I have an MTD 8hp that cost me the price of picking it up 1000 miles away. Old but does the job.
Started out saving up a pile of bush and attacking it with a machete to break off smaller pieces for mulch/compost. Very happy to find a local with a chipper willing to rent himself out. $1000 would have covered a whole lot of chipping. Unfortunately his chipper had a PLASTIC housing for the shredder wheel and a wayward stone punched a hole in the housing.
Make sure you don't buy one with a plastic housing.
I then just put the word out that I was looking for a chipper and a friend-of-a-friend came up gold. They were getting rid because it didn't have the capacity they needed.
Don't underestimate the capacity of the machine you will need.
The smaller machines aren't the easy-to-use machine you see in loads of videos. Limbs generally need to be straight and stripped of twigs before they go through the chipper. 3" branches take a while to get through the chipper and each branch has to be hand-fed. I don't bother with anything bigger than 1" in the 3" chipper. Twigs need to be cut into straight pieces too, or very small otherwise a handful will jam the shredder hopper. It is a lot more time consuming than it looks.
Fibrous materials (such as palm and even green branches) don't break up well and quickly clog the shredder with fibers.
All said, I use my chipper/shredder every week and would certainly spend money on a a replacement if I needed to. I make about 1 cu meter of compost every 1-2 months depending on the season.
If you have the space, you can just pile up the brush until you can afford/find a decent chipper. Leaves will fall off as they dry and you can gather them to mulch with before you chip the branches.