no prior experiences with these types of machines some learning curve was expected, but any time we had a question support was literarily immediately available.

If you need more info let me know.

Based on what I think your wants are I'd get a three year lease on a new machine and at the end of the lease turn it back in and get a new one. You are still going to need a trained operator.

Get the Ott from Rob homie. Ott's have perfected PUR and the finish is amazing off of those machines.