How long will it take to sell my home? 🤷‍♂️And will I have to negotiate a whole bunch? 🏦 Jeremy Larkin and Jesse Poll take OPINION out of the equation and use real life data to answer these questions home sellers have! Also, the 40th annual St. George Arts Festival is upon us! Hope to see you on Town Square!

Below is the actual St. George Real Estate Morning Drive show, hosted by St. George Real Estate Agent Jeremy Larkin, word for word! Enjoy and please share if you find it valuable! 

Jeremy Larkin and The Larkin Group @ Keller Williams Realty can be reached by calling 435-767-9821, or emailing sales@gostgeorge.com.

Andy: What is up? It is time for the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive. Standing by is Jeremy Larkin with his sidekick. He would be the Robin to his Batman. It is Jesse.
Jeremy: Oh, I like that. I like that a lot.
Jesse: I heard a story about that once. Batman and Robin for one of my sales.
Jeremy: I like that. This is true. This is true.
Jesse: It was fun. It was a great story.
Jeremy: The old press release.
Jesse: Bam, boom, bam.
Jeremy: Oh my gosh, you guys, good morning. Jeremy Larkin here. Host of the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive. So happy to have Andy in here with us this morning. Jesse Poll here. Robin. Batman.
Jesse: Good morning.
Jeremy: I do not know who we are, but we are what we are. Hey guys, my heavens, there is a lot going on. This is getting into like epic activity levels here in Washington County. We have the St. George Arts Festival. Does anyone know when the arts festival, I know, but does anyone else know when the St. George Arts Festival started? Does anyone want to venture a guess?
Andy: If they have been listening to my show this morning, they would know that.
Jeremy: Have you been talking about it?
Andy: Yes, we have.
Jeremy: I guess I was not listening. Of course, I was managing children this morning.
Andy: I was in high school when it started.
Jeremy: Really?
Andy: Yes.
Jeremy: 1980. Freshman year.
Jesse: Wow.
Jeremy: Yeah, 1980 they started with this thing. And the history, it originally started on Ancestor’s Square because that was like this little arts village, and Ancestor’s Square has become more of a restaurant zone at this point. But 1980, so we have been cranking it out for a long time. Almost 40 years. That is crazy.
Andy: What year were you born, Jeremy?
Jeremy: 1975.
Andy: So you were 5.
Jeremy: I was 5 years old, and I used to go downtown and I remember it was the old library, which the old library sits exactly where the town square tower is. This splash pad and the tower, that exact, that is what was removed to build town square.
Jesse: That is pretty cool.
Jeremy: And I just remember that so well.
Jesse: Such an awesome area.
Jeremy: It is an awesome area. Of course, our office is about block away. We can look over from Larkin Group headquarters, we can look at all the festivities. So that is tomorrow. That is Sunday. What are the times? Andy, do you remember?
Andy: 10-6. I think. Both days.
Jeremy: Yeah, 10-6. 10-6, Saturday, Sunday. Absolutely incredible. The weather looks to be just wow. I cannot even describe the weather. The weather is going to be absolutely perfect tomorrow and Saturday. I checked on it. It said Saturday, Sunday. Friday, Saturday, get out, check out the St. George Arts Festival. It is just coming right down the pike. And there will be a lot of people in town. There is already a lot of people in town.
Jesse: There is. It is that time of year.
Jeremy: My heavens. I just feel like I, River Road, I feel like I am a guy who lives in Southern California lamenting my little fractional version of traffic problems. Right? But it is busy out there.
Jesse: It is.
Jeremy: Hey, tell us what you are doing with the mayor at nine o’clock. I want to know about this. You guys are doing something fun now.
Andy: So every Thursday, I meet with the mayor, one of the local mayors at Hash House A-Go-Go and we just kind of have a community discussion and this week, every other week it is Mayor Pike, but then we also get involved Kenny Neilson from Washington City and John Brambul from Hurricane. Mayor Rosenberg, Mayor Hart from Santa Clara and Ivins, and we just kind of have a community meeting. I am calling it Breakfast with the Mayor, and Tyler Hunt’s Hash House has been gracious enough to host it every week.
Jeremy: That is pretty cool. Pretty cool.
Andy: Yeah.
Jeremy: So guys, you can actually go over there. So what happens if people want to watch or listen if they are there, physically there?
Andy: We have got a little radio I brought in. You will be able to hear us live talking, but if we get a caller, you will need to listen to that little radio that we will have there at the end of the table. But I have also got a microphone, so anybody that wants to walk up to the table and ask us a question live on the air –
Jeremy: Wow, I dig it. I dig this. So clever.
Andy: Jeremy is going to come over one of these days and hang out with us. It would be good.
Jeremy: I am willing to roll over. I just did not realize how stinking cool it was, so I am pretty psyched about that thing. Okay. Look guys, it is the 18th of April 2019, and we are going to cover a couple of things. We are going to talk about Ironman before we get off the air because we have got the St. George Arts Festival right now and then Ironman comes whipping in on the heels of that. There is so much going on. I want to talk to you about the volunteer effort. No, we are not encouraging you to register to race. It would be a little late for that. Well, it would be a little late to train for that. How about we say that?
Andy: Yes, it would.
Jeremy: By the way, if you are not watching us on Facebook Live, you can visit us at Facebook dot com slash Jeremy Larkin or if you are listening on Facebook Live, I really ought to put this into our Facebook Live notes every single time and I think I can right now. We are 94.9 FM. 94.9 FM, 890 AM. So just remember that, guys. 94.9FM, 890AM. Did we get it all right?
Andy: Yeah.
Jeremy: Here is something we have not been doing, and our time has been limited enough on this real estate program that we have not often invited callers to call to reach out. Moving forward, I really want to make this kind of a standard. Somebody can pick up the phone, call us at 673-5890. That is 435-673-5890, and if they have got a question about the real estate market or something we are doing. I do not know. We are creating all sorts of controversy with some of the advertising. We are having fun advertising. I am just creating some controversy. Pick up the phone and call us and let’s talk about it. Right? What is the latest, Jesse? We sent an email out to our database.
Jesse: Yeah about our Instant Offer program.
Jeremy: Instant offer program. Right? Isn’t that right?
Jesse: Yeah, made a few people mad wanting to know what we were doing and how we could do that.
Jeremy: So let me tell you who was mad. Real estate agents were angry.
Andy: Oh. (Indiscernible)
Jeremy: Doesn’t that tell you something?
Andy: If the other guys are mad isn’t that a good thing, Jeremy?
Jeremy: Uh-huh. I think that it means that it was a good ad. But we have got some real estate agents be pretty frustrated. Right? And here is what is happening. Here is why we are having a conversation about an instant offer program. Companies like Zillow and a company called Home Light that you can see TV commercials running for. These are big, national firms who are now coming in and making offers on seller’s homes. They are saying hey we will just buy your home. Well, it is not all, all that glitters is not gold, and they charge some really hefty backend fees. Like wild fees. We are talking like offering somebody 94% of their asking price, 95% of their appraisal, which seemed really good –
Andy: Until?
Jeremy: And then the fees were $25,000. Like literally.
Andy: Geez.
Jeremy: Yeah, they called it a buyer premium.
Jesse: Wow.
Andy: Premium is right.
Jeremy: So it is a premium. So what are we doing? We are just beating them to the punch, and we might as well be having a conversation about our local investors. If people want to sell their home and not put it on the market, like sell it to a private investor, we talk about maximum convenience versus maximum value. Maximum convenience is you have one of our investor buyers write you a cash offer to close in a short period of time. In as little as seven days or you choose the closing date and you are out. You do not stage the home. You do not prep for showings. You do not invite strangers in. You do not go through any of that nonsense. The stress of, I have a home right now in Stonebrook. I now have got two offers. Stonebrook is off of Dixie Drive over by Sunbrook Golf Course. I looked last night. We are at 42 showings of this home.
Jesse: Wow.
Jeremy: Now the home is vacant. Can you imagine if you lived in the home? And you have 42 showings. By the way, any of you listening out there who are trying to sell your home and not getting any showings, it is possible to get a lot of showings. 42 showings. So that is what the instant offer, so the maximum convenience is you sell it to an investor. Maximum value is probably not going to be the investor and those folks will opt to, they will choose to sell it at retail listing price. Right? Jesse, am I getting it right?
Jesse: You are. That is for somebody that absolutely needs to sell it right now or maybe does not have the money to fix it up and it is in bad shape. So it is not good for every seller.
Jeremy: Oh, not at all.
Jesse: But it definitely works for some.
Jeremy: Yeah, it absolutely works for some.
Jesse: For the most part, they are going to put it on the on the open market and get the most money possible.
Jeremy: Yeah, in almost every case, and we are going to encourage that. So that is what is going on. All right. So we have been having some fun with it. By the way, if you are curious about it, you can visit Sold in St. George dot com if you are a seller and you are saying hey, I want to sell my home, but I do not want to stink around with all this junk that has to happen to sell a home, which is staging my home and preparing my home and cleaning up my home and maybe painting my front door and my back door. An investor is going to come in and say we will buy your home as is the way it is today. Right? And they are going to pay less for it, but that is max convenience. And then max value is you do the things that we encourage you to. We take our expertise from selling 1200 homes and help you get the home prepared, and then we bring buyers through and we show it and we negotiate. All right. So, Jesse, question today.
Jesse: I did not do it.
Jeremy: All right. So that answers that. Check. How long is it going to take to sell my home? So this is a question we have got today that we want to answer. People want to know how long it is going to take to sell their home. Like what can they really expect? And maybe we should talk about averages and best and worst-case scenarios.
Jesse: So the average in the Multiple Listing Service right now in Washington County is actually 69 days.
Jeremy: 69 days. What does that mean?
Jesse: So on average of all the homes that were sold, when you average those out it was 69 days. So some of them are probably 250. Some were two. Some were one. Some were a year.
Jeremy: 69 days from the day they put it on the market –
Jesse: That listed the home to the time that they had a contract actually.
Jeremy: Contract. Okay.
Jesse: So not closed but contract.
Jeremy: And this is really fun because we actually pulled our own numbers because why wouldn’t we. Because the answer to the question is two-fold. Well, are your planning on a market average or are you planning on our average? Right?
Jesse: Right. So I just had this conversation yesterday with folks who were getting ready to list their home in Ironwood. They hear that it is taking 70 days to sell a home, so then we started talking about our averages, and with a home like theirs, our average is actually 15 days. But our overall average right now is 38.
Jeremy: A home of that style in that in price rang.
Jesse: Yeah, in that price range. Right. So a 3-bedroom, 2-bath, under $300,000, we are definitely within 30 days, but most of them are within 15 days.
Jeremy: Yeah, so 38 days, we looked back all time. We looked back decades at our team and at the Larkin Group, we sold homes on average in 48 days, and in the last year, 38 days.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: Let’s talk about some of these. This is kind of fun because people, when they ask, it is like if I ask Andy, hey Andy, how much does a car cost? How are you going to respond? Well, how much are cars these days?
Andy: Well, that depends on the car, doesn’t it?
Jeremy: Yeah, right. How many answers are there? There is an infinite number of answers.
Andy: Right.
Jeremy: What kind of car? What model? Is it new? Is it used? What is the mileage? So let’s look at this. Jesse, I am looking at some of the listings we have sold recently. We sold the Reiu, did I say it right?
Jesse: Reiu.
Jeremy: Reiu. Great people
Jesse: Awesome people. We just closed on that yesterday.
Jeremy: Sold their home. This is so crazy. Most expensive home in the Legacy townhomes. Legacy is off of Tonaquint Drive. $382,000, sold it in 16 days.
Jesse: Yep.
Jeremy: From the time we had a sign in the ground, it was cool, we did this big grand opening kickoff event where we had lunch served and it was pouring rain. Absolutely torrential rain.
Jesse: I thought we were (indiscernible)
Jeremy: How many people did we bring through?
Jesse: Probably about 35.
Jeremy: 35 people still came through. 16 days. So let’s go conversely. We have got a property over at Dixie Springs, sold this for $470,000, took us 94 days. And congratulations to the DeCleriks, these incredible people. But let’s talk about why. Why is that the case? Well, we put it on the MLS and then it was too high. And in a lot of cases, sellers are going to ask more than, they are going to try for a little more, and then the price needed to be reduced, and then sometimes we have a contract and then sometimes contracts fall apart, and we have to get a new contract. So that was 94 days and this is just utter transparency. We are not going to get on here and tell you that we sell every home in five days.
Jesse: And that one was, we were really fighting for the price because they had actually built that home and they put every upgrade possible in there. But then they decided they did not like Dixie Springs. They just did not want to be there.
Jeremy: So but I want to –
Jesse: So they sold it quick. Like within a year they were selling.
Jeremy: I want to make sure that people understand that when we say fighting for the price it could come off as like we are not fighting for everyone’s price.
Jesse: Well –
Jeremy: Can you define what we mean on this kind of a home?
Jesse: Yeah, so when you go in and build a home and you put every upgrade possible, and then you need to sell it right away, it does not mean that everybody is going to want that. And when you –
Jeremy: The funnel of buyers is very narrow isn’t it?
Jesse: When you are putting it on the open market, they are comparing you to all of the other new builds, and so you have got to really got to, when I say fight, I mean you have really got to push out there every possible upgrade and you have just got to really have all of the details in place.
Jeremy: Yeah, and you are going to need to be prepared –
Jesse: To wait.
Jeremy: — for a long, for a right buyer.
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: But let’s have some fun here. So we sold, Michelle and her team did an incredible job selling a home down in Painted Desert, Desert Sands off of River Road. Sold the home for $261,000, 41 days on market. Okay, that is right there in our average. Remember the market average is 69. We sold a Coral Springs townhome. Thank you to the Hammond family. Just closed that two days ago. How about this? Six days, $298,000. Coral Springs is a vacation rental. It is one of the licensed, bona fide vacation rental spots in town. $298,000. Sold it in 6 days. That was quick. That is just listing to contract. Empress Circle. Do you remember this one?
Jesse: I do. That is one of my favorite listings in (indiscernible) because she worked so hard to get that home ready, and we really had a strategy because we knew, we actually had priced that at $394,900 knowing that if we stepped over 400 that it would change our competition.
Jeremy: Check this out.
Jesse: And so we were just sitting on the market.
Jeremy: So they listed at $394,900, Jesse did, and it sold for?
Jesse: 408.
Jeremy: 408. So, sold that sucker for over the asking price. And this is a funny dynamic. Had we listed it at 405, we probably would not have had the activity.
Jesse: We would still be sitting on the market. We would be compared to all of the other newer homes in the neighborhood. But because we were the absolute value, everybody wanted the home.
Jeremy: Yep, so let me round out the final ten. That was Bloomington Hills, Empress Circle, $408,000, 3500 feet. Metal Valley Estates, a lot of people know Metal Valley, nice job, Robert on this. $483,000, 3300 square foot home. Sold in 47 days.
Jesse: Nice.
Jeremy: Tonaquint Terrace, $500,000. $525,000, 4400 square foot home in Tonaquint sold in 29 days. Rounding out our top 10, Padre Canyon, which is out there in Ivins, $592,500 sale, 17 days. There is a point I am making. The point is it is not all the $99,000 tiny condos that are selling overnight. 17 days. And as we wrap this up, we sold a home in Enterprise. Yes, we sell in Enterprise. $297,000. Really cool home with some good acreage. Sold in seven days. And the top ten, thank you to the Stock family. $175,000. This is a dying breed. There is not much of this left.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: Single-family home. $175,000 sold in 19 days. So gosh, you can sell a home quickly. Now what about negotiating? But Jesse, certainly you gave all those homes away. We gave these away. Right? We must have priced them low.
Jesse: No, we did not. Well the one, yes, but they drove the price back up. Right?
Jeremy: Yeah.
Jesse: So we priced it strategically.
Jeremy: So one home price we did price aggressively and we ended up selling it for $13,000 over the asking price.
Jesse: The plan worked.
Jeremy: You are telling me that we did not give these away?
Jesse: No.
Jeremy: They sold for on average what percentage of the asking price?
Jesse: 99.
Jeremy: 99%.
Jesse: Actually, this year we are at 100% I believe. Average.
Jeremy: Year-to-date, we have been selling our client’s homes for an average of 100% of asking price. So let’s bring this to a head. People ask, and if you have a real estate question again, guys, you can pick up the phone. 435-673-5890. How long will it take to sell my home? Well, on average, 69 days from the time you put a sign in the ground to the time you get a contract. We are running about 38 days, all-time. We are selling some of these homes in three or four days, and I have got to tell you. Most people are not real sad when they find out that they have their home sold in the first 5, 6 days. It is a pretty nice feeling. There is a method to the madness, and when we put a home on the market, there is just three factors we can control. And they are the price that you are asking for your home, the condition of your home or staging as it compares to other homes in the market, and the last one, which is pretty critical is the marketing that we do. And I will tell you right now that the condition is the under-layment, the foundation for all of that.
Jesse: So true.
Jeremy: And then between the price and the marketing, we can get people in there. So we have talked about this giving a home away thing on the show so much.
Jesse: I think I am about to get in trouble, but I have something to say about that.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Jesse: I really believe that the only way you can give a home away is to try to sell it on your own without all of the eyeballs on your property. Because with just the sign in the yard or having it on Craigslist or KSL, and probably even Zillow. If you have got it on Zillow and without an agent that is paying money to really push your listing, not everybody is seeing it. So if you do not have it out there for the whole market to view and appreciate, that is a good chance that you are going to give it away for a lot less than you would have if you had just hired a powerful agent like the Larkin Group.
Jeremy: The question is how will you know if you got the most money. Well the only way you will know if you got the most money is that you did everything possible to prepare the home for sale and then turn around and market it.
Jesse: Yeah, market it.
Jeremy: Right? That is, which is such a great question. How would I know if I got the most money for my property? And that is it. You would prepare that home correctly, which is going to take some professional guidance. Some of our clients will actually bring a show-ready home. Some interesting statistics out there. It is like this, Jesse. We are sitting here and emails are hitting my inbox. Right? While we are running Facebook Live. We have a home at 828 West 1300 North Circle. We have been on the market a period. We are at 12 showings.
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: We have had 12 showings.
Jesse: That one is a tough one.
Jeremy: Yeah, 12 showings. I mentioned last night that we have this home in Stonebrook which I have two offers on now. Isn’t that fun? I do not hate that. I do not hate that at all. 38 showings. That is the exact number. 38 showings in one home. I thought it was 42. 38 times an agent has gone through –
Jesse: That is a lot of showings.
Jeremy: — with a buyer and looked at the property. So folks, if you are not seeing 2-3 showings per week, you have got a problem, and the problem, we can diagnose it. This is actually kind of fun. So we created over at Sold in St. George dot com just recently, we have got a button there on our main menu and I think it is home not selling, yeah it is. Home not selling question mark, and if you just click on that, we would be happy to produce what is called a home marketing audit for you. And a home marketing audit is really simple. We look at your home in three categories, which we talked about are pricing, condition, and marketing. It is a checklist. It is an audit. It is tax time, right? The audit is hey, did we cover all the bases that needed to be covered. Now, let’s talk about tax shredding. Okay, so a lot of people out there have some documents they need to shred, and we are going to let you come shred those and have some barbeque, dinner with us. We are going to grilling hot dogs and burgers and having a great time. The date is April 26th. That is Friday. A week from Friday from 5-7pm, and we would love to have you. I do believe that we need to update our RSVP form. I do. I do. I do. So if you want to RSVP, RSVP right now because we would like to have a number. You can come out and you can bring up to three boxes of your tax documents that need to be shredded. Say hello to us. Have some dinner. Have a barbeque dinner which is sponsored by our friends at Nook and Cranny Home Inspections, and we are doing this on the Wells Fargo lawn, which is across the street from our office, which is right there at town square essentially. East of town square. So Friday, April 26th. If you want to RSVP today because I just, I am looking at my website and I can see the link is not live, just visit Sold in St. George dot com and shoot us a message. Every website on the planet has the contact form, and just click contact. Right? So in our final two minutes, Jesse, you are not running the Ironman?
Jesse: No, I am not running the Ironman.
Jeremy: No, I do not think you should run it. I do not think I should either.
Jesse: I know I look like I could, but –
Jeremy: I know you do, man. You are lean, mean fighting machine. I want people to reach out and visit Ironman St. George dot com, and I really want to encourage you, we are in the final push here. It is the first weekend in May to gather up our volunteers. I am a volunteer director, and I will be working with athletes and with the volunteers, overseeing activities at T2, transition two down at town square, where they get off of the bike and head out on the run. Right? So it is going to be a great time. The energy is epic. It is always fantastic. We hope to see you there. But visit Ironman St. George dot com. Help us out. We need volunteers. It requires about 2000 volunteers, I think. Maybe I got the number wrong, but I think that is about right, to pull this thing off. Boy, it is such a huge economic boom. Huge economic boom. Visit Ironman St. George dot com. If you have thought about selling your home and you want some more information, if you are curious about the instant offer program or maybe you are selling and it is just not happening, I want to be really clear. We are, the Larkin Group with Keller Williams Realty, we are not soliciting a listing. Okay? We cannot do that. It is against the rules, so we do not ever proactively reach out to somebody who has their home for sale and say hey, looks like your agent is doing a bad job. Maybe you should call us. Nope. That is not what we do. Just simply stating that if you would like, and you are curious about getting a home marketing audit, wondering, maybe you are For Sale By Owner, and you wonder why your home is not selling –
Jesse: We have actually done that quite a few times and helped them figure out how to sell it on their own. I am not saying it is a bad idea, but you have got to make it so you are getting your home out there to everybody.
Jeremy: Yeah, how would you know that you go the most money? You will only know if you did everything. So visit Sold in St. George dot com and you can check out the instant offers link or get a home marketing audit. Just click the old home not selling question mark, and we will take care of you.
Jesse: All right. Thanks guys.
Jeremy: All right. Let’s go have some fun at the arts festival. All right. Over and out.
Andy: Should be a fun weekend. Great job as always. Jeremy Larkin and Jesse, he is the tech guy. I do not know if anybody knows that, but he is the tech guy.
Jeremy: He is the set-up guy.
Andy: He is amazing.
Jeremy: He is my cohort. This is great. Thank you, Tom Daves. Thank you, Joe Newman. Thank you for all our listeners today.
Andy: All right. That will do it for the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive. Every Thursday morning right here on News Radio 94.9, 890 KDXU. News coming up next.