Click on Facebook Live. to see the entire recorded show from Facebook! 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. 

Mike: KDXU News Time. It is 8:35. Good morning and welcome. It is a Thursday morning. It is time for another edition of the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive as we check in once again with the voice of St. George Real Estate Jeremy Larkin.
Jeremy: Good morning, everybody. Hopefully Mike will plug me in here. I do not know where this thing plugs into. It plugs in somewhere. Hey, we are live in the Cherry Creek Radio Studios on North Bluff Street. If you are watching us on Facebook Live, you would see the chaos ensuing. By the way, chaos unneeded in life. It is okay to not have chaos. It is okay to live drama-free. It is not a problem.
Jesse: But it is not fun.
Jeremy: Nah. Yes, it is. It is a lot of fun, and it is okay to live without drama. I assure you right now. Okay? So you have a little, thank you, Mike, little snafu. Plugged in. I can actually hear now and be involved and engaged in, as they say, present with you. Hey, Merry Christmas. You can hear the jingling of the bells. If you are not watching us on Facebook Live, I think just envision a little more than, not lime but not forest green sweatshirt with a bunch of kitty cats all over the front of it with bells, actual bells and a few Christmas bows. I think it is a nice sweatshirt. I asked Jesse to wear an ugly sweatshirt this morning. Ugly sweater, he put on a nice sweater.
Jesse: Well, I could not find my Christmas sweater, my ugly sweater. So I have a shirt. I thought that was for later.
Jeremy: Well, he asked a question this morning in our group feed. Over at the Larkin Group, we run a real estate company. If you guys do not know who we are, I am Jeremy Larkin, host of the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive. Been hosting this show for at least five years. We might have pushed clear back into 2012, which would be over five years. I know we are five years, and we run a real estate company here in St. George, Utah, and we help people through what seems really easy but ends up being the third most harrowing experience of their life shy of a birth, a death, fourth most, a birth, a death or a divorce. Literally, buying and selling and moving is –
Jesse: Yes.
Jeremy: — it seems to be next for most people. We help people through that process –
Jesse: Very stressful.
Jeremy: — of buying and selling and investing and help them make good decisions. But I have got Jesse Poll here, one of my business partners, great guy. But this morning on the group chat, we have a group chat. Right? And he said do you want us to bring a Christmas sweater or an ugly sweater? And I said there is no difference, dude. There is no such thing as a Christmas sweater that is not ugly. It is actually a fact.
Jesse: Now, I am corrected. There you go.
Jeremy: I do not care if you show up with a reindeer on your shirt –
Jesse: That is ugly.
Jeremy: — like a nice stag and you think something like this is cool. This is masculine. It is an ugly sweater, dude.
Jesse: And there you go.
Jeremy: Okay, so as long as we know that. Hey, if you are not watching us on Facebook Live, please, you can pick it up and you can see what we are doing. Ask us anything. This is one of the things that we are going to start talking about on our shows. You can ask us anything about the real estate market. And if you do, it should pop up on our screen here. Today, we are going to talk about, it is, by the way, December 20, 2018 for those who are picking up our show later on the podcast or over at our website, Sold in St. George dot com. If you would like to listen to past shows, you can literally go to Sold in St. George dot com. Each show is about 23 minutes long, 24 minutes.
Jesse: Yep.
Jeremy: And we have them on there again. Sold in St. George dot com and click on the blog. But if you are watching on Facebook, let us know you are out there. Give us a thumb or a heart or ask a question. Ask us anything. We are going to talk about five things you have to know about the real estate market moving into 2018, 2019, excuse me. Because 2018 is eleven days ready to expire, right. Eleven days from now we will be done with this year, and you will be writing, fortunately, most people are not writing checks. We do at our office, and you can stop putting the wrong date on, or start putting the wrong date on everything.
Jesse: This is the first year I did not do that. Maybe it is because I do not write checks anymore.
Jeremy: Yeah, yeah. Well, there you go. There you go. I write a handful. Not personally. Well, occasionally even personally I write one, but typically, typically, I am writing checks only for the business. So you all know what we are talking about. Right? It is January 7th, 10th, 20th, 30th, and I do not even know if there is a 40th in there, and you are still writing 2000, I think you write 2018, the previous year until at least June.
Jesse: At least.
Jeremy: And then you start over. Hey, here is a New Year’s resolution for everybody. Most people burn out on their resolutions by about January 20th, and do you know why? This is actually not a joke. I am going to tell you why if you would like to know.
Jesse: Because they are unrealistic. They are not really goals.
Jeremy: They may be realistic.
Jesse: They are pipe dreams most of, most of the New Year’s resolutions that I have ever done is a pipe dream, and they change my entire being instead of just making a little bit of an improvement.
Jeremy: And I like that. So they may be realistic. They may not, but what you are saying is right. What happens is, so we work in the real estate community, and we will be doing some business planning tomorrow as a team. We will go off site and do some great motivation and business planning for 2019. Well, what will happen is someone will say I want to lose 20 pounds in 2019. Or I want to sell 30 homes in 2019. So they divide that out by the months, and they say okay, I am going to have to lose X number of pounds or sell X number of homes per month. What happens is about January 20th, 25th, they find out that they are already behind, and what we do is we start to hate ourselves right then. We go oh well, this is just like 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, and 12 when I said the same thing. And oh five and six. And instantaneously, we start to hate ourselves for, and I know hate is such a strong word, but I have to be honest, folks. It is pretty much a hatred if you are real honest out there. I realize you are saying are we doing a psychology show? Well, real estate is psychology. But just for fun, here is a New Year’s resolution. You write out who it is you want to be, what you want to have, and what you want to do, and you start with who you want to be because that is what we are going to do tomorrow as a team. Who do I want to be? What will I need to do to have what I want to have? Right? And if I cannot be the kind of person that has those things, then I will not be able to have them, that does those things, I will not be able to do the things to have the things.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: Then the resolution, folks, is you just accept yourself where you are at. And if January 20th comes around and you were supposed to lose three pounds and you have lost zero, you say, you know what, I love myself for the effort I am making all the way through January 20th. That is 20 days I was making a stronger effort I was during the month of December when I was eating all the goodies that they kept dropping off at my office. And the neighbors kept swinging by. Boy, it was nice of them to bring me toffee and fudge.
Jesse: Yep.
Jeremy: And then guess what you do? You get up on January 21st, and you reboot, and you try again. That is the resolution that I am going to encourage our listeners to do. Is you love yourself for the goal.
Jesse: You just keep going?
Jeremy: Yep, you love yourself for failing at the goal. You love yourself for your humanity. You love yourself for the fact that you screwed up the previous five years, and then you just keep going.
Jesse: But I think the most important part of what you just said is we do not take into fact that it is going to take a little bit longer to actually get the habit or the whatever we are reaching for –
Jeremy: Right. Right.
Jesse: — to start to show up. Take the weight loss. It may be in the 35th day that it really starts to change our metabolism.
Jeremy: Yeah. We have been thinking a certain way for 30, 40 years most of us, and sometimes 50, 60, 70. So hey, that is your psychology lesson for this morning.
Jesse: All right.
Jeremy: But truly, I think it makes such an impact when you are able to do that. Let’s talk about five things you have to know about St. George and the real estate market. So we, Jesse and I, last night and this morning, excuse me, we spent a few hours breaking down some information provided by a company called Keeping Current Matters and a fellow named Steve Harney. And what Steve Harney does, Keeping Current Matters is he spends all of his days and nights, drum roll please, researching the market. That is all he does.
Jesse: This guy says he reads eight hours a day. Reads.
Jeremy: Reads.
Jesse: Wow.
Jeremy: And we have a lot of real estate. By the way, the failure rate for real estate agents is you make decisions to hire an agent in 2019. The failure rate for real estate agents is 87% over how long?
Jesse: Five years.
Jeremy: Over five years. So, 87% of real estate agents will either quit the business entirely or take another full-time job even if they keep their license active over a five-year period.
Jesse: You know what number surprised me in that data was there is 1.3 million real estate agents, and only 47,000 of those that will do more than 25 units or transactions a year.
Jeremy: Okay, so think about this. 1.3 million real estate agents –
Jesse: In the U.S.
Jeremy: In the U.S., right. And 43,000, is that what they said?
Jesse: 47,000.
Jeremy: 47,000 –
Jesse: Will do more than 25 transactions.
Jeremy: — divided by 1.3 million. 3.6% of the professionals that, because realize, you as a consumer if you are listening to our show, if you know someone who has a license, in your mind, and by the way, you are not ignorant, it is just you have no reason to believe that they would not be a professional.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: But we are telling you that there is actually a 3.6% likelihood that they are really good at what they do.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: By the way, it might even be lower than that. You might have people selling 30 homes that are not good at what they do. But let’s just assume that by the time you are selling 25 transactions, you –
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: You know what you are doing. Right?
Jesse: Yeah, their feet are wet.
Jeremy: 3.6% chance that you are hiring someone who actually, who has actually really been doing this a long time and who has, who can, they might have your best interests at heart, but Jesse, I might have your best interests at heart when you are laying on the street bleeding, but I do not have the medical ability and professional expertise to save you from dying.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: Do we see that? And man, I know that was a gruesome one. That was a good one. Just because someone has your best interests in mind does not mean that they can serve and meet your best interest. So okay, they broke this down, and we are going to nail this thing this morning. This is so powerful, this information. There are five things that we want you to know, and I am going to warm us up this morning because we want you to be, our listeners, the smartest kids on the block. We always talk about that. Right? If you walk away from the show every week saying did not know that, did not think about that. Ring your jingle bells as I am jingling along here and maybe watch Jingle All the Way with Arnold Schwarzenegger. You know he is the world’s worst actor? But somehow it is fun to watch him.
Jesse: I enjoy watching him.
Jeremy: It is like watching a car accident. You just want to see. 1,400 real estate agents in Washington County according to Robert. Good morning, Robert. 1,400, okay?
Jesse: In Washington County.
Jeremy: Times 1,400. That means, that is about right. 50 agents, 50 of the 1,400 in Washington County are really selling at a volume level. I call that 25 or more transactions. Which is actually pretty good since the minimum standard to even be at the Larkin Group is?
Jesse: 24.
Jeremy: 24 transactions. Yeah. So we cannot even have a sales person on our team that is not selling 24 homes. Just too complicated. They do not have enough information to help the client, and there you go. Good morning David and Kierstin. Love having all of you on here this morning. Number one, are you guys ready? Five things you have to know about the real estate market. Number one, we are not in a bubble. We are not in a bubble.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: This is not the next housing bubble. Jesse, give us a definition of a housing recession.
Jesse: Two months –
Jeremy: Two quarters.
Jesse: Two quarters of downward pricing or –
Jeremy: Yeah, the economy is slowing down.
Jesse: — is slowing.
Jeremy: If I tell you that we are in a recession, you get nervous. Right?
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: That is a scary word. Right? But if I tell you hey, I was noticing, the economy slowed down the last two quarters. Do you quite get that chill down your spine?
Jesse: Not necessarily.
Jeremy: You should not because they are different. Recession is like a four-letter word, a really naughty one.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: Okay? So a recession is nothing more than two straight quarters of economic slowdown. Okay. Folks, if you go to your children’s track at their school this morning, and they line you up and they say you are going to do, you are going to run as fast as you possibly can around this track. Like what do you mean? Am I going to run a mile or two miles? I need to know how long I am running so I will know how fast to run. No, Jesse, I want you to run as fast as you possibly can until you have to stop. How far would you go realistically you think? 400 meters around that track. How far do you think you could actually, far you think you could go at the fastest?
Jesse: How far at the fastest?
Jeremy: Yeah.
Jesse: Probably half way.
Jeremy: That is about it. That is probably about right for most people. You would just about keel over at 200 yards.
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: So what you are telling me is that you cannot keep running at your very fastest speed all the way around the track indefinitely?
Jesse: No.
Jeremy: Neither can the economy.
Jesse: Sixty seconds is about –
Jeremy: Yeah. And neither can your car at 100 miles per hour. It will run out of fuel. Your Tesla will run out of power. The economy cannot continue at this pace. So when we say it slowed down for two quarters, it is like thank goodness. Number one, we are not in a bubble. Okay. Number one, we are not in a bubble. Okay. Number two data point, market interest rates are rising. We have heard that interest rates have been rising. Okay? This is a two point. Interest rates are rising, and the reason is because the economy, Jesse, is good or bad?
Jesse: Because it is good.
Jeremy: Isn’t that an interesting way to look at that? Isn’t that a different way to look at that?
Jesse: Right, but they have needed to rise because the Fed has been actually holding them, they have been paying money to hold them down.
Jeremy: Yes.
Jesse: To boost, or to continue to stimulate the economy.
Jeremy: They have been bribing the economy.
Jesse: We cannot do that forever.
Jeremy: Right?
Jesse: Without some pretty severe consequences.
Jeremy: Lincoln, Darrell, Devin, that is like a triple power. If you guys all knew each other. Well, actually Devin bought Lincoln’s home. So maybe they do know each other. Small world. Good morning, guys. Think about what you just said. Right? Interest rates are going up because the economy is in good shape not because it is in bad shape.
Jesse: And because it is time. In St. George, anyway, for a year we have said wow, this has got to slow down. We cannot continue this pace.
Jeremy: Yeah, I have been watching my kid run around the track for the last several years, and he looks sick.
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: This does not look, this is not good.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: I think he is going to have a heart attack.
Jesse: So we have been praying for this, and now it is just time.
Jeremy: Yeah. Yeah. This is fun. Point number, we are going to come up to one about equity in just a minute.
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: So point number one, we are not in a bubble. Okay? We are not even close to a housing bubble and we are going to give you more data to prove that. So the question is are we in a bubble? Is this, okay, we are not in a bubble. Number two, interest rates are rising, but it is because, Jesse?
Jesse: They need to.
Jeremy: They need to. Okay? And by the way –
Jesse: To stabilize our economy, they need to.
Jeremy: Yeah, and by the way, Jeremy, what do you think interest rates are going to do in 2019? I do not know, guys. Honestly, I am tired of making predictions. They keep, they raise them, and then they said they were not going to raise them.
Jesse: And then they lowered them.
Jeremy: I do not know what they are going to do. Okay? Here is what I do know. We have used this analogy so many times. If you are about to travel across 200 miles of open desert in the middle of the summer, and you see a sign that says this is the last gas station, water, and services for 200 miles, and your children are in your car, do you or do you not stop?
Jesse: You stop.
Jeremy: You stop. You are like I do not know. We will buy something. Get some gum and use the bathroom.
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: What I know is interest rates are what they are today, and historically, they are half of historic, half of what they were historically. Meaning, folks, if rates ever go back, we talked about it with Chantry Abbott from Guild Mortgage last week on the show, if rates went back to the historical average, your payment would go up $500 per month if you went to get a new mortgage. Oops. Okay. Number three, this is pretty exciting. Owning a home has always and will continue to be a much better financial position than renting. Let’s talk about the data.
Jesse: That is true.
Jeremy: Okay, this is number three. Did you hear what they said what the net worth of the typical home renter was over the age of 65?
Jesse: I did not. I did not catch that.
Jeremy: Did you miss that? Okay, I do not know if you grabbed it.
Jesse: Well, I heard it, but I do not remember.
Jeremy: The typical renter over the age of 65 in the United States of America has a net worth of $5,000. Folks, do you realize what $5,000 is? It is like when my kids, they were doing the Summit Athletic Rock, $10,000, Dad, what would you do with ten grand? And I said, kids, it would be very disappointing how far that would not go.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: Right? Ten grand it just not a lot of money.
Jesse: It is not.
Jeremy: And if there is a listener out there that is like it is to me, it may be to you, but in the world, right, five grand is the net worth of the average renter over age of 65. Why do you think they measure people over 65, Jesse?
Jesse: Well, that is when we really need the money.
Jeremy: Right.
Jesse: We really, once you hit 65 –
Jeremy: How many 25 years-olds are worrying about their net worth? Thinking probably not a lot of them. The average net worth of a homeowner over 65 is? $300,000.
Jesse: Wow.
Jeremy: Net worth meaning your net value of all of your assets if you cashed out. And where do you think all that value is? Well –
Jesse: most of it is in the real estate.
Jeremy: Most of it is in the real estate. Okay? So number three, owning a home is a much better financial play, has always been, and will always be, always be than ever than renting a home.
Jesse: Well, it definitely gives you more control. Because if you are renting a home and it is December, and your lease is coming up in January, you have no idea what is going to happen. Most likely, your rent is going to go up. But if you have a mortgage, it does not.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Jesse: It stays the same until you do something with it or to change it.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Jesse: So you get a lot more control, and you are gaining equity.
Jeremy: Yes.
Jesse: By most of the time, of course, the market rising or paying it down.
Jeremy: Yeah. Point number four, and point number four and five are going to look similar, but they are not. Number four is are prices falling? Home prices in St. George, Utah are not falling. Now, I had an interesting discussion this morning with my brother-in-law. He said a lot of my friends from northern Utah are looking at homes that they were checking out like six months ago and they said they dropped twenty or thirty grand. Did the value of the home drop twenty or thirty grand, or did the seller reduce the asking price that was too high to begin with by twenty or thirty grand?
Jesse: So the seller reduced the asking price, and I have got some data here that is really interesting.
Jeremy: Give it to us.
Jesse: If we look at the Washington County data for just last month. This came out, we put it out on December 2nd. The average list price is 499, but the average sold price is actually 352.
Jeremy: Average ask price was what 99?
Jesse: 499.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Jesse: So those are not obviously on the same homes –
Jeremy: Yeah.
Jesse: — but that is saying that people, the market is just saying okay, sellers are just going to have to reign in their prices a little bit to get their homes sold now.
Jeremy: Correct. So I want you think about this. I had a comment. David, thank you, on Facebook. He said I am kind of worried the prices are coming down, which is a bummer. Hard time to sell. First of all, David, this is a really interesting context. He works in California. Okay? He lives in St. George. He works in California. By the way, I have got a map of all the declining markets in the United States of America. Where are 90% of them? California. Almost all of them are in California, Dallas, Texas, and a handful of other markets. Declining markets. Folks, what is happening with prices right now is that sellers have been asking too much for their home.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: And so, we went up and we got up to the peak and then people stretched a little beyond that and said maybe I can get more. Okay? And this is number four. Every single home needs to be reduced. Every listing in the MLS needs to be reduced between 5 and 10%. Virtually everyone. I am going to say everyone. 5-10%. Virtually every home actively for sale, and that includes you For Sale By Owners, needs their price reduced by 5-10% to actually be in line with what the market will support. Okay? Prices are not necessarily falling in Washington County. People were simply asking too much.
Jesse: They are not falling at all.
Jeremy: They were simply asking too much. Okay?
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: They have not fallen at all. We have no data to support it. Now here –
Jesse: And they cannot. So if you look at the supply and demand –
Jeremy: Keep going. I am going to run out of time.
Jesse: Can you even have a declining market when you have more demand than supply?
Jeremy: Not a chance. Thank you. That is so brilliant.
Jesse: You just cannot.
Jeremy: We still have more demand than supply.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: We cannot have a declining market. Here is the fun part okay. Number five, here is the prediction. They asked 100 economists in this report that we went over, they asked 100 economists what they thought home prices were going to do in 2019. 96 of the 100 said?
Jesse: They are going up.
Jeremy: They are going to go up. Now, I do not believe they will go up in Washington County. Okay? Because when they asked economists, do you think they asked an economist in St. George, Utah what they thought?
Jesse: No.
Jeremy: No, they did not. Okay? Of course, they did not. Because of those 100 economists, probably 75 of them were in New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Okay.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: We do not think home values are going to rise in Washington County. Okay? But here is what is happening. David made a great comment. It is hard to sell right now. Not many people buying. So this Steve Harney shared a great example. He and his wife went down to buy a Lincoln Towne Car. He is a big guy. He wants a big car. His wife says I want a Lincoln Towne Car. It has been my dream. They go down and they look at all the Lincoln Towne cars. After they look at them, she gets sticker shock. She is like oh, I am never paying that much for a car. And so just like a good husband, he is like okay, honey, whatever you say.
Jesse: Yep.
Jeremy: They leave the dealership, and they go out and they look all around town. What did she find after she looked all around town?
Jesse: That Lincoln was the best value.
Jeremy: That what she wanted and what she needed and everything factored in, that the Lincoln was the best value. And where did they go back to?
Jesse: Lincoln.
Jeremy: Buyers hit stocker shock. Here we go. This is such a huge point. David, this is to your point. Buyers had sticker shock in September, October, November of 2018. December is an anomaly and it is hard to even predict what is going on in December. They have sticker shock. I made multiple offers. I am in bidding wars. I offered ten grand over and someone beat me.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: I thought I was the first guy in and there were 12 people ahead of me. They got sticker shock. Folks, on January 2nd, all the young families, millennials or otherwise, that have the baby that is still sleeping in a crib in the room that they really needed to get out of the room in September –
Jesse: That is such a good analogy.
Jeremy: — but they are ticked off because the home market is too high. Sticker shock will fade and in January what will they say?
Jesse: They will come back.
Jeremy: I love this baby, but honey, we have got to get him out of the room.
Jesse: Yep.
Jeremy: This is driving me crazy. And they will come back, and they are already coming back to the market. Folks, this is a great, healthy real estate market. Have a merry stinking Christmas out there, would you? Jeremy Larkin thanking you saying we know this town. Ask us anything. Write in this thread after this on Facebook.
Mike: You have been listening to the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive here on News Radio 94.9, 890 KDXU, with the voice of St. George Real Estate, Jeremy Larkin. Again, for more information, give them a call at 275-1690. You will find them online at Sold in St. George dot com.