Feeding St. George Families During Covid Crisis & Real Estate Spectacle
Below is the actual S. 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.
Jeremy Larkin: What’s up Facebook live friends. Good morning. Guys, you can’t hear the ad that we’re listening to, which is why I’m kind of shaking my hips. Hips don’t lie, and neither do either do the numbers. We’re having some fun today in the Cherry Creek Radio Studios. North Bluff Street. We’re about to go live.
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Jeremy Larkin: Of course. We’re solid.
Good morning ladies and gentlemen, ladies and germs, as they say, boys and girls, real estate fans. Hey St. George residents, nearby residents, former residents, and want to be residents. Hey, Jeremy Larkin here, host of the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive, live from the Cherry Creek Radio Studios here on North Bluff Street. High on the Bluff, high on what we call The black Hill. Jesse Paul in the studio with me. Good morning.
Andy: Good morning, everybody. I don’t think this is on. There he is.
Jeremy Larkin: And the mic is off again. Just learnt something. That mic was on until we went live and then it was off.
Andy: Really? It turned itself off. That is bizarre.
Jeremy Larkin: It was actually off.
Andy: Because we actually made sure before you came in the red button was on. Yeah.
Jeremy Larkin: Correct. Odd. So I don’t know, but Jesse’s here. There we go. We’re learning every week, aren’t we? If you could see our setup, it’s quite a setup with all the radio equipment, plus the radio computer, plus two laptops. And the laptops, of course, here’s the best part. Jesse has his laptop stacked up on the Windows NT Server 4 Fifth Edition, essentially a textbook. Why that is in this studio is an incredible mystery.
Andy: [inaudible 00:02:04].
Jesse Paul: Now I don’t know, but it’s an incredible computer. Yes.
Jeremy Larkin: It’s the Windows NT Server 4 Fifth Edition’s textbook, as well as the study guide. Two books.
Jesse Paul: And they’re literally four inches thick each.
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah. Well, well, one is.
Jesse Paul: Okay, three and four.
Andy: And Jeremy, I have a quick anecdote for you. So they’ve delivered a phone book to my front porch yesterday. My wife picked it up and put it on the counter. My 16 year old daughter walked in and she goes, “What is that?”
Jeremy Larkin: You’re kidding me.
Andy: She had no idea what it was.
Jeremy Larkin: Of course, she didn’t, which does bring me to this…
Jesse Paul: Does everybody throw their phone… Because we get one every year. Does everybody just throw them away?
Jeremy Larkin: Recycling. I mean, geez. Do you hate the planet? So here’s the deal, which…
Jesse Paul: I have all of them.
Jeremy Larkin: For what reason?
Jesse Paul: Who knows.
Jeremy Larkin: [crosstalk] Do you mean in all the clutter that’s already in your house, you have phone books?
Jesse Paul: It’s to stack computers on them.
Jeremy Larkin: Okay. I think you should get rid of them. Mine goes straight, literally…
Jesse Paul: My [inaudible] desk is at the office. What I have for home is….
Jeremy Larkin: Oh, you use phone books.
Jesse Paul: … The phone book.
Jeremy Larkin: Okay. Yeah. Mine go straight to recycling. Which, hey, if you want to share that anecdote, thank you for the setup, because although we scripted this…
Andy: We’re kind of on the same wavelength here.
Jeremy Larkin: We are man. 48 hours ago, I’m over at our Desert Flower model and our show, segue, is brought to you by Sunwood Homes. My goodness folks, if I could tell you the exciting things we have on. So, and we’re going to come back to phone books. Brought to you by Sunwood Homes. You can visit them at mysunwoodhomes.com. Most of this is not on their website, so you need to listen right now. Everybody says, “I want affordable home, I want a single family home, I want a starter home.” We are completely sold and reserved out at Desert Flower, 40 lots.
Jesse Paul: Wow. That was fast.
Jeremy Larkin: We’re in the process of phase two, basically 40 more. And in the process of, along with phase two, town homes, a whole two story, three bed, 2.5 bath, 17, 1800 square foot town home project, as well as two, maybe even three more projects in the Hurricane Valley, a whole bunch of stuff coming right now with Sunwood Homes.
So what I encourage you to do is visit mysunwoodhomes.com or come see me at the model. I’ll actually be there today, and let’s get you on the wait list because people will… There’s always people who bail out. I’m there. Some of our great clients from Brookwood, also by Sunwood Homes, they come cruising in because they were just out driving around, fiddling around, and they’d love to come in and say, hey.
I said, what are you guys doing? Are you having a design meeting here? “Now we just wanted to come say, hey and get a diet Coke out of the fridge.” And we started, somehow phone books come up, and of course, our client is not a teenager. She’s probably, man I don’t know, I mean, their in their sixties. She said, “I love the phone book. I use it all the time.” And I thought that was incredible. You know, like really? Wow.
Jesse Paul: To be honest, that’s my era too, but I do not use the phone book. I’m a Google guy. If I want a phone number, I Google it.
Jeremy Larkin: Now can you believe this? Here’s the funny part about being live on the radio. I get a text from Kayla, “Please call me about the email I’m forwarding.” Now she’s off to Bryce Canyon today on vacation and I’m going to be at the model. Should we send this to her instead? She’s going to get a selfie from the radio station…
Jesse Paul: Letting her know, “Hey, I’m on top of it.”
Jeremy Larkin: We’re trying to run a business here. Okay, Jesse?
Jesse Paul: Yes.
Jeremy Larkin: The social dilemma right now. Anybody who is on Facebook, you’ve got to chime in guys. If you’re on Facebook, please give us thumbs up, please, please, please. Guys, here’s how Facebook works. You ready? This is fun. We’re going to talk about The Social Dilemma. Have you heard of the Netflix documentary the Social Dilemma?
Andy: I’ve heard of it. I haven’t seen it.
Jeremy Larkin: When is the next time that you can sit down with your teenagers for 90 minutes and watch documentary? Sunday?
Andy: Yeah, probably. Yeah.
Jeremy Larkin: I’m imploring you to do this.
Andy: The dilemma is the name of it?
Jeremy Larkin: The Social Dilemma.
Andy: The Social Dilemma.
Jeremy Larkin: Trust me, you’ll like it.
Andy: I’m going to write it down right here.
Jeremy Larkin: Okay. And by the way, I didn’t cancel Netflix with the whole thing that happened last month. It’s another conversation. I don’t watch much Netflix, but… Okay, here’s how this works guys. When you comment or give us a good morning or a thumbs up, you actually create, of course, this feeds into more locations.
This feeds to your friends and says, “Hey, Jessica Marone…” Lovely Jessica Marone, good morning. One of the best real estate agents on the planet on our team, she says, “Good morning.” And this now suggests to her friends, “Hey, you should watch this live video.” The Social Dilemma. Okay. It is a whole bunch… And here’s the funny part about it. It wasn’t like this expose where you’re sitting there and you’re like, “We’re going to tell you the dirty secret.” It was actually a bunch of original executives from Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, I’m talking to the big ones. I’m talking chief marketing officers, chief monetization officers, presidents of the company, early investors saying, look, “We built these things with good intentions, but here’s what happened. We used AI…” Okay. And by the way, Trevor, good morning, we use AI in real estate.
So remember Terminator? “I’ll get back.” Our fear was that AI would create robots that would take all of our jobs. Okay? So the greatest quote in the whole movie he says, “Our fear was that it would take over…” What was the word? “… Human strength, actually, AI has taken over human weakness.” And here’s why, the AI simply says this, they created algorithms in all these places, right? All these places to… The algorithm is an entity unto itself. So AI isn’t really going to… Robots aren’t taking our jobs over. This isn’t a Will Smith movie. Has anyone seen really robots walking around on the street?
Andy: Not yet.
Jesse Paul: From what you know.
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah, there you go. But here’s what’s… Thank you. But here’s what’s happened. How do you know you’re in the Matrix? How do you wake up from the Matrix when you don’t know you’re in the Matrix? The Social Dilemma walks through how the algorithms work and they feed to us.
I’m going to give you the best example ever, and then we’re going to talk about where all the foreclosures went this morning in Washington County. The best example is this, any Democrats or Republicans in the house, not in the house here, but you don’t have to get into that here, watching or listening to the show. If you’re a Democrat or Republican, I’m going to ask you the following question. Have you, at some point in the last 120 days said, “I cannot believe those guys could possibly think what they think. They must be insane.” Okay. That’s question number one.
This is about the other party. Of course, it’s 100% of the Republicans or Democrats have thought that. I can’t believe these guys… This number two. Have you ever thought, I can’t believe they don’t see all this information. Are they not seeing what I’m seeing. You ready?
Jesse Paul: No.
Jeremy Larkin: No.
Jesse Paul: They’re not.
Jeremy Larkin: They’re actually not, because based on their likes and their interests, physically clicking the like button, but their preferences and their interest and their internet history and their search history…
Jesse Paul: Well, I mean, it goes deeper than that.
Jeremy Larkin: Pause. You’re getting ahead. You haven’t seen this thing. You don’t get to tell me how much deeper it goes yet.
Jesse Paul: Well, I just know how much deeper it goes for me.
Jeremy Larkin: It is actually feeding Jesse based on his political interests and narrative.
Jesse Paul: No wonder I see so much wrestling stuff.
Jeremy Larkin: Thank you. Now, listen. Everyone understands that already. You’re like, “Yeah, big deal.” But what it does is simultaneously throughout this, realize these are the executives at the very end in the credits, it’s all the outtakes. Every one of these guys is like [inaudible 00:09:59], we basically… These are executives on social media. We don’t let them on social. It plays an hypothetical, a dramatization of a family going through. And it shows how a kid’s views are shaped, who is a high school kid, who’s a healthy athlete with crushes and all the things that happen in high school. And how he gets swept into… I’m not going to give it away, swept into a political thing, shows up at a rally and gets arrested because he’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s very frightening. Now how much deeper does it go? Now you’re free.
Jesse Paul: Well, how many stories that we heard that are real? Somebody that’s in that same scenario. Happy, great kid, within months he’s going to prison.
Jeremy Larkin: You ought to see the most frightening part of it.
Jesse Paul: It goes deeper, and let me just answer your question now…
Jeremy Larkin: Suicide rates since 2009, 2009, anyone know what happened around 2009? The social media boom are out of control.
Jesse Paul: So the reason it goes deeper is, because it’s based on, let’s say you watch a video, the length you watch that video, it’s…
Jeremy Larkin: All of it.
Jesse Paul: It’s weighted. They’re listening to me. Every time I have a conversation or something, I open Facebook, there it is. Or Google, there it is. I didn’t search it. I talked about it with my phone in my pocket, but it was asleep. Or was it?
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah, exactly. No, let me tell you the best part, Jesse. What we thought it was though, there was a human listening. And here’s what these guys talked about, they said, “Well, that’s not really. The issue is it is just the algorithm, the artificial intelligence.” And so he said, kind of similar to these robot movies, it’s bigger than what they thought. And it’s basically has a mind of it’s own. And they said, “Can you bring this back?” They’re like, “I don’t know, man. We’re headed to dystopia.” It’s pretty scary.
Andy: The Pandora’s Box is open.
Jeremy Larkin: The social Dilemma, go watch it right now this weekend with your children. It’s incredible. And I tell this, it’s so fun because we use it for real estate. So what I can do as I go into real estate, so when I’m marketing your home, Jesse, one of the cool things we’re able to do, is we’re able to find sample target audiences, and take your property.
And if you’re saying to me, “I want to market my home to folks likely moving from cities that are falling apart.” We do that, and we can do that. And we can actually feed your property based on their likes, their interests. Now, Facebook came out about a year ago, this is the funny part, and they put some controls in place to protect people that are [inaudible 00:12:51], but the bottom line is these guys talked about it. These are brilliant, where they actually protecting them. So very cool.
Jesse Paul: Protecting themselves.
Jeremy Larkin: Protecting themselves. So what happened is, there’s basically no monetary incentive for this beast to get tamed. And so it’s funny, because I was watching our viewers went down as I was talking about it on Facebook. That’s hilarious. Is that coincidence, or did people bail? Because they’re like, “Ugh.” Now, I shared how long ago, Jesse, by the way…
Jesse Paul: They don’t want to see our faces. Oh, the longer I watch…
Jeremy Larkin: Jeremy Larkin here, host of the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive. I’m actually feeding this today, by the way, from my personal Facebook page, which is not a monetized page. So I mean, it’ll feed in the ways it feeds, but it’s not being monetized in a way that’s going to show up if I were paying advertising dollars for it. We feed this on my personal page, this real estate show because that’s where most of my connections are, and that we share it later to our Larkin group page, which is facebook.com/st. George experts.
Look, the world is weird. And what we realized, and this is the setup that I wanted to go with, this social dilemma, is that it’s actually changing tastes of buyers. And what we realize is… By the way, yes, they can affect the election. Side note, watch this documentary and you’ll understand.
And if they can affect an election, they can also affect buyer tastes, people’s views, people’s perceptions. So, Jesse, one of the things that you and I talked about earlier this morning, we talked about the real estate market. He called and said, “What are we talking about on the show?” And we noticed that a lot of markets are booming, but it seems like a lot of our friends outside of Washington County are more afraid of a bubble.
Jesse Paul: More than a bubble, they’re afraid of what’s going to happen when the mortgage forbearance’s come to fruition. What is going to happen with them? Are they going to foreclose, are they going to be able to catch up? Because right now, they’re being held by legislation. They can’t foreclose. They have to work with them.
Jeremy Larkin: Correct.
Jesse Paul: So there’s, I believe the number was 30% of the mortgages in the United States are in forbearance, or in some kind of forbearance.
Jeremy Larkin: So here’s forbearance. Forbearance is, I’m in foreclosure, but the bank because of mitigating circumstances, like COVID says, “Eh, we feel pretty bad. So we’re going to kick the can down the road.” Now I just shared my screen guys, if you’re watching us on Facebook live. We’re going to talk about, let’s talk about the data. So Jesse, you’re exactly right.
And what we don’t know… Remember how I said, I’m asking if Jesse’s a Democrat and I’m a Republican. I’m like, “Doesn’t he see the data I’m seeing?” So we’ll take this to real estate…
Jesse Paul: But [inaudible 00:15:41], I don’t either.
Jeremy Larkin: But if you move this over to real estate, the market looks really good, but we actually don’t know. We actually don’t know how many people are truly in forbearance. And we’re doing that, we’re researching that with Chantry Abbott, who’s one of our show sponsors. Chantry is with Guild Mortgage. I’m hoping next week or two weeks from now, he’s going to be on, we’re going to talk about how many… What percentage are in forbearance. So, Jesse, look at this. Lot sales, and lot sales in Washington County, 2019 to 2020. Well, that’s interesting. I just heard us. That was awesome.
Andy: Yes. I just put you on full screen so I can read your chart.
Jeremy Larkin: Beautiful. Thank you. So if you look at this guys, there were 118 lot sales in September of 2019. Guess how many building lots sold in 2020? How many, Jesse?
Jesse Paul: 2245.
Jeremy Larkin: Twice as many building lots sold. First question. Jeremy, it seems like everything is… There’s a ton of new construction. Is that correct? Answer, yes.
Jesse Paul: Well, just go back to what you were just talking about [inaudible 00:16:49]. That’s a ton of activity coming up in the next year.
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah.
Jesse Paul: Wow.
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah. I want to skip down. I want to skip down. New dwellings, Jesse. Couple of slides down. New dwellings, which is any sort of a dwelling, single family home, condo, townhome, anything that you can live in. 155 went up last year this month. This year?
Jesse Paul: 222 this year.
Jeremy Larkin: 222 versus 155 this month last year. Okay. We’re at 1,635 dwellings through September, last year we had 1988. We will crush the number of new dwellings. Question. It seems like a lot of people are moving to St. George. Answer, they are.
Jesse Paul: And going back to what we were talking about earlier, that’s why we need to get the data, because here in St. George… I mean Washington County, 50% of our sales are actually cash.
Jeremy Larkin: Guys, 50% of our home sales are cash. Good morning, April. You’re welcome for the info on Facebook live. Thank you for being on. We’re watching our beautiful face. You know everyone says our ugly mug, that kind of stuff. Nope. Thanks for watching our beautiful faces, Jesse. There you go. Go ahead, man. What you got?
Jesse Paul: So I also wanted to point out, and you and I talked about this earlier, is it an intense market? Yes. So 60% more homes sold last month, September than last year.
Jeremy Larkin: About a year ago in the same month.
Jesse Paul: But here’s one of the challenges in why it’s so intense. We were 3% down in new listings. So if you’ve got 60% more sales and 3% less in new listings, it’s going to make sense that it’s going to be intense. And it’s going to make sense that a lot of those buyers are actually going to go to new construction, because there’s nothing.
Are there other homes on the market? Yeah, but they’re either grossly overpriced, or just they don’t fit with the buyers that are in the market, but really they’re just overpriced.
Jeremy Larkin: Right.
Jesse Paul: Homes overpriced, even in the craziest market ever, it will just sit.
Jeremy Larkin: This is exactly right.
Jesse Paul: 30% are still not selling.
Jeremy Larkin: Let me move down here. Okay. Well, I’m just rolling. And if you’re watching us on Facebook live, Jesse, you’re always right. Listen, on behalf of your wife, you’re always right. Just kidding. If she ever hears this she’ll know that’s 100% not accurate.
Jesse Paul: I paid you.
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah. Well, of course you did. This is the crazy part. Okay.
Jesse Paul: All right. Tell us the crazy part.
Jeremy Larkin: How many sales, sales of property were there last year in September?
Jesse Paul: 715.
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah. 1,168 in September of 2020, guys.
Jesse Paul: And that’s what I was talking about, the 60%, that’s that number.
Jeremy Larkin: Right. This is the actual number. Might I remind you of something if you’re watching our show right now, I don’t know if you didn’t know, but there was a global pandemic that started in March. The entire economy was shut down, like actually shut down for 60 days. In California and other places, you still can’t sit down in a restaurant. Could I remind you that about 60 days into the pandemic, a national, basically a civil war started around race. Might I remind you that we’re in the most toxic political environment and election year ever. Do you understand why I’m emphasizing this, right, Andy? This should not be happening, this real estate market. This shouldn’t even be happening.
Jesse Paul: It shouldn’t, but it is.
Jeremy Larkin: This is crazy. My only claim to fame on my whole entire life was that I was biggest comedian, 1993, Dixie High School. My second biggest claim to fame, did you guys know that?
Jesse Paul: That’s cool.
Jeremy Larkin: [inaudible 00:00:20:45]. I mean, I didn’t do stand up, but I guess people thought I liked to joke around.
Jesse Paul: I can’t see why they’d think that.
Jeremy Larkin: Number two was when I predicted at the end of April, 2020, that this was actually going to cause our market to blow up and our market was in complete tatters at the time. Listen, if I die today, those were my two things. Biggest comedian ’93, Dixie High, thank you.
Jesse Paul: And you called this.
Jeremy Larkin: And I called this.
Andy: What about your kids, Jeremy? Come on now.
Jeremy Larkin: No, but I’m talking about claim to fame. My kids are incredible.
Andy: You’re their dad, wasn’t that…
Jeremy Larkin: I think they’re incredible. They’re incredible. But these are my two claim to fame moments.
Jesse Paul: One of these days you’re going to say, “Man, my claim to fame… That Eli, I can’t believe he did it.”
Jeremy Larkin: That guy is going to be a billionaire. So I could talk about that all day long, Andy. Thank you for the correction. [inaudible] So check this crap out, guys. We’re projected to have 11,000 sales in 2020, and they were just 8,096 in 2019. So when we ask the question, where did all the foreclosures go? Well, the issue is this, guys. It’s hard to have foreclosures… Zoom this down a little bit. It’s tough to have foreclosures when everyone has equity, and the people who would be in foreclosure could sell their house in 72 hours if they wanted to for the right price. Now, let’s back up, if you are someone in foreclosure, you got options. And the first thing I would recommend is you get on the phone… Here’s why you’d be in foreclosure, risk of foreclosure.
If, because of COVID because of any other circumstance, health issues, any crisis, you can’t make your payment, get on the phone with your bank. They’re probably going to put you in a forbearance program if you want to be in it, which is, “Hey, we’re going to kick the can down the road. We’re not going to run you through 180 day foreclosure cycle.” That’s number one. Number two, if you’re saying, “I don’t really want to be in the house anyway, I just want out of it.” Call us. We can if you want, make you an instant cash offer, you don’t have to clean it up. You don’t have to repair it. You don’t have to stage it. You don’t have to show it. If we, also at the same time, we’ll say, “Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Home owner, or Mr. and Mr, or Mrs. and Mrs.” Let’s all the PC today.
“Here’s what your home could sell for on the open market, but here’s what’s going to require to get it ready. Here’s what it’s going to look like to show it.” So we’ll give you a couple of options. So call your bank first. If you don’t want the house, then let’s talk. But it’s tough for there to be foreclosures when everybody wants a home. I was talking to Steve Kemp, commercial guy in town, one of my good buddies, in the building, we’re in the same building. [Vantage] financial and commercial real estate broker, great guy. He said, “I had a guy call me yesterday or last week.” I don’t know what he said, that guy called him, “Steve, I need to buy something. Do you have any commercial buildings? I just need to buy something up there right now.”
It’s that kind of stuff. But remember, it eerily feels like 13, 14 years ago. So we want to watch it. I’m going to give you the quote of the day, and it’s killing me. Seth Godin, Seth Godin, G-O-D-I-N. He may have gotten it from someone else, but the quote of the day is this, “History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.”
Andy: I like that.
Jeremy Larkin: [inaudible] share that with you. History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. This rhymes a lot. And here’s why it doesn’t repeat itself, because things are never going to be exactly the same, because things were always not the same as they were. Guys, visit Jesse at soldinstgeorge.com, soldinstgeorge.com. Right?
Jesse Paul: Yep.
Jeremy Larkin: Is that where they contact us? If they want to have a conversation about buying, selling, am I crazy to buy? Am I crazy to sell? And the last thing I’ll share is, we’re going to share Jesse… If he hasn’t, we’ll link this data for you. Thank you [inaudible] Mitch Larson for sharing it. Notice there’s a default. There’s basically no notice of default. There’s virtually zero foreclosures in Washington County right now. There have been 27 total foreclosures in the entire year of 2020, guys. Where did all the foreclosures go? Wasn’t it the famous song, ‘Where did all the Cowboys go?’ Was that the nineties hit? They went away because people want to move here. Jeremy Larkin, Jesse Paul, The Larkin group, KW Realty saying, over and out.
Real Estate Chaos: What do you do with 21 offers on your house?
Below is the actual S. 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.
Jeremy Larkin: Are recording. Morning guys, we’re not live on the radio yet, but we are live on Facebook.
Jesse Poll: Good morning.
Jeremy Larkin: A little social media platform you might’ve heard about? Let’s go ahead and share this over to the Larkin group. How about that? While we’re at it, the Parkin group. Now I hear you, you hear me? All those are great emojis. Yes. Wow, my emoji [inaudible] mainly because they were suggested to me. [crosstalk 00:00:50]. It was the mind blown, and a house, and a dollar sign flying. [inaudible] Facebook page. Anyway, good morning. Do you have got a four or five, six? Some of you guys say, “Hey,” give us a thumbs up or what are these, what are these, what are these? What are, you know? So raising the roof, I don’t know.
Jesse Poll: Raising the roof.
Jeremy Larkin: Good morning out there. [inaudible 00:01:17]. Good morning. Jeremy Larkin here, I really [inaudible] myself hosting St. George real estate morning drive, we’re having some plans this morning, because you don’t see what’s going on in studio, if you’re listening on the radio. But if you are listening on the radio 94.9 FM, 8:19 a.m.
Andy Griffin: [inaudible] KDXU.com.
Jeremy Larkin: Bingo KDXU.com, dot com.
Jesse Poll: Facebook, turn on Youtube large.
Andy Griffin: Everywhere, it is Ubiquitous.
Jeremy Larkin: I’m not on Al-Jazeera TV. See if I can get that done, right Andy?
Andy Griffin: I’m the principal.
Jesse Poll: Yes.
Andy Griffin: I guy calls me last night-
Jesse Poll: And you are not on Twitter.
Jeremy Larkin: No, I hate that, I hate that place. This microphone wants to be all over the place-
Andy Griffin: -kind of real Jeremy Larkin.
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah. Yeah. That was real Jeremy Larkin. Last night, I get a text message at eight 45. I’m with my children. I’m trying to be present with my children.
Andy Griffin: Sure.
Jeremy Larkin: Hey Jeremy, it’s so-and-so will you call me? Would be kind of client friend, family friend. This is how this guy rolls. I ignore it. I actually just ignored it, 8:45 PM. Part of his, they didn’t feel great just like sniffling and it just didn’t feel great. Then I go to sleep on time. I like actually on time, I was, and I was asleep at 9:55 PM.
Andy Griffin: Impressive.
Jeremy Larkin: At 9:59, “Hey Jeremy, will you call me tonight?” I get up this morning and I can see the text. And I said, “Hey, just got your text.” I call him at seven o’clock in the morning. It doesn’t answer. Hey, I’m going to be on the radio. This whole thing calls me back. I said, “Listen, I’m the radio at 8:30 and delivering kids to school, and the in between. Calls me about 7:55. I respond by text, call you at 8:15.
He calls me like 8:19 as I dropped the kids, as I was, I was in the clear, man he says, “You’re a busy guy. Does that tell you about our world right now?” Sends me a text at 8:45 PM about business and 8:00 AM the next day when he finally gets me he says, “Man, you’re a busy guy.” Let almost like he’d been trying to get me for days.
Andy Griffin: [inaudible 00:03:33].
Jeremy Larkin: I got news for you bro, 8:45 PM death 8:00 AM. They don’t exist, those hours didn’t even count. Is that annoying? I was annoyed by the way. He’s playing golf today in coyote Springs, down on your way to Vegas. He’s not listening to show. So I have no problem telling the story. I like it, I love the guy. But how aggravating-
Jesse Poll: But that’s our world. We live in a world and we’ve seen this happen, we’ve actually lost business because we didn’t get back to somebody within two hours.
Jeremy Larkin: Two hours talk to-
Jesse Poll: On a Sunday.
Jeremy Larkin: On a Sunday, thank you. There are two hours on weekday shift.
Jesse Poll: So we live in a world that it’s 24 hours service or it’s expected.
Jeremy Larkin: Oh my gosh man. White glove, red carpet. Jeremy Jeremy hosted the St. George’s losting morning driver having found this morning. He’s going to tell us about getting, don’t even say the number. What is the most offers that we remember ever getting out of home, the highest number?
Jesse Poll: I’m not sure, 15. I was going to ask Robert how many he had… I remember one time he got spread out.
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah, I’ve had, I’ve had a dozen for sure. Quite a few times back in the foreclosure days. Yeah. Jesse just teased them. And then we’re going to talk about the fact that there happened to be a presidential election two nights ago. How many offers did you get on one single St. George Hall, 21, one house. Now let the power of the pause sink in 21 written offers.
Andy Griffin: It was a short one. How did I win another 24 hours? I would have 30.
Jeremy Larkin: Yes, and this is true. Really, I haven’t gotten that in 24 hours, we would have had 30 off, 30 offers.
Andy Griffin: Does that mean it was under priced or does that mean that’s, that’s the market, right?
Jeremy Larkin: I love that question. We’re going to talk about it. However, two nights ago you may have been aware that Al Gore and somebody else, Romney ran for president. No, here’s the deal guys, Trump by 2020, it’s never going to end. And quite frankly, here’s what I have to say. This is what I would have said to the other side. Would you expect this? Somebody when you’re, when you lose a state by 20,000 votes, that someone’s not going to challenge that legally, of course, again, of course they are. Of course, they’re going to challenge that. See if you, if you get beat solidly, you’re like, “Yeah right. I can see it.” Nowhere they can see and no way as Trump can see because it’s Trump.
Andy Griffin: Right?
Jeremy Larkin: I never conceded. I honestly don’t think he ever wanted to be president in 2016. I think it was almost like when a high school kid streaks the baseball game on a dare.
Andy Griffin: I want to have it [inaudible]
Jeremy Larkin: You know what it mean? Twenty-four-seven now Don Willey, good morning my friend. I like Donald, he’s a cool dude. Don’t have a gift for you still, still in my possession for coming in and being on our webinar. It’s a cool gift, but isn’t it like, here daring the street, the high school game, but it did happen Dixie high school in 1993, a handful of my associates, they’re my friends, straight to game, the guy has a paper bag down at Don lay flyer field on seventh down. By the end of the paper bag was on his head just in case your paper bag on his head, how they got over that chain link fence don’t even ask. But it feels like Justin Robin says he knows who that was. It feels like this was a dare but then once, once Trump gets anything in his head, it’s like-
Andy Griffin: I got to win.
Jeremy Larkin: I’m going to win. So anyway, I don’t know what’s going to happen there, but we talked to-
Jesse Poll: Maybe be a month or two before we even know.
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah.
Andy Griffin: Hey, scary thought by the way, if, if the president hasn’t been decided by inauguration date, the speaker of the house assumes presidency until it has been disturbed.
Jeremy Larkin: That is Nancy Pelosi.
Andy Griffin: Nancy Pelosi.
Jeremy Larkin: That-
Jesse Poll: I told you [crosstalk 00:07:24].
Jeremy Larkin: I just got here. Yeah. I just got a chill down my spine, that’s not cool. Man he could be right Jesse. But we did say last week before we talk about [crosstalk] yeah, or we talked about 21 offers. Before we talk about 21 offers a tip that well, you can’t, you can’t tip it, I was just noticing it was almost tipped back.
Jesse Poll: Is it in your way?
Jeremy Larkin: No, no I was trying to get the right camera angle here from the side. I’ve got, I’ve got Jesse Paul here in the studio.
Jesse Poll: Oh, bring another book next week.
Jeremy Larkin: There you go, that’s perfect. Colleague of mine, great man, selling a lot of real estate for the Larkin group, and of course, Andy Griffin here at the studio.
Jesse Poll: It’s my fancy chin.
Jeremy Larkin: You have a beautiful chin, span as it’s very [crosstalk 00:08:06], three chisels man. So look, we talked last week about the presidential election that I really think it actually benefits Utah, st. George specifically come no matter how this thing falls. And if you didn’t hear it last week, I will tease it back out. We have a conservative community. What, what did Mayor Pike say? Do you think we’re like 70,` 80% registered Republicans, Andy in, in Washington County?
Andy Griffin: Yeah. It’s about 75%.
Jeremy Larkin: So conservative community. So, if you have a Republican win, it probably is good. It because people are like, “Okay,” Well we feel safe, right? If you don’t it might even be better because you have a lot of… here’s what I’ve been learning and what I’ve been on this. And this is why I think Texas and Arizona or swing States. We have a lot of people moving here because they want conservative values who are not conservative by Washington County standards, right? Right-
Andy Griffin: Rest of the world might think they’re concerned, not in here.
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah, and I think that’s how Arizona and Texas, by the way Arizona Texas were the number one, I think in Texas and Arizona, number one and two relocation spots for California and suddenly Arizona and Texas become battleground States. And they were never battleground States. They were always Republican States. Well, what happened? Did everybody start liking Biden now? Probably not.
Andy Griffin: No.
Jeremy Larkin: There has been a change, a turnover in the population errors or in addition. Were in addition, so there’s a lot of moderate folks that might even be considered liberal by Washington County standards saying, the, the, the, the, the last straw, the first straw was all of the things were happening in their state, in the first place. Then the riots, excuse me, then the shutdowns, then the riots. And if they didn’t get through those waves of moving out of California, if there is, if it, if indeed it goes away, it feels like it’s going right now. And there’s a Biden when they go, you know what? This just doesn’t feel like we could stay here at all. And I realized that’s a national, it’s a presidential election, but does this, does anyone make it, am I making sense, or am I just talking craziness right now? It becomes the last straw.
Jesse Poll: Well, I think it’s funny how much, how much is actually blamed on the president that whoever the purpose is that actually has nothing to do with them.
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah. I mean, because, because what we’re talking about is you really electing an entire system, right? Body of values, policies, political party. So I don’t know what’s going to happen here, but st. George is in honestly, a pretty good hands. Whether a lot of people out there thinks we’re not really, we have a great community. We have the greatest community in the world. I still think we’re the greatest country in the world. We are actually at the risk of sounding like one of these political speeches, the United States has done more for the rest of the planet than any country. By a hundred thousand times, the United States has done more for immigrants. By hundred thousand times, they have done more for the impoverished by a hundred thousand times, we’ve done more for civil Liberty, civil. Remember, we’re a racist country, according to everyone for civil liberties than any country by far remove rights. Yeah, absolutely. So just let that one sit out there. I’ll drop the mic, although it’s hanging from the thing and we won’t do that.
Jesse Poll: I just dropped a point.
Jeremy Larkin: I know I’ve, I’ve, I’ve soap boxed, Jesse-
Jesse Poll: Did you notice, I just sit back and be quiet.
Jeremy Larkin: What do we do with these 21 offers? I mean, this is a deal. Why don’t, why don’t we tell people where even where this home is like, and do we give him, should we give a street? Maybe not a street number, I don’t know how private we client wants it. I don’t know let’s just, let’s just go with the street in the area.
Jesse Poll: Okay. Just 27 90 East, it’s all behind, it’s over in South point bind-
Jeremy Larkin: Which is between, if you think about the 24 50 East coming down from desert and energy industries and the home of the theaters and Costco,
Jesse Poll: It really, it’s just an old, faithful, popular area. People love being there for the ninth graders.
Jeremy Larkin: Old faithful. He’s exactly right. Let me, let me describe a couple of those, that whole area between mall drive and 30, 50 East Bloomington Hills. like these are places with single family homes, the most typical home, and there’s a three bedroom, two bath, 1800 feet. That is old faithful as right now, just like, like money, just turn it on it just alone people. It’s just, yeah. It’s what we call in real estate, a family neighborhood. Now the funny part is you’re actually not supposed to say family neighborhood. That’s actually a violation of fair housing.
Andy Griffin: Oh really.
Jeremy Larkin: But if we want to talk about what that means, when I say family neighbor, what it means is, it’s a place where families typically with children go, does that make sense? We’re not talking to any race, any religious groups. It’s just like, I’ve got some kids, two kids, and I need to move somewhere. It’s not as if they’re not totally starter homes, but they’re definitely not dream homes, either.
Andy Griffin: Number two, number the home.
Jeremy Larkin: It’s got second home.
Jesse Poll: It’s the same concept-
Jeremy Larkin: Second home in how many homes you own not second home as you all know second home as a vacation.
Jesse Poll: Not the same concept is, for instance Andy, Brio is not a 55 plus community, but that is the demographic that they attract.
Jeremy Larkin: People think it is right.
Jesse Poll: Right. So, and-
Jeremy Larkin: It’s a, it’s a, it’s a bread and butter meat and potatoes old faithful. So Jesse, you get 21. What was the asking price on this? That’s all. [inaudible] What is the highest offer right now, if we can at least get in the range?
Jesse Poll: In these three 30 years [inaudible 00:13:40]. So I want to address something that-
Jeremy Larkin: By the way 10%-
Jesse Poll: … Andy asked.
Jeremy Larkin: … Over the asking price. So Andy asked the question, which was?
Jesse Poll: Did you on the question, and I actually asked the same question with Jerry and we looked at it Thursday. I said, “Man, am I adding pricing this?” We looked at it, actually not, because all of the comparables, so when, when this has to appraise, all of the comparables were in the two nineties.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Jesse Poll: So we priced it to be competitive and to be… So I have, I have a theory whether it’s right or wrong, I don’t care it works for me. A seller has two choices, they can price their home so that buyers come in and beat them about our price, which the buyers are thinking and negotiating logically or the seller can make a decision to price it so the buyers are buying emotionally. The buyer is competing for a home they will always hands down pay more for a home, then they could be buying it logically.
Jeremy Larkin: Don’t let me insert this because I’m getting some feedback here, is your microphone muted?
Jesse Poll: No.
Jeremy Larkin: Okay.
Jesse Poll: I’m mute yours and unmute mine.
Jeremy Larkin: I’m I’m, I’m not muted, that’s the echo.
Jesse Poll: Okay.
Jeremy Larkin: That’s the echo.
Jesse Poll: Sorry. I just muted mine.
Jeremy Larkin: Okay, perfect. Thank you.
Jesse Poll: So does that make sense?
Jeremy Larkin: So I love this, so here’s what he said.
Andy Griffin: [inaudible 00:15:02].
Jeremy Larkin: You said the seller has two options. They can compete, they can price the home and compete with who?
Jesse Poll: Themselves basically.
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah. Here’s, here’s what you think might help.
Jesse Poll: Help other people sell.
Jeremy Larkin: I mean, by that, so we have a house listed for 299 and now we have 21 offers and it’s got 30 grand over ish in that range. I can’t give an exact number. If you priced that home at 325 or 330 to begin with, you’re now competing almost with yourself. If you had an, an offer or two, or the other option is price it assertively, so now who’s competing with themselves? The buyers. How awesome is that? The buyers are competing. The sellers, honestly, the sellers over on the beach, sipping a Mai Tai, like this is fun. “Hey honey, did you see these guys? We got another offer.” Look at, they’re almost watching the buyers in a little like pig pen fighting with each other. How great is that?
Andy Griffin: No, we didn’t do the we had no idea that it was, that was going to happen. Okay.
Jesse Poll: And permission to talk.
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah. Not to this extent, but based on the comparable sales Price there was-
Jesse Poll: But based on the market, this is the kind of market we’re in. So if, and kudos to the seller too, cause she sent a month getting that house ready, like really getting it nice. So there is big money and strategy.
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah, they’re totally is. So does that answer your question a long way? Did we under-price it? No. Now here’s what the market will do. The market likes to just tell us what we need to know. So you really, you can’t, under price a home and you can not. under price a home and a boiling hot scolding hot sellers market.
My gosh. So what are the challenges now that you face? Because you know, we talk about, you can trade one set of problems for another. So you now have an interesting problem, which is what?
Jesse Poll: Well, the biggest challenge is appraisal, because unless you’re giving a cash offer and you’re going to a cash offer that doesn’t want an appraisal, you’re going to face. So you’ve got options. You can just roll the dice, or you can reach out to all of the top offers and say, “Hey, if this doesn’t appraise, you drove the price up. What are you willing to do?”
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah. And we’ve never in my history as a real estate guy, maybe in oh six, oh five or six, this was happening, but I kind of missed it. Like I got in and it was fizzling. Have we in Washington County seen the, we’re going to wave our appraisal wave appraisal, meaning, meaning, look, Andy, I just, I offered you way over the asking price in your home. If the home, if the appraisal doesn’t come in high enough, I’ll dig up some cash in my backyard or borrow it from my grandma. And the difference guys,
Jesse Poll: Because the seller can’t be left on the hook for that, they didn’t drive the we, we priced it fair. So why should they take all the risks?
Jeremy Larkin: How many square feet is at home?
Jesse Poll: Just under 1600, 1590. If that answers your question, right. And 1580. And we’re at that price.
Andy Griffin: That’s 200 a square foot.
Jeremy Larkin: Correct. Now here’s let me answer it, great question was asked how many square feet is it now. I will give you something to understand, what might happen for someone as they say 1600 feet. Okay, well my house is 3,200 feet.
Jesse Poll: Right.
Jeremy Larkin: So 3,200 times 200 rank.
Andy Griffin: Right, how many the scale. Let me, let me give you the best example rent today for that home is about 14 to $1,500. Double the home, it doesn’t go to $3,000, double it again it doesn’t go to six,
Jesse Poll: Right it probably goes to 2100 maybe 2200.
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah. At some point, the economies of scale kick in you just, you can’t keep doubling it. So Jeremy, I wonder what my house is worth right now. Don’t do, do not multiply that out, call us, and we’ll help you. That is, we really get that in every aspect except for our home. For some reason, we lose our brain when we’re talking about our houses.
Adjusting toxins, can we talk about the place where we live with our family and our finances? We just cannot think straight.
Jesse Poll: We don’t, we don’t believe… I didn’t even talked to my own family about farming to scale. And they know I’m in real estate. They know I worked with one of the best realtors in town. And maybe when I’m talking to them about it, it’s like, Ooh, over it.
Jeremy Larkin: You know, if I sell my iPhone on eBay, it’s just not emotional. I don’t go, “Oh my gosh,” caressing it. But, but do you understand? I took the photos of my children’s, the christening with that phone, but I took photos of my kid’s soccer game with that phone. And do we do that? No. We’re like it’s an iPhone. I got to get a new one. I want to get the 12, it’s not emotional, but the second we’re selling our home it’s now, but I raised my children and now they built that and side note. Let me tell you a story about man. It’s been a while now, maybe it’s been eight or nine years. I moved out of a home that I had largely raised my children largely from the top, by the way, from the time they were tiny and my daughter took, she, she was young, she’s eight 19 now.
Right? But she was like 11 then. She went out in the backyard with chalk and on the wall wrote by, by home, by house, goodbye house. We, we love you. You’ve been really fun. That was very emotional, right? Because it was, it was a place where I had watched those kids be tiny and then kind of grow up. So I understand that this is emotional for people now, what are these buyers do? We’re talking about. So if you’re a seller, let me just insert something. Literally right now we have 21 offers. Guess what? That means, we have 20 buyers, 20. This is, I remember the days when you’d go and talk to a, for sale by owner, they’d be like, “Do you have a buyer? You can bring through?” How about 20? I have 20 buyers with a written offer that can’t get this house.
Jesse Poll: If you specifically live in [crosstalk] somebody in the red class area, we call it red class between mile drive, 30, 15 East. We should be talking, but we should be talking if you want to sell home anywhere. But literally, literally that is visit us tongue dead, sold in st. george.com or just Google the Larkin group, the Parkin group. You find myself, Jeremy, Jesse, what did the buyers do? What do buyers do in this market?
Honestly, they need to go find it on the-
Jeremy Larkin: Open that [crosstalk] as a puzzle.
Andy Griffin: [inaudible]
Jesse Poll: So we’ve on our team, we have buyers, we’ll send out letters and I’ve been door knocking for clients.
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah.
Jesse Poll: Phone calls, talk to my-
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah guys we’re not afraid to do some pretty crazy stuff.
Jesse Poll: You have to do. You’re going to win, you have to do something different.
Jeremy Larkin: Here’s the deal, we will hire the guy in the yellow gorilla costume with a, with a big placard to dance on the corner and say, “Need home.” Okay, we haven’t done that, but people have done it. So direct mail, we will knock doors, we will call around the neighborhood to find you a home. Okay, but, but let’s pretend I can’t. What did these buyers do? What, what are the things they’re going to have to do to win this offer?
Jesse Poll: They’re probably going to have to put in a very competitive offer. What that looks like as possibly nonrefundable earnest money after due diligence.
Jeremy Larkin: What am I not [inaudible] money right off the bat. I mean, they could. By the way, Michelle and Jessica, one or both of, to come on our show next, next week, talk about this-
Jesse Poll: They could but but you better be really sure that that home is going to pass inspections, right? After due diligence makes sense. If you have the wherewithal, you can not necessarily waive the appraisal, but how much money could you come in with? In this market within two months? Let’s say you do $10,000. I’ll bet within two months, you’ve got that much more in equity or more.
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah, it’s crazy time.
Jesse Poll: So you’re not losing out. It’s just a matter of, do you want to move right now or do you want to keep fighting for the next year?
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah it’s a crazy time. And I want to, I want to wrap this up guys. We’re we’re going to be feeding 150 to 200 families on November 1st. Visit us please, so I need your help. Are you ready to nominate a family? That’s in need to receive a full Thanksgiving meal delivered to their home.
Andy Griffin: November 21st.
Jeremy Larkin: That’s why I said 21st. I think I said 21st. We’ll watch the video and find out, we deliver the entire, it’s a beautiful basket with everything they need to cook a Thanksgiving dinner except for the pie and the Turkey that you can get a gift card for that they’ll take to the grocery store and pick out their own Turkey and their own pie. They cook the home in their own home. This is not a soup line, a soup kitchen. We need you to visit st. George basket, brigade.org, st. George basket, brigade.dot org. Talking about st. George basket made.com. Isn’t it?
Andy Griffin: No.
Jeremy Larkin: Dot org. Okay. This, we changed it years ago.
Andy Griffin: [inaudible 00:24:34].
Jeremy Larkin: Guys nominate a family and you can nominate multiple families. It’s very simple, you can donate a feed of families, $50 to deliver this to entire family. I want to thank our title sponsor someone else. Sunwood home, listen guys. So, this is incredible. I want you to think about the Sun wood homes this year, you want to talk about amazing. Here’s what they’re doing, Sunwood is going to help us feed 50 families. Okay? I’m being sure Sun wood homes is going to help us feed 50 families we’re going to talk about some of our other sponsors next week. Our other donors, they’re going to help us feed 20 and 30 families.
Visit us at St. George basket brigade.org. It’s our favorite thing we do all year. And then the same week we are going to get, we’re going to give out about 200 pies to our Larkin group clients. So that’s going to be fun. It’s a lot, all in four days again, St. George basket, brigade.org, nominate a family. And if you’re thinking about selling, just look us up. Google, the Parkin group, let’s talk, have an amazing first week, real cold week of fall coming up over and out guys.
St. George Real Estate (Foreclosure) Halloween!
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.
Speaker 1: We are recording. Good morning guys. Hey, I hope you’re doing well. Hope everybody’s happy out there in the Facebook. Oh sphere. We are about to go live on 890. KDX actually 94.9 FM 890 am. I got six viewers, identify yourselves for crying out loud. Paul Stripe stop being in such voyeurs and tell us what the heck’s going on here. good morning, Paul. Good morning, Carrie. I see you’re on. I’ve done it all correct. I’m recording. I’m on Facebook live. We’re going to talk about good, bad and the ugly?
Speaker 2: In four minutes.
Speaker 1: Maybe about Four minutes. Here we go. When you tell the story, I wish we could get, good morning, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and germs. Isn’t that what they say? Boys and girls real estate fans from across the land. Jeremy Larkin here hosted the St. George real estate morning drive with my cohort. Jesse Paul.
Jessie: Good morning, everybody.
Speaker 1: And the illustrious Andrew Griffin, the Andy Griffith show.
Andrew Griffin: [inaudible] ask me to illustrate anything.
Speaker 1: Yes. Now here’s the dealio. I’m Jeremy Larkin host of course, st. George’s real estate morning drive. We have been playing with this technology for a long time, the last missing piece to, well, okay. There’s two last missing pieces. It would be to get the music into the live feet and there’s a way,
Jessie: There’s always away.
Speaker 1: And then the second would be getting the phone calls into… And I know it’s possible. We just haven’t gotten there yet. Okay. Yeah. In 1985 Doc and Marty, because I saw Marty lane this morning traveled back in time. I know we can figure this out, right? I know it’s possible, man. It’s 2020 incredible guys. We’re going to talk about the good, the bad and the ugly of selling real estate because it’s not what they show you on HD. Well, the HDTV real estate is more like the bold and the beautiful, good grief. Not real good morning, Jessica. Good morning, everybody. Andy, it felt so like fall today that I threw a foil on a lawn. You might want that. This feels so good out there. It must be 85 though today. Right? So this weekend is the… You’re going to see a whole bunch of mountain bikes in town. The Utah high school mountain bike association is hosting the state championship races I’m taking Jesse out Saturday. I’m going to, Jesse is actually going to, he’s going to be a walk on.
Jessie: I’ve never truly written the mountain bike but-
Speaker 1: And I’m taking him out on a bike ride Saturday and we’re going to go to the races and the best part Andy has. He said, do you have a what’d you call it? What kind of seat do you have a grandpa seat? And I said, no, I don’t, dude. I’m just going to buy one just to have fun with it. So yeah, like with big giant Springs underneath it. Yeah. Let me tell you a story. So this is pretty funny today.
We’re going to share the good, bad and the ugly of like some of our highs and lows of selling real estate in Washington County. Today’s, 2020. Right? So 23, 22 years ago, I got one of my good friends who will go on named in a mountain biking. Now for those who are watching the program today who’ve ever gotten out and actually written the mountain bike. You find out that the old sit bones get a little tender for awhile.
Jessie: Why do you think I want to grandpa?
Speaker 1: Yeah. The issue is the issue of the grandpa’s seat is actually the opposite of what you need. The grandpa’s seat actually only helps once, but over time, it just chase the crap out of you. Oh yeah. Well, why do you think there’s not a single human who is actually a serious biker wearing on him, using your grandpa. See, have you ever done, ever done it?
Jessie: There you go. Because of the amount of shame that will be put on that first, when they’re seen in public
Speaker 1: About the time you add five pounds to your bike with a saddle, it’s not fun anymore. And by the way, five pounds is like adding a hundred. Okay? So we go out on this bike ride. His name is John. That’s all I’ll say he shows up. It’s like his third ride. It’s 1998. And he has to his bicycle seat, a piece of that like four inch foam that people take camping. It’s duct-taped around the saddle.
Speaker 5: I love it.
Jessie: I wonder if I can find that seat.
Speaker 1: He’s never lived it down ever.
Andrew Griffin: The rest of the story that wasn’t worth it, dude, was he happy with his choice?
Speaker 1: Probably that day. Hey, we have 15 people on this morning. I love it. And we got all of our listeners on eight 90 K TXU Jesse found that they think so look, the state high school, mountain bike championships. While Jesse pulls up, his grandpa’s seat is this weekend. I’m the head coach for Dixie high school. It’s going to be a lot of fun. It’s Friday and Saturday. And if you want to see the spectacle, it’s actually pretty cool. It’s at a desert canyons. It’s at a desert Canyon is out by the airport where all the homes are. You can’t miss it. because you get off the exit and it’ll just be a melee. So it’s to the North of that exit and it will be incredible. There’ll be thousands of people out there.
Andrew Griffin: And how long has the courses?
Speaker 1: Well, let me walk you through that.
Andrew Griffin: Okay.
Speaker 1: COVID. Let’s talk about COVID all. These guys just hate. They just want to kill people. When I said thousands have very strict mask policies. Now, if you think that’s absurd, then you’re in that camp. Yeah. Stay home. Or if you think it’s absurd that they should wear masks, but I’m letting those out there know, that the high school is they’re agro about it because here’s the way they see it. Hey, at least we got to have a season. Right?
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: Because anything that have a season, so pretty strong mask mandate out there. As a matter of fact, you can only come and go through Gates. They won’t let you in without a mask. And I’ve only seen one person really kick against the pricks on this thing, which was up in, I think it was in Cedar city. Boy, this guy threw a fit. Jesse, where’s your grandpa’s seat? And we’re going to talk about,
Jessie: Oh man it’s coming. I got it.
Speaker 1: Oh man, this is incredible. Okay.
Jessie: Hopefully-
Speaker 1: The show today is brought to you by couple of our friends, Guilt Mortgage Chantry Abbott, God, I love this guy Chantry was on with us last week,
Jessie: It was a really good show.
Speaker 1: The guy’s a genius. He’s a genius. Okay. We talked that we covered a lot of ground and we get a lot of perspective to people that they need to have about buying and selling real estate, this market. And thank you Chantry you can look him up Guild, mortgage, Ty and Pam. I shot my second home. vacay.com, Ty and Pam. They manage vacation rentals and the whole world wants a vacation rental. Somehow they want to be in the mix. I want you to talk my second home vacay.com. I always thought it was an odd website, but, but then you remember that my second home vacay.com.
Jessie: of course too, because how many people have second homes use them as vacation desks?
Speaker 1: Exactly. Right. Many numerous. And of course sunhome.com Would helps. My son would homes.com are now prime it up for our next phases. God, we’ve got stuff all over the place with someone else. So what they’re doing is they’ve tapped in and said, here’s what I’ve done. And they said, it’s really fun to build exciting, big luxury homes, but that’s actually not what the market needs. Right? So the real focus right now is identifying product that people can afford. My son would homes.com. Get on there, get on our list, just click on the contact form and say, I want to be on your list. Grandpa’s seat. Does anybody want to see this? Okay. Because we’re zooming.
I can share my screen. And then I’m going to talk about the day that I thought there was a dead body in the home, on Santa Clara Parkway. Okay. Well, I’m going to say, look, if that is not a Chinese ad soft padding premium quality and superior material, if you’re not watching us on Facebook live, you’re not seeing this thick foam padding. Yep. My buddy, John did the same thing, but it was called duct tape and a square of foam.
Jessie: And here’s the theory, the shape of that. It’s got wings. So it’s going to help me grind.
Speaker 1: Come on, man. This is an incredible moment. Folks. If you want to see this on Facebook, live facebook.com/Jeremy Larkin, facebook.com/Jeremy Larkin. You can join the fray. It’s the wild G oversize comfort bike seat, comfortable replacement bike saddle. Okay.
Jessie: Now we digress go back to your story.
Speaker 1: That reminds me of the China virus. All right. If you’re leaving the country, when Trump or Biden are elected, I want to remind you today. As we start, as we get into the real estate portion of her real estate show that we will help you move or leave the country. Well, we will be starting to see you leave, but I would love to earn a commission, selling your home, visit me. It’s sold in st. george.com sold in st. george.com. There’s a 100% chance that either Trump or Biden will be elected. So I repeat. If you need to leave the country, I’ve got you covered, sold in st. george.com. So
Andrew Griffin: You don’t think Kanye has a chance. This is what you’re saying.
Speaker 1: He’s probably a better replacement.
Andrew Griffin: It’d be on the ballot anyway, but yeah, you’re right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Honestly, he may do better. I don’t know. We’ve had a couple of good candidates and it’s not popular in this state to even talk about some of them, by the way, but I’m going to say it anyway. Mitt Romney was actually one of the best candidates we ever had. I don’t care. The people in Utah decided to hate it. I don’t, by the way, I don’t love him. I said, he’d be a good candidate.
Andrew Griffin: He was.
Speaker 1: And the reason conservatives hate him is he’s quite moderate. Yeah. And you cannot survive. This is my little political ramp. You can’t survive in the modern world. Is it hardcore, conservative or liberal? It just does. Does that make sense, Andy? And maintain peace. It does. I hate that. As a politician.
Andrew Griffin: Right. Well, Joe Biden is the most moderate of all the candidates they had.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Andrew Griffin: Unfortunately right now looks like he’s being controlled by all those-
Speaker 1: Davis Puppet.
So by the way, guys, I didn’t say who I’m voting for anything else I’m simply saying, but in this world you have to be pretty moderate to survive because it’s so polar, Marianne Williamson is a client, but a candidate, most people never even knew about. She’s incredible. She’s an author. And she would have been outstanding 2016.
Jessie: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: All right. So here’s the deal, whatever it doesn’t matter. And by the way, I’m a conservative person. So I want to make that disclaimer, it’s just that I realize you won’t win any election in this country. Look at Trump. He’s not conservative at all. That’s why a lot of the conservatives hate him. Right. But it’s how he got elected. So here’s the dealio in 2011, it was a cold December date. This is actually not a joke. It was a cold December day.
I got an email from Fannie Mae government sponsored entity. That’s what they call them a GSC. And the email said Asset number, and it would have been something like this,D3X514 remember those Jessie.
Jessie: Yap.
Speaker 1: What that would have meant is Fannie Mae sent me a property that was in foreclosure. Then I needed to go inspect to find out. Was there someone living in it? Was there someone squatting in it? Is it empty? Is it damaged? I needed to put a notice on the window that that was called the know your options flyer, and then know your options is your options. And here’s what it says, dear Andrew, it’s not quite that nice. This home has been foreclosed. This is the nutshell on it. It’s Homes man for closed. And here’s your options. Right? One of our representatives who’s listed below on my name and everything would be on the bottom with Keller Williams Realty, Jeremy Larkin, he’s represented.
He’s going to chat with you about your options, but you’re going to have some options and we won’t throw you out tomorrow. It’s not possible for us to throw you out tomorrow. There’s eviction laws in place and we’re going to work through it. And we’re going to offer you some money in a week. Okay? So I get to the house. It’s Santa Clara Parkway, right? And I’m like, man, this looks pretty bad. It’s like a 1600 square foot, all brick, 1985. I just remember getting, and I show up and by the way, this was like Christmas going to these houses. Now, before lest you think I’m saying that because I wanted people to be foreclosed. That’s not what I said. And people were just being foreclosed by the thousands. Right? It’s just, it was like Christmas. because you didn’t know what you’re going to find when you showed up.
So our job is to go work with them and the reason we were good at it and truthfully I was good at it is I was able to go and speak with just about anybody, including all the Spanish speakers and be compassionate because I’m a local guy. Wasn’t something like him. She went and hired and say, look, man, let’s help you figure out what to do now. Right? So I get there. There’s clearly no one there. And it’s real cryptic looking. So I go in the back, the man door, which is your side door to your garage. And I go in the garage and guys, I kid you not.
It’s like three feet, like almost waist, deep of stuff in the garage. And the strangest thing is there were like 500 Halloween wigs. I’m like, why are there all these Halloween wigs here? I don’t understand in packages from spirit, Halloween really weird. I think somebody robbed the place. So I opened the door from the garage into the kitchen and all I see across the entire kitchen floor. And guys, when I say I stopped, when you’re walking at night and you get a chill down the back because you think someone’s behind you. I stopped. And the chill went down my body and all I saw was black dried blood across the entire kitchen floor. I’m going to let the power of the pause sink in on that one for a minute
Andrew Griffin: Bloody floor. Okay.
Speaker 1: I’m freaking out, man.
Andrew Griffin: I don’t blame you and wigs and blood that’ll do it.
Speaker 1: I like, I’m going everything about this doesn’t seem good. What I mean? I’m like this seems bad. And I think of me frozen in stepping. Right. And I look around, I look around and I back out, that’s what it is. I instantly ran back out of the house. So like physically ran, like ran out the back door. I’m breathing hard and bring the heart. I walk around the house. I walk around and I’m out. I might have called somebody, I might have called the office and said, Tamra, I don’t know what the crap is going on down here. But there’s dry blood all over the floor. I think I called her. She’s like really doing, send someone out. And I said, I don’t know and so I stammered and paced around and I finally went back in and what I discovered in this house is that the freezer had meat in it.
And they had walked out. When I walked in guys, there was mattresses was sheets and stuff on them, on the floor. Like they’d gotten out of bed that day and just ran out of the house to avoid authorities or something. It was that kind of house. Clearly. It’s what had happened. Actually. There’s no question. It’s what happened. And the meat in the freezer had defrosted and just bled all over the floor. The good, the bad and the ugly guys selling real estate is not super glamorous. Okay. I’ve been screamed at, in those deals. I’ve been yelled at. I’ve been threatened. Go ahead. Any,
Andrew Griffin: [inaudible 00:15:01]How did it smell
Speaker 1: It was horrible. I walked in, there was still there’s another time right here off the diagonal. There’s one little block. If you go down black flag diagonal, there’s a block. That’s probably like 400 West. All of you St. George people. And I want to have Jesse tell us it’s good, bad. And the ugly. This is the ugly. I’ll tell you two more. So, and this is fun. I’m Jeremy Larkin hosted the St. George real estate morning drive. People just want to hear something fun for once, right? There’s one little block. That’s like a shape of a pizza. It’s a pie. And all that’s on the block is like four homes because that’s all that because you don’t have diagonal keeps going up and then the blocks are cutting against it. If you saw it, you mean it’s a little pizza pie block.
And all of a sudden it was a duplex and three other homes. That’s all the fit on the little pizza type. I go up there to the duplex and I kind of peered in the windows and it’s completely vacant. Fannie Mae, same thing, foreclosure assignment. But when I say period, I just it’s a glance. When I opened the door, the entire room is literally moving like the rooms moving. And before I can open the door to think of this in a second, like one second, I cracked the door open by the time three seconds. And the door swung open all of the tens of thousands of roaches, the whole Chromebook. I kill this movie and I go,
Oh my gosh. And where did they disappear to? Was so weird. They just disappeared under the Bay. It was like a laminate floor. And they’d gone into the baseboards. I don’t know. They squeezed through and in drawers and stuff.
Jessie: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so we had to tent the whole entire thing, like the circus tent. Oh yeah. And then the last one was there. I could tell hundreds of these hundreds. I can tell 30 or 40 of these because I went down to, Oh my gosh, Sun land drive. So I’m down on Sun land drive four 44 South Southern drive. One of those town homes called hilarious that I can not remember, but I’ve sold so many of those. And we walked in one day and it was my kids. So my boys are now 14 and 15, my youngest, they used to go to these houses with me a decade ago. And the funny part was they reflect five and six.
And what would they say, dad? We should buy this house to every piece of junk council because they were just kids. And we walked in one of those and there, people just walked out. Like I said, and a dog had been in there a little tiny dog and it had just pooped everywhere. I mean everywhere. And honestly you had to leave if kids were going to vomit. Yeah.
Jessie: The villages.
Speaker 1: The villages. Thank you.
What’d you tell me a positive story. This is fun. I hope some people are entertained. If anyone’s watching a Facebook live. Tell me, please. If anyone’s Getting entertained. There’s Some weird stuff out there, poop roaches in blood. How can you not?
Jessie: I don’t have anything like that. I just have either personal devastation or fun.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the silly woman that we talked about before we started.
Jessie: So my very first home it’s 2012. I just got my license. I’m so excited. And I had this client that had a severely handicapped child. And so there’s five or six of us going through this house and she’s trying to help him. We’re getting ready to go out. And I got through and I lock all the doors and somehow one of them was behind me opening doors. And this was important. And so I left there got done.
Speaker 1: Hey the city formerly known Portland.
Jessie: Right. And my wife and I would go to seaside every Monday, every two weeks, I get almost a seaside and I get a phone call at this.
I rate the agent because the door was locked.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The agent of the seller.
Jessie: Oh my gosh. I thought for sure they were going to call the police on me. I didn’t know what was going to happen.
Speaker 1: They were that angry I could never, that ain’t about a door being left. Open.
Jessie: Yep. On a bacon home. My but I was just devastated couldn’t.
Speaker 1: His heart is so soft that he left the door.
Jessie: I was going to turn around and go back but-
Speaker 1: Wait for a vacant house door open.
Jessie: Yeah. It’s not a realized. I mean, it’s not like st. George. It’s not like you can leave something open and it’s going to be safe for 24 hours.
Speaker 1: Until about May 15th. It was really safe up there. Keep going.
Jessie: Maybe I’m going to keep it on all jabs. I can out there maybe anyways. So it was just the worst feeling in real estate I’ve ever had because I just screwed up.
Speaker 1: Oh man.
Jessie: The finest was my second showing. It was this young couple, two little boys, just the cutest thing ever. We go into this house and the mom and dad, there’s this huge bed. And they’ve got stairs up to them before we could even catch him this little two-year-olds pop up, pop up on the bed and he’s just jumping.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
Jessie: Oh, it was great.
Speaker 1: He’s moved in.
Jessie: He’s moved in. Oh, it was so fun. But now we’re trying to make the bed.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
Jessie: No.
Speaker 1: Hey, listen. You ever had a showing.
Andrew Griffin: I have.
Speaker 1: Where you walked in and the owner was asleep in a bed.
Andrew Griffin: Oh no.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Schedule a showing cleared with the agent. By the way, I didn’t mean it in the bed doing something. They should you walk in and you’re all, and there’s a person asleep in the bed. I got to get out of here.
Jessie: I actually showed two weeks ago. We, same thing. We made the restaurant reservation. We made a reservation. So we show up and clarity. They were there. It was rented. But all we’re going through the house and all that. All these people just keep coming out of the bedrooms. Five or six of them is getting out of bed. Oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Almost like-
Jessie: [crosstalk] was a bunch of single guys. So it was like, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I’m telling you that is awkward. And that’s like four or five times.
Jessie: I said, there’s your cue? Why this isn’t solved? Well, yeah, we, we got out of there quick.
Speaker 1: The sellers I don’t know. Look, I can show the house Wednesdays from one to 2:00 AM and I have tenants renting all the rooms. Is there a proposal problem?
Jessie: No.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go.
Andrew Griffin: I got one. We went to look at it,
Jessie: About 150,000 dollars.
Andrew Griffin: We went to look at a house over kind of behind Paul Mitchell over there to the copper river road. And we made an appointment, went in sort of with the realtor to go see the house. And a lady was… As we got there, the owner was walking us. Like, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be here. And as she’s getting into her car, she says, Oh, I’m not sure where my son is. And we were like, okay.
So we go in and walk through the house and see it. They really big, they cleaned it up. Nice. It was presented well, got to the master bathroom. And it was locked. We opened the door in the nothing, the light was off. It looked like. And so we were like, all right, maybe, maybe there’s someone in there. Maybe not. So we kind of jiggled the handle, nothing. So he starts to get one of those little the master bathroom. They use a little paperclip to get it open. And just as he’s starting to open it, this boy who was about a 19, 20 year old boy pulls the door open. And first of all, he had just done his business there. And it’s so it’s sounding like something had died.
Speaker 1: Oh, you mean like the houseboat bathroom last weekend for me anyway.
Andrew Griffin: And he’s wearing a Speedo and he’s on his way to they have an indoor pool in this house. He’s on his way to go in the pool in his Speedo. And of course he didn’t know who he was,
Speaker 1: The levels of awkwardness at this moment. Oh honestly, it’s like a Ben Stiller movie, just playing out all over the place. I’m currently uncomfortable listening to you. Tell that story.
Andrew Griffin: Kevin Wilkinson was our real-
Speaker 1: bless his heart. He was a good dude.
Andrew Griffin: He was of course, mortified too as well. The whole thing was very awkward and we of course did not. Okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it was tainted. If you get sick after eating some sort of food, right? Carl Paulson asked if this is a Halloween show, why yes. Yes it is.
Andrew Griffin: We should have brought one of your wigs.
Speaker 1: Andy, what have we got for time pile? I love my wigs.
Andrew Griffin: You were about to about a minute and a half left.
Speaker 1: The first time I ever sold in real estate, I’m going to wrap up with this in 2005, I got my real estate license. I have no idea what it was doing, which is telling, because people, by the way, your new agents don’t have any idea. What they’re doing. That was 1300 sales ago. My dad, we went out in the market was so crazy that we bought a house in green Springs. It was on the golf, beautiful home with no, it wasn’t like a distressed sale or anything.
I got a commission helping him buy the house in August. We turned around and put it on the market the next week. And we sold the house. I got two commissions and I think he made like 20 grand. Wow. And I thought as all agents.
Andrew Griffin: That is pretty easy,
Speaker 1: Easiest business ever, I came to find out is the hardest, easy business ever new world. The attrition rate is insane. Guys, look as we’d have to show up today, Jesse, thanks for you. It was Halloween show guys. If you didn’t watch this, watch the replay. I assure your entertainment. I even made a few political jabs selling real estate is fun. Selling real estate is ugly. It’s good. It’s bad. It’s ugly. It can be really rewarding if you need our help. And we hope you’ll reach for our help right now, especially in a market where it’s tough to find a home where you’re like my overpricing, my home. Can I overprice my home, but are prices ever going to fall? We want to talk to you. Visit us@soldinsaintgeorge.com sold in St. George’s dot com and enjoy winter on next Monday, right over now guys.
The Social Dilemma, how Social Media actually affects the Real Estate Market
Below is the actual S. 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.
Jeremy Larkin: What’s up Facebook live friends. Good morning. Guys, you can’t hear the ad that we’re listening to, which is why I’m kind of shaking my hips. Hips don’t lie, and neither do either do the numbers. We’re having some fun today in the Cherry Creek Radio Studios. North Bluff Street. We’re about to go live.
Ad Audio: Get our free mobile app on your smartphone or tablet and listen anywhere. Download it for free at Google Play or the App Store. Search KDXU and enjoy.
Jeremy Larkin: Of course. We’re solid.
Good morning ladies and gentlemen, ladies and germs, as they say, boys and girls, real estate fans. Hey St. George residents, nearby residents, former residents, and want to be residents. Hey, Jeremy Larkin here, host of the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive, live from the Cherry Creek Radio Studios here on North Bluff Street. High on the Bluff, high on what we call The black Hill. Jesse Paul in the studio with me. Good morning.
Andy: Good morning, everybody. I don’t think this is on. There he is.
Jeremy Larkin: And the mic is off again. Just learnt something. That mic was on until we went live and then it was off.
Andy: Really? It turned itself off. That is bizarre.
Jeremy Larkin: It was actually off.
Andy: Because we actually made sure before you came in the red button was on. Yeah.
Jeremy Larkin: Correct. Odd. So I don’t know, but Jesse’s here. There we go. We’re learning every week, aren’t we? If you could see our setup, it’s quite a setup with all the radio equipment, plus the radio computer, plus two laptops. And the laptops, of course, here’s the best part. Jesse has his laptop stacked up on the Windows NT Server 4 Fifth Edition, essentially a textbook. Why that is in this studio is an incredible mystery.
Andy: [inaudible 00:02:04].
Jesse Paul: Now I don’t know, but it’s an incredible computer. Yes.
Jeremy Larkin: It’s the Windows NT Server 4 Fifth Edition’s textbook, as well as the study guide. Two books.
Jesse Paul: And they’re literally four inches thick each.
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah. Well, well, one is.
Jesse Paul: Okay, three and four.
Andy: And Jeremy, I have a quick anecdote for you. So they’ve delivered a phone book to my front porch yesterday. My wife picked it up and put it on the counter. My 16 year old daughter walked in and she goes, “What is that?”
Jeremy Larkin: You’re kidding me.
Andy: She had no idea what it was.
Jeremy Larkin: Of course, she didn’t, which does bring me to this…
Jesse Paul: Does everybody throw their phone… Because we get one every year. Does everybody just throw them away?
Jeremy Larkin: Recycling. I mean, geez. Do you hate the planet? So here’s the deal, which…
Jesse Paul: I have all of them.
Jeremy Larkin: For what reason?
Jesse Paul: Who knows.
Jeremy Larkin: [crosstalk] Do you mean in all the clutter that’s already in your house, you have phone books?
Jesse Paul: It’s to stack computers on them.
Jeremy Larkin: Okay. I think you should get rid of them. Mine goes straight, literally…
Jesse Paul: My [inaudible] desk is at the office. What I have for home is….
Jeremy Larkin: Oh, you use phone books.
Jesse Paul: … The phone book.
Jeremy Larkin: Okay. Yeah. Mine go straight to recycling. Which, hey, if you want to share that anecdote, thank you for the setup, because although we scripted this…
Andy: We’re kind of on the same wavelength here.
Jeremy Larkin: We are man. 48 hours ago, I’m over at our Desert Flower model and our show, segue, is brought to you by Sunwood Homes. My goodness folks, if I could tell you the exciting things we have on. So, and we’re going to come back to phone books. Brought to you by Sunwood Homes. You can visit them at mysunwoodhomes.com. Most of this is not on their website, so you need to listen right now. Everybody says, “I want affordable home, I want a single family home, I want a starter home.” We are completely sold and reserved out at Desert Flower, 40 lots.
Jesse Paul: Wow. That was fast.
Jeremy Larkin: We’re in the process of phase two, basically 40 more. And in the process of, along with phase two, town homes, a whole two story, three bed, 2.5 bath, 17, 1800 square foot town home project, as well as two, maybe even three more projects in the Hurricane Valley, a whole bunch of stuff coming right now with Sunwood Homes.
So what I encourage you to do is visit mysunwoodhomes.com or come see me at the model. I’ll actually be there today, and let’s get you on the wait list because people will… There’s always people who bail out. I’m there. Some of our great clients from Brookwood, also by Sunwood Homes, they come cruising in because they were just out driving around, fiddling around, and they’d love to come in and say, hey.
I said, what are you guys doing? Are you having a design meeting here? “Now we just wanted to come say, hey and get a diet Coke out of the fridge.” And we started, somehow phone books come up, and of course, our client is not a teenager. She’s probably, man I don’t know, I mean, their in their sixties. She said, “I love the phone book. I use it all the time.” And I thought that was incredible. You know, like really? Wow.
Jesse Paul: To be honest, that’s my era too, but I do not use the phone book. I’m a Google guy. If I want a phone number, I Google it.
Jeremy Larkin: Now can you believe this? Here’s the funny part about being live on the radio. I get a text from Kayla, “Please call me about the email I’m forwarding.” Now she’s off to Bryce Canyon today on vacation and I’m going to be at the model. Should we send this to her instead? She’s going to get a selfie from the radio station…
Jesse Paul: Letting her know, “Hey, I’m on top of it.”
Jeremy Larkin: We’re trying to run a business here. Okay, Jesse?
Jesse Paul: Yes.
Jeremy Larkin: The social dilemma right now. Anybody who is on Facebook, you’ve got to chime in guys. If you’re on Facebook, please give us thumbs up, please, please, please. Guys, here’s how Facebook works. You ready? This is fun. We’re going to talk about The Social Dilemma. Have you heard of the Netflix documentary the Social Dilemma?
Andy: I’ve heard of it. I haven’t seen it.
Jeremy Larkin: When is the next time that you can sit down with your teenagers for 90 minutes and watch documentary? Sunday?
Andy: Yeah, probably. Yeah.
Jeremy Larkin: I’m imploring you to do this.
Andy: The dilemma is the name of it?
Jeremy Larkin: The Social Dilemma.
Andy: The Social Dilemma.
Jeremy Larkin: Trust me, you’ll like it.
Andy: I’m going to write it down right here.
Jeremy Larkin: Okay. And by the way, I didn’t cancel Netflix with the whole thing that happened last month. It’s another conversation. I don’t watch much Netflix, but… Okay, here’s how this works guys. When you comment or give us a good morning or a thumbs up, you actually create, of course, this feeds into more locations.
This feeds to your friends and says, “Hey, Jessica Marone…” Lovely Jessica Marone, good morning. One of the best real estate agents on the planet on our team, she says, “Good morning.” And this now suggests to her friends, “Hey, you should watch this live video.” The Social Dilemma. Okay. It is a whole bunch… And here’s the funny part about it. It wasn’t like this expose where you’re sitting there and you’re like, “We’re going to tell you the dirty secret.” It was actually a bunch of original executives from Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, I’m talking to the big ones. I’m talking chief marketing officers, chief monetization officers, presidents of the company, early investors saying, look, “We built these things with good intentions, but here’s what happened. We used AI…” Okay. And by the way, Trevor, good morning, we use AI in real estate.
So remember Terminator? “I’ll get back.” Our fear was that AI would create robots that would take all of our jobs. Okay? So the greatest quote in the whole movie he says, “Our fear was that it would take over…” What was the word? “… Human strength, actually, AI has taken over human weakness.” And here’s why, the AI simply says this, they created algorithms in all these places, right? All these places to… The algorithm is an entity unto itself. So AI isn’t really going to… Robots aren’t taking our jobs over. This isn’t a Will Smith movie. Has anyone seen really robots walking around on the street?
Andy: Not yet.
Jesse Paul: From what you know.
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah, there you go. But here’s what’s… Thank you. But here’s what’s happened. How do you know you’re in the Matrix? How do you wake up from the Matrix when you don’t know you’re in the Matrix? The Social Dilemma walks through how the algorithms work and they feed to us.
I’m going to give you the best example ever, and then we’re going to talk about where all the foreclosures went this morning in Washington County. The best example is this, any Democrats or Republicans in the house, not in the house here, but you don’t have to get into that here, watching or listening to the show. If you’re a Democrat or Republican, I’m going to ask you the following question. Have you, at some point in the last 120 days said, “I cannot believe those guys could possibly think what they think. They must be insane.” Okay. That’s question number one.
This is about the other party. Of course, it’s 100% of the Republicans or Democrats have thought that. I can’t believe these guys… This number two. Have you ever thought, I can’t believe they don’t see all this information. Are they not seeing what I’m seeing. You ready?
Jesse Paul: No.
Jeremy Larkin: No.
Jesse Paul: They’re not.
Jeremy Larkin: They’re actually not, because based on their likes and their interests, physically clicking the like button, but their preferences and their interest and their internet history and their search history…
Jesse Paul: Well, I mean, it goes deeper than that.
Jeremy Larkin: Pause. You’re getting ahead. You haven’t seen this thing. You don’t get to tell me how much deeper it goes yet.
Jesse Paul: Well, I just know how much deeper it goes for me.
Jeremy Larkin: It is actually feeding Jesse based on his political interests and narrative.
Jesse Paul: No wonder I see so much wrestling stuff.
Jeremy Larkin: Thank you. Now, listen. Everyone understands that already. You’re like, “Yeah, big deal.” But what it does is simultaneously throughout this, realize these are the executives at the very end in the credits, it’s all the outtakes. Every one of these guys is like [inaudible 00:09:59], we basically… These are executives on social media. We don’t let them on social. It plays an hypothetical, a dramatization of a family going through. And it shows how a kid’s views are shaped, who is a high school kid, who’s a healthy athlete with crushes and all the things that happen in high school. And how he gets swept into… I’m not going to give it away, swept into a political thing, shows up at a rally and gets arrested because he’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s very frightening. Now how much deeper does it go? Now you’re free.
Jesse Paul: Well, how many stories that we heard that are real? Somebody that’s in that same scenario. Happy, great kid, within months he’s going to prison.
Jeremy Larkin: You ought to see the most frightening part of it.
Jesse Paul: It goes deeper, and let me just answer your question now…
Jeremy Larkin: Suicide rates since 2009, 2009, anyone know what happened around 2009? The social media boom are out of control.
Jesse Paul: So the reason it goes deeper is, because it’s based on, let’s say you watch a video, the length you watch that video, it’s…
Jeremy Larkin: All of it.
Jesse Paul: It’s weighted. They’re listening to me. Every time I have a conversation or something, I open Facebook, there it is. Or Google, there it is. I didn’t search it. I talked about it with my phone in my pocket, but it was asleep. Or was it?
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah, exactly. No, let me tell you the best part, Jesse. What we thought it was though, there was a human listening. And here’s what these guys talked about, they said, “Well, that’s not really. The issue is it is just the algorithm, the artificial intelligence.” And so he said, kind of similar to these robot movies, it’s bigger than what they thought. And it’s basically has a mind of it’s own. And they said, “Can you bring this back?” They’re like, “I don’t know, man. We’re headed to dystopia.” It’s pretty scary.
Andy: The Pandora’s Box is open.
Jeremy Larkin: The social Dilemma, go watch it right now this weekend with your children. It’s incredible. And I tell this, it’s so fun because we use it for real estate. So what I can do as I go into real estate, so when I’m marketing your home, Jesse, one of the cool things we’re able to do, is we’re able to find sample target audiences, and take your property.
And if you’re saying to me, “I want to market my home to folks likely moving from cities that are falling apart.” We do that, and we can do that. And we can actually feed your property based on their likes, their interests. Now, Facebook came out about a year ago, this is the funny part, and they put some controls in place to protect people that are [inaudible 00:12:51], but the bottom line is these guys talked about it. These are brilliant, where they actually protecting them. So very cool.
Jesse Paul: Protecting themselves.
Jeremy Larkin: Protecting themselves. So what happened is, there’s basically no monetary incentive for this beast to get tamed. And so it’s funny, because I was watching our viewers went down as I was talking about it on Facebook. That’s hilarious. Is that coincidence, or did people bail? Because they’re like, “Ugh.” Now, I shared how long ago, Jesse, by the way…
Jesse Paul: They don’t want to see our faces. Oh, the longer I watch…
Jeremy Larkin: Jeremy Larkin here, host of the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive. I’m actually feeding this today, by the way, from my personal Facebook page, which is not a monetized page. So I mean, it’ll feed in the ways it feeds, but it’s not being monetized in a way that’s going to show up if I were paying advertising dollars for it. We feed this on my personal page, this real estate show because that’s where most of my connections are, and that we share it later to our Larkin group page, which is facebook.com/st. George experts.
Look, the world is weird. And what we realized, and this is the setup that I wanted to go with, this social dilemma, is that it’s actually changing tastes of buyers. And what we realize is… By the way, yes, they can affect the election. Side note, watch this documentary and you’ll understand.
And if they can affect an election, they can also affect buyer tastes, people’s views, people’s perceptions. So, Jesse, one of the things that you and I talked about earlier this morning, we talked about the real estate market. He called and said, “What are we talking about on the show?” And we noticed that a lot of markets are booming, but it seems like a lot of our friends outside of Washington County are more afraid of a bubble.
Jesse Paul: More than a bubble, they’re afraid of what’s going to happen when the mortgage forbearance’s come to fruition. What is going to happen with them? Are they going to foreclose, are they going to be able to catch up? Because right now, they’re being held by legislation. They can’t foreclose. They have to work with them.
Jeremy Larkin: Correct.
Jesse Paul: So there’s, I believe the number was 30% of the mortgages in the United States are in forbearance, or in some kind of forbearance.
Jeremy Larkin: So here’s forbearance. Forbearance is, I’m in foreclosure, but the bank because of mitigating circumstances, like COVID says, “Eh, we feel pretty bad. So we’re going to kick the can down the road.” Now I just shared my screen guys, if you’re watching us on Facebook live. We’re going to talk about, let’s talk about the data. So Jesse, you’re exactly right.
And what we don’t know… Remember how I said, I’m asking if Jesse’s a Democrat and I’m a Republican. I’m like, “Doesn’t he see the data I’m seeing?” So we’ll take this to real estate…
Jesse Paul: But [inaudible 00:15:41], I don’t either.
Jeremy Larkin: But if you move this over to real estate, the market looks really good, but we actually don’t know. We actually don’t know how many people are truly in forbearance. And we’re doing that, we’re researching that with Chantry Abbott, who’s one of our show sponsors. Chantry is with Guild Mortgage. I’m hoping next week or two weeks from now, he’s going to be on, we’re going to talk about how many… What percentage are in forbearance. So, Jesse, look at this. Lot sales, and lot sales in Washington County, 2019 to 2020. Well, that’s interesting. I just heard us. That was awesome.
Andy: Yes. I just put you on full screen so I can read your chart.
Jeremy Larkin: Beautiful. Thank you. So if you look at this guys, there were 118 lot sales in September of 2019. Guess how many building lots sold in 2020? How many, Jesse?
Jesse Paul: 2245.
Jeremy Larkin: Twice as many building lots sold. First question. Jeremy, it seems like everything is… There’s a ton of new construction. Is that correct? Answer, yes.
Jesse Paul: Well, just go back to what you were just talking about [inaudible 00:16:49]. That’s a ton of activity coming up in the next year.
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah.
Jesse Paul: Wow.
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah. I want to skip down. I want to skip down. New dwellings, Jesse. Couple of slides down. New dwellings, which is any sort of a dwelling, single family home, condo, townhome, anything that you can live in. 155 went up last year this month. This year?
Jesse Paul: 222 this year.
Jeremy Larkin: 222 versus 155 this month last year. Okay. We’re at 1,635 dwellings through September, last year we had 1988. We will crush the number of new dwellings. Question. It seems like a lot of people are moving to St. George. Answer, they are.
Jesse Paul: And going back to what we were talking about earlier, that’s why we need to get the data, because here in St. George… I mean Washington County, 50% of our sales are actually cash.
Jeremy Larkin: Guys, 50% of our home sales are cash. Good morning, April. You’re welcome for the info on Facebook live. Thank you for being on. We’re watching our beautiful face. You know everyone says our ugly mug, that kind of stuff. Nope. Thanks for watching our beautiful faces, Jesse. There you go. Go ahead, man. What you got?
Jesse Paul: So I also wanted to point out, and you and I talked about this earlier, is it an intense market? Yes. So 60% more homes sold last month, September than last year.
Jeremy Larkin: About a year ago in the same month.
Jesse Paul: But here’s one of the challenges in why it’s so intense. We were 3% down in new listings. So if you’ve got 60% more sales and 3% less in new listings, it’s going to make sense that it’s going to be intense. And it’s going to make sense that a lot of those buyers are actually going to go to new construction, because there’s nothing.
Are there other homes on the market? Yeah, but they’re either grossly overpriced, or just they don’t fit with the buyers that are in the market, but really they’re just overpriced.
Jeremy Larkin: Right.
Jesse Paul: Homes overpriced, even in the craziest market ever, it will just sit.
Jeremy Larkin: This is exactly right.
Jesse Paul: 30% are still not selling.
Jeremy Larkin: Let me move down here. Okay. Well, I’m just rolling. And if you’re watching us on Facebook live, Jesse, you’re always right. Listen, on behalf of your wife, you’re always right. Just kidding. If she ever hears this she’ll know that’s 100% not accurate.
Jesse Paul: I paid you.
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah. Well, of course you did. This is the crazy part. Okay.
Jesse Paul: All right. Tell us the crazy part.
Jeremy Larkin: How many sales, sales of property were there last year in September?
Jesse Paul: 715.
Jeremy Larkin: Yeah. 1,168 in September of 2020, guys.
Jesse Paul: And that’s what I was talking about, the 60%, that’s that number.
Jeremy Larkin: Right. This is the actual number. Might I remind you of something if you’re watching our show right now, I don’t know if you didn’t know, but there was a global pandemic that started in March. The entire economy was shut down, like actually shut down for 60 days. In California and other places, you still can’t sit down in a restaurant. Could I remind you that about 60 days into the pandemic, a national, basically a civil war started around race. Might I remind you that we’re in the most toxic political environment and election year ever. Do you understand why I’m emphasizing this, right, Andy? This should not be happening, this real estate market. This shouldn’t even be happening.
Jesse Paul: It shouldn’t, but it is.
Jeremy Larkin: This is crazy. My only claim to fame on my whole entire life was that I was biggest comedian, 1993, Dixie High School. My second biggest claim to fame, did you guys know that?
Jesse Paul: That’s cool.
Jeremy Larkin: [inaudible 00:00:20:45]. I mean, I didn’t do stand up, but I guess people thought I liked to joke around.
Jesse Paul: I can’t see why they’d think that.
Jeremy Larkin: Number two was when I predicted at the end of April, 2020, that this was actually going to cause our market to blow up and our market was in complete tatters at the time. Listen, if I die today, those were my two things. Biggest comedian ’93, Dixie High, thank you.
Jesse Paul: And you called this.
Jeremy Larkin: And I called this.
Andy: What about your kids, Jeremy? Come on now.
Jeremy Larkin: No, but I’m talking about claim to fame. My kids are incredible.
Andy: You’re their dad, wasn’t that…
Jeremy Larkin: I think they’re incredible. They’re incredible. But these are my two claim to fame moments.
Jesse Paul: One of these days you’re going to say, “Man, my claim to fame… That Eli, I can’t believe he did it.”
Jeremy Larkin: That guy is going to be a billionaire. So I could talk about that all day long, Andy. Thank you for the correction. [inaudible] So check this crap out, guys. We’re projected to have 11,000 sales in 2020, and they were just 8,096 in 2019. So when we ask the question, where did all the foreclosures go? Well, the issue is this, guys. It’s hard to have foreclosures… Zoom this down a little bit. It’s tough to have foreclosures when everyone has equity, and the people who would be in foreclosure could sell their house in 72 hours if they wanted to for the right price. Now, let’s back up, if you are someone in foreclosure, you got options. And the first thing I would recommend is you get on the phone… Here’s why you’d be in foreclosure, risk of foreclosure.
If, because of COVID because of any other circumstance, health issues, any crisis, you can’t make your payment, get on the phone with your bank. They’re probably going to put you in a forbearance program if you want to be in it, which is, “Hey, we’re going to kick the can down the road. We’re not going to run you through 180 day foreclosure cycle.” That’s number one. Number two, if you’re saying, “I don’t really want to be in the house anyway, I just want out of it.” Call us. We can if you want, make you an instant cash offer, you don’t have to clean it up. You don’t have to repair it. You don’t have to stage it. You don’t have to show it. If we, also at the same time, we’ll say, “Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Home owner, or Mr. and Mr, or Mrs. and Mrs.” Let’s all the PC today.
“Here’s what your home could sell for on the open market, but here’s what’s going to require to get it ready. Here’s what it’s going to look like to show it.” So we’ll give you a couple of options. So call your bank first. If you don’t want the house, then let’s talk. But it’s tough for there to be foreclosures when everybody wants a home. I was talking to Steve Kemp, commercial guy in town, one of my good buddies, in the building, we’re in the same building. [Vantage] financial and commercial real estate broker, great guy. He said, “I had a guy call me yesterday or last week.” I don’t know what he said, that guy called him, “Steve, I need to buy something. Do you have any commercial buildings? I just need to buy something up there right now.”
It’s that kind of stuff. But remember, it eerily feels like 13, 14 years ago. So we want to watch it. I’m going to give you the quote of the day, and it’s killing me. Seth Godin, Seth Godin, G-O-D-I-N. He may have gotten it from someone else, but the quote of the day is this, “History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.”
Andy: I like that.
Jeremy Larkin: [inaudible] share that with you. History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. This rhymes a lot. And here’s why it doesn’t repeat itself, because things are never going to be exactly the same, because things were always not the same as they were. Guys, visit Jesse at soldinstgeorge.com, soldinstgeorge.com. Right?
Jesse Paul: Yep.
Jeremy Larkin: Is that where they contact us? If they want to have a conversation about buying, selling, am I crazy to buy? Am I crazy to sell? And the last thing I’ll share is, we’re going to share Jesse… If he hasn’t, we’ll link this data for you. Thank you [inaudible] Mitch Larson for sharing it. Notice there’s a default. There’s basically no notice of default. There’s virtually zero foreclosures in Washington County right now. There have been 27 total foreclosures in the entire year of 2020, guys. Where did all the foreclosures go? Wasn’t it the famous song, ‘Where did all the Cowboys go?’ Was that the nineties hit? They went away because people want to move here. Jeremy Larkin, Jesse Paul, The Larkin group, KW Realty saying, over and out.
The #1 Thing You Can Do Now to Position Yourself to Buy a Home This Year
The last few weeks and months have caused a major health crisis throughout the world, leading to a pause in the U.S. economy as businesses and consumers work to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The rapid spread of the virus has been compared to prior pandemics and outbreaks not seen in many years. It also has consumers remembering the economic slowdown of 2008 that was caused by a housing crash. This economic slowdown, however, is very different from 2008.
One thing the experts are saying is that while we’ll see a swift decline in economic activity in the second quarter, we’ll begin a sharp rebound in the second half of this year. According to John Burns Consulting:
“Historical analysis showed us that pandemics are usually V-shaped (sharp recessions that recover quickly enough to provide little damage to home prices), and some very cutting-edge search engine analysis by our Information Management team showed the current slowdown is playing out similarly thus far.”
Given this situation, if you’re thinking about buying a home this year, the best thing you can do right now is use this time to get pre-approved for a mortgage, which you can do from the comfort of your home. Pre-approval will help you better understand how much you can afford so that you can confidently do the following two things when you’re ready to buy:
1. Gain a Competitive Advantage
Today’s low inventory, like we’ve seen recently and will continue to see, means homebuyers need every advantage they can get to make a strong offer and close the deal. Being pre-approved shows the sellers you’re serious about buying a home, which is always a plus in your corner.
2. Accelerate the Homebuying Process
Pre-approval can also speed-up the homebuying process so you can move faster when you’re ready to make an offer. Being ready to put your best foot forward when the time comes may be the leg-up you need to cross the finish line first and land the home of your dreams.
Bottom Line
Pre-approval is the best thing you can do right now to be in a stronger position to buy a home when you’re ready. Let’s connect today to get the process started.

The Economic Impact of Buying a Home
We’re in a changing real estate market, and life, in general, is changing too – from how we grocery shop and meal prep to the ways we can interact with our friends and neighbors. Even practices for engaging with agents, lenders, and all of the players involved in a real estate transaction are changing to a virtual format. What isn’t changing, however, is one key thing that can drive the local economy: buying a home.
We’re all being impacted in different ways by the effects of the coronavirus. If you’re in a position to buy a home today, know that you’re a major economic force in your neighborhood. And while we all wait patiently for the current pandemic to pass, there are a lot of things you can do in the meantime to keep your home search on track.
Every year the National Association of Realtors (NAR) shares a report that notes the full economic impact of home sales. This report summarizes:
“The total economic impact of real estate related industries on the state economy, as well as the expenditures that result from a single home sale, including aspects like home construction costs, real estate brokerage, mortgage lending and title insurance.”
Here’s the breakdown of how the average home sale boosts the economy:When you buy a home, you’re making an impact. You’re fulfilling your need for shelter and a place to live, and you’re also generating jobs and income for the appraiser, the loan officer, the title company, the real estate agent, and many more contributors to the process. For every person or business that you work with throughout the transaction, there’s also likely a team behind the scenes making it all happen, so the effort multiplies substantially. As noted above in the circle on the right, the impact is almost double when you purchase new construction, given the extra labor it requires to build the home.
The report also breaks down the average economic impact by state:As a buyer, you have an essential need for a home – and you can make an essential impact with homeownership, too. That need for shelter, comfort, and a safe place to live will always be alive and well. And whenever you’re able to act on that need, whether now or later, you’ll truly be creating gains for you, your family, local business professionals, and the overall economy.
Bottom Line
Whenever you purchase a home, you’re an economic driver. Even if you’re not ready or able to make a move now, there are things you can do to keep your own process moving forward so you’re set when the time is right for you. Let’s connect to keep your home search – and your local contributions – on track.

The Best Advice Does Not Mean Perfect Advice
The angst caused by the coronavirus has most people on edge regarding both their health and financial situations. It’s at times like these when we want exact information about anything we’re doing – even the correct protocol for grocery shopping. That information brings knowledge, and this gives us a sense of relief and comfort.
If you’re thinking about buying or selling a home today, the same need for information is very real. But, because it’s such a big step in our lives, that desire for clear information is even greater in the homebuying or selling process. Given the current level of overall anxiety, we want that advice to be truly perfect. The challenge is, no one can give you “perfect” advice. Experts can, however, give you the best advice possible.
Let’s say you need an attorney, so you seek out an expert in the type of law required for your case. When you go to her office, she won’t immediately tell you how the case is going to end or how the judge or jury will rule. If she could, that would be perfect advice. What a good attorney can do, however, is discuss with you the most effective strategies you can take. She may recommend one or two approaches she believes will be best for your case.
She’ll then leave you to make the decision on which option you want to pursue. Once you decide, she can help you put a plan together based on the facts at hand. She’ll help you achieve the best possible resolution and make whatever modifications in the strategy are necessary to guarantee that outcome. That’s an example of the best advice possible.
The role of a real estate professional is just like the role of the lawyer. An agent can’t give you perfect advice because it’s impossible to know exactly what’s going to happen throughout the transaction – especially in this market.
An agent can, however, give you the best advice possible based on the information and situation at hand, guiding you through the process to help you make the necessary adjustments and best decisions along the way. An agent will get you the best offer available. That’s exactly what you want and deserve.
Bottom Line
If you’re thinking of buying or selling, contact a local real estate professional to make sure you get the best advice possible.

What You Can Do to Keep Your Dream of Homeownership Moving Forward [INFOGRAPHIC]
Some Highlights:
- Don’t put your homeownership plans on hold just because you’re stuck inside.
- There are several things you can do right now to keep your home search moving forward.
- Connect with an agent, learn about resource programs for things like down payments, and get pre-approved today.
![What You Can Do to Keep Your Dream of Homeownership Moving Forward [INFOGRAPHIC]](https://www.soldinstgeorge.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/20200327-KCM-Share-549x300-1.jpg)
Don’t Let Frightening Headlines Scare You
There’s a lot of anxiety right now regarding the coronavirus pandemic. The health situation must be addressed quickly, and many are concerned about the impact on the economy as well.
Amidst all this anxiety, anyone with a megaphone – from the main street media to a lone blogger – has realized that bad news sells. Unfortunately, we will continue to see a rash of horrifying headlines over the next few months. Let’s make sure we aren’t paralyzed by a headline before we get the full story.
When it comes to the health issue, you should look to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or the World Health Organization (WHO) for the most reliable information.
Finding reliable resources with information on the economic impact of the virus is more difficult. For this reason, it’s important to shed some light on the situation. There are already alarmist headlines starting to appear. Here are two such examples surfacing this week.
1. Goldman Sachs Forecasts the Largest Drop in GDP in Almost 100 Years
It sounds like Armageddon. Though the headline is true, it doesn’t reflect the full essence of the Goldman Sachs forecast. The projection is actually that we’ll have a tough first half of the year, but the economy will bounce back nicely in the second half; GDP will be up 12% in the third quarter and up another 10% in the fourth.
This aligns with research from John Burns Consulting involving pandemics, the economy, and home values. They concluded:
“Historical analysis showed us that pandemics are usually V-shaped (sharp recessions that recover quickly enough to provide little damage to home prices), and some very cutting-edge search engine analysis by our Information Management team showed the current slowdown is playing out similarly thus far.”
The economy will suffer for the next few months, but then it will recover. That’s certainly not Armageddon.
2. Fed President Predicts 30% Unemployment!
That statement was made by James Bullard, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. What Bullard actually said was it “could” reach 30%. But let’s look at what else he said in the same Bloomberg News interview:
“This is a planned, organized partial shutdown of the U.S. economy in the second quarter,” Bullard said. “The overall goal is to keep everyone, households and businesses, whole” with government support.
According to Bloomberg, he also went on to say:
“I would see the third quarter as a transitional quarter” with the fourth quarter and first quarter next year as “quite robust” as Americans make up for lost spending. “Those quarters might be boom quarters,” he said.
Again, Bullard agrees we will have a tough first half and rebound quickly.
Bottom Line
There’s a lot of misinformation out there. If you want the best advice on what’s happening in the current housing market, let’s talk today.

Is Now a Good Time to Refinance My Home?
With interest rates hitting all-time lows over the past few weeks, many homeowners are opting to refinance. To decide if refinancing your home is the best option for you and your family, start by asking yourself these questions:
Why do you want to refinance?
There are many reasons to refinance, but here are three of the most common ones:
1. Lower Your Interest Rate and Payment: This is the most popular reason. Is your current interest rate higher than what’s available today? If so, it might be worth seeing if you can take advantage of the current lower rates.
2. Shorten the Term of Your Loan: If you have a 30-year loan, it may be advantageous to change it to a 15 or 20-year loan to pay off your mortgage sooner rather than later.
3. Cash-Out Refinance: You might have enough equity to cash out and invest in something else, like your children’s education, a business venture, an investment property, or simply to increase your cash reserve.
Once you know why you might want to refinance, ask yourself the next question:
How much is it going to cost?
There are fees and closing costs involved in refinancing, and The Lenders Network explains:
“As an example, let’s say your mortgage has a balance of $200,000. If you were to refinance that loan into a new loan, total closing costs would run between 2%-4% of the loan amount. You can expect to pay between $4,000 to $8,000 to refinance this loan.”
They also explain that there are options for no-cost refinance loans, but be on the lookout:
“A no-cost refinance loan is when the lender pays the closing costs for the borrower. However, you should be aware that the lender makes up this money from other aspects of the mortgage. Usually charging a slightly higher interest rate so they can make the money back.”
Keep in mind that, given the current market conditions and how favorable they are for refinancing, it can take a little longer to execute the process today. This is because many other homeowners are going this route as well. As Todd Teta, Chief Officer at ATTOM Data Solutions notes about recent mortgage activity:
“Refinancing largely drove the trend, with more than twice as many homeowners trading in higher-interest mortgages for cheaper ones than in the same period of 2018.”
Clearly, refinancing has been on the rise lately. If you’re comfortable with the up-front cost and a potential waiting period due to the high volume of requests, then ask yourself one more question:
Is it worth it?
To answer this one, do the math. Will it help you save money? How much longer do you need to own your home to break even? Will your current home meet your needs down the road? If you plan to stay for a few years, then maybe refinancing is your best move.
If, however, your current home doesn’t fulfill your needs for the next few years, you might want to consider using your equity for a down payment on a new home instead. You’ll still get a lower interest rate than the one you have on your current house, and with the equity you’ve already built, you can finally purchase the home you’ve been waiting for.
Bottom Line
Today, more than ever, it’s important to start working with a trusted real estate advisor. Whether you connect by phone or video chat, a real estate professional can help you understand how to safely navigate the housing market so that you can prioritize the health of your family without having to bring your plans to a standstill. Whether you’re looking to refinance, buy, or sell, a trusted advisor knows the best protocol as well as the optimal resources and lenders to help you through the process in this fast-paced world that’s changing every day.
