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

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

Andy: News Radio 94.9, 890 KDXU. Good morning. It is time for the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive with Jeremy Larkin. Jesse is along for the ride as well.
Jeremy: And the crowd goes wild. I do not know. I do not know if the crowd is going wild.
Jesse: I am a legend in my own mind.
Jeremy: I know you are. I know you are. You are a legend.
Jesse: I try to be. I try to be legendary.
Jeremy: It is what they say, Jesse. No publicity is bad publicity. Right? That all publicity can be I do not know what.
Andy: It does not matter what they are saying about you as long as they are talking about you.
Jesse: Tiger Woods was famous, and then he was even more famous. He became infamous.
Andy: Infamous.
Jeremy: And then he came back, and he did some pretty amazing things. So pretty cool. Yeah, really amazing things.
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: Fantastic. So Jeremy Larkin here. Host of the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive. I have got my good friend, business partner Jesse Poll. Am I hearing voices? Is it just me?
Andy: There are voices, but your microphone will be good. You’ll be good. And I can cut this part out.
Jeremy: It is not just me.
Jesse: I always hear voices. Welcome to my world.
Jeremy: Have you guys ever seen the Alfred Hitchcock movie Gaslight? Anybody know about it?
Jesse: I have heard about it, but I have not been able to sit through it.
Jeremy: So pretty interesting. Gaslight was done in 1944. This is like where you guys go we do not hear anything. You must be losing your mind. Gaslight was a 1944 Alfred Hitchcock black and white. Gaslighting is such a pop psychology relational term. Hey, do not gaslight me. Right? And in the movie, Ingrid Bergman, I am looking at the summary of this right now. (Indiscernible) Gaslight. So what happens is they are in this relationship and he wants to, years after her aunt was murdered in the home, a young woman moves back into the house with her new husband. However, he has a secret he will do anything to protect, even if it means driving her insane. And so what happens is he gets some cohorts to help him, and they start to do crazy things in the house like flicker the gas lamps, the gas lights. And she would say did you see that? And they would say –
Andy: Of course not.
Jeremy: We do not know what you are talking about. We do not know what you are talking about. And so the term gaslighting. And he kind of made her crazy, and then some guy comes in at the very end and I cannot remember who he was, but boy, Joseph Cotton, whatever his role was, but that was the actor, saved the day and helped her. But she thought she was losing her mind. And man, the sad reality is that we do that to each other actually as human beings. So we did not mean this to be a pop psychology, but we kind of make each other crazy. Right? I think we do.
Jesse: I am going to stay out of that because you know how deep I can go.
Jeremy: Oh my gosh. Listen to our loving relationships podcast Tuesdays at 7pm.
Jesse: There you go.
Jeremy: I do not know.
Jesse: Well, what is amazing about it how many times we do not realize we are even doing that —
Jeremy: Yeah, we are kind of making each other crazy.
Jesse: — to each other. Something.
Jeremy: So let me say this. You know what makes people crazy? Selling their home.
Jesse: That is true.
Jeremy: Selling their home.
Jesse: Really crazy.
Jeremy: Let me see if I can break this down for you really succinctly. Selling your home sucks. Andy, you know all about it, don’t you?
Andy: Yes, I do.
Jeremy: How many showings have you had?
Andy: Too many in two weeks. I think we have had 15 in two weeks.
Jeremy: 15 in two weeks. It is kind of like gaslighting. The market gaslights you because every single showing that comes through, Andy, what do you think automatically?
Andy: This is the one.
Jeremy: This is it. This has got to be it.
Andy: Finally, yeah.
Jeremy: And I felt really good about it. I was pulling in as they were pulling out, and the family seemed really excited and they had their kids there. Selling a home is absolutely maniacal, insanity-inducing crap. That is hard. Okay? But today we are going to talk about the good news of St. George Real Estate because there is so much good news. We have clients that are having such raging success right now.
Jesse: Yep.
Jeremy: This is still a great market. Okay. But today, we are going to talk about the good news of St. George Real Estate. We are talking about multiple offer situations, bidding wars, nine offers. We will get to that momentarily.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: Nine right now on one of our listings.
Andy: Wow.
Jesse: But wait, I thought you said the market was shifted.
Jeremy: Yeah, it is shifted, and yet, and yet it is still a great market. And I have also said it is still a great market and people are not paying attention.
Jesse: Well, what is good to point out here though, I think, is that even in a bad market, that scenario still plays out.
Jeremy: Oh, you bet.
Jesse: With a correctly marketed, correctly-priced strategy on a home sale, you can get multiple offers in the worst market ever and get the most money possible.
Jeremy: Yeah. Yeah. Man, it is amazing. So we have got some ecstatic people. Just had a closing with something we will talk about that was so neat. However, first I want to just name and encourage everyone to get involved. Saturday is Iron Man St. George 70.3 and we had Colby Nielson in a few weeks ago from the volunteer. He is the volunteer director. Great man. Math teacher over at Pineview High. I had a meeting with him this week, and the meeting I had with him is always in his classroom at his desk while all of his students are just there having fun.
Jesse: That is an awesome –
Jeremy: It is kind of a funny thing. So they are just being busy, and he and I had a little meeting and we talked about it. So you will be able to see me by the way, I will be down, because everyone wants to see me.
Jesse: Of course.
Jeremy: You will be able to find me around transition 2, what we call T2, which is down at town square, which is where they come off of the bikes and go to the run, and I will be doing some of the volunteer direction there. If you have not volunteered, it is probably not too late. Go to Iron Man St. George dot com and click on the volunteer link. And when you hear this, especially, we have people watching live, but people who are listening to the radio, just go to Iron Man St. George dot com and go ahead and register. Now, let me point something out. We are doing something a little different today. Those who are listening on the radio live, that is great, but you are not listening to us live because for our Facebook and YouTube viewers, you are wondering, maybe on Thursday they will be wondering where we were. We are actually recording the show on Tuesday, okay, because we cannot be live in the studio Thursday morning. I will be out of town and I have got some Iron Man meetings. So if you are looking for the show, and I probably should have pointed that out in the first place, get on 94.9 FM, if you are probably listening to this point or if you want to listen on Thursday, 890 AM. So, Iron Man St. George. Go ahead and volunteer. There are needs. There are still needs. It takes a couple thousand people to pull it off. This thing is sold out. It is an epic event. They start at Sand Hollow Reservoir. They race and ride their bikes all the way through into St. George up through Snow Canyon. There is Jeff. Jeff, who has a ringer like that on their phone? Really?
Andy: 1975.
Jeremy: Do you have that go off in church?
Jesse: He does not know how to change the ringer.
Jeremy: Now, if the cameras could pan right now, you will see a big red phone with a cord with a rotary dialer on it. Okay. Man, good grief. We have got Jeff Jenson, by the way, in the studio. He is in here just spectating. So I was there the first day that Michael Vice, he is an Austrian one, I was looking at some photos from 10 years ago, and it was me with my little tiny children, who are no longer little tiny children, sitting with him at the finish line in the little like VIP tent because I was doing volunteer direction and they let us in there right after he won. He is world famous. Olympic athlete, the whole bit. Gosh, come out and support it. Watch it. They race all the way up through Snow Canyon. They run all over downtown and over the red hill. It is a tough course. Tough, whoa, man. The wind can blow. The water is almost always cold. If the wind blows at the lake in the morning, you do not even want to think about it. Right? You are talking about white-capped waves. Forecasting 87 for a high Saturday. The last athletes will come off the course around 5pm. Iron Man St. George. It is a big deal. Bringing in a lot of money into this community. Jesse, should we talk about the good news of St. George Real Estate?
Jesse: Let’s do it.
Jeremy: So I am in a closing this morning with my new good friends, Johnny and Charlene Arrulian, and these are just great people. We actually sold their home three times.
Jesse: Yep.
Jeremy: It took us three times selling their home, and we are going to talk about what that means. Okay? Three times we sold their home. So there were 38 days on market by the time I had it sold three times. So 38 total days of this home being for sale. Now, every time we would put it under contract –
Jesse: The days stopped.
Jeremy: — the days stopped. So we did it like on day 3 originally, and the clock stopped. And then it fell out of contract, and it came back on the market, and the clock started again on day 4. And then it fell apart, and it came back on, and so, we had a contract at day 6, which was, we had a contract at day 3, a fall apart at day 6, another contract fall apart, and finally got that thing closed. So you go well, this is not really good news. Well, it actually is incredible news. These folks bought this home at a time where real estate values were lower and then values fell like crazy, and values went really high for a while, and then they came back around. And they were just doggone stinking happy, and it was such a cool story, and I love these stories. So after it fell out of contract the last time, we had three buyers trying to bid for each other on this home. And your buyers, if you are an agent out there, or a buyer, your story really can matter to the sellers. So this property was at Rio Virgin Estates. It is off of Riverside Drive, and I get this phone call from a lady up in Orem, Utah, and she said listen are you the listing agent for 2990 Riverside Drive. I said yeah. She proceeded to tell me that her father had built the home, and this was such a special place in their family. He has built a dozen of these units in this Rio Virgin Estates, and that all they wanted was to buy this house. They offered us full price. No strange contingencies. They purchased with cash. They did not ask for any repairs after they did a home inspection. They were perfectly, completely happy. Okay? We were running a cool little program at the time. We saved the Arrulians $1250 on their real estate fees. They were delighted about that. Came in this morning. First American Title. Sat down with Allison Schriber, who is just a tremendous lady, and we had such a fun time, and I want to tell you what they said. They were pleased and so excited. We are happy to get our money back, and I said, you guys, I just need you to know that you are model clients. And they said, really? We do not know about that. What is a model client? And I said, verbatim, you allowed us and trusted us to do our job. Period. End of story. Right?
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: Jesse, how typical is it because of the emotions that go into selling a home that our clients kind of struggle to let us just do our job?
Jesse: Oh, it is really typical.
Jeremy: It is tough for them. Isn’t it?
Jesse: Yeah, it can be. Especially when you are going through say something like Craig was talking about. He had had all these those showings and you are excited, upset, excited, so there are so many emotions and you can just get beside yourself.
Jeremy: Oh yeah.
Jesse: And look for every little thing that is wrong when it is not really wrong.
Jeremy: Yeah, and if your home is not selling and then you start to get into this mode of like well, maybe there is something that my agent is not doing. And by the way, maybe there is that something your agent isn’t doing. Okay? But we are going to talk about the converse of that. Right?
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: Which is there is something else that is going on in the market right now. Interest rates were higher about 6 months ago, and the Federal Reserve, bless their hearts, decided to come back and they said whoa, whoa, whoa, I think this is hurting the economy a little too much, so they dropped those rates back down.
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: We have got stuff. Let’s talk about what is happening right now. Okay? Let me tell you what we have under contract right now. These are sellers right now that have a contract on their property. 2200 square foot home in Hurricane. 100 East. Under contract. 2990 East Riverside Drive, the Arrulians, we closed today. Condo in Ivins, Mesa View Townhomes, under contract. How many acres at your Apple Valley home, Jesse?
Jesse: One acre.
Jeremy: Yeah, a cabin on one acre in Apple Valley under contract. Beautiful renovation. Our good friend, Craig Sorpel, took this, bought it, flipped it, renovated it. Little, a cottage, it is just a darling cottage. Main Street and Leeds.
Jesse: He did such a good job on that.
Jeremy: Yeah, under contract. Double-wide trailer home, Hillside Mobile Estates, which is in Washington City, under contract. 2774 Tobin Drive, 1500 feet in Bloomington Country Club. An old 78 property. Under contract. 252 North 100 East, a little single-family home, built in 1941, right, Jess?
Jesse: Yep.
Jeremy: 2800 feet, under contract. But we are not done. 100 North in Hurricane, single-family home, 1800 feet, under contract. How about, Jesse, tell us about, I can tell them, but you tell me, how about our good friends at 1300 North?
Jesse: 1300 North –
Jeremy: 828 West 1300 North.
Jesse: That is a cool property.
Jeremy: They ate a burger with us Friday night at our client event and gave me a testimonial. So what is the background on them?
Jesse: Well –
Jeremy: Not on the home so much as their story.
Jesse: Their story, they actually have five different rental properties here in St. George, and they just have always loved this one. The fact they are letting go of this one first is, I think they wanted to move into it for a minute.
Jeremy: Tell me this. But what is the background? They just did not show up to us and hire us. They have been on the market before.
Jesse: No, they were on the market before, but they, here is the background. So they were on the market at 349, I believe it was. And the home is just not, 1800 square feet and it had a carport. So, what we did is when they came off the market in six months, we said okay, let’s look at this. What can we do to really bring the value? So they enclosed the carport because it was a really heavy-duty carport. So we made it into a garage. Went and got that all fixed up. Then we actually still dropped the price because it was still too high. I think we had it under contract within 30 days, I believe.
Jeremy: We did. This is the Harrolds. It is interesting because what was happening is whatever was going on with the agent before us, they spent seven months, they told me, on the market with this agent. They said they had three or four showings max. Three or four showings max. Now, when we put this home on the market, how many showings did we have?
Jesse: I think I had seven in the first week.
Jeremy: Seven showings in the first week. I will bet you we had 25 total. I will bet you we had 25 showings.
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: Legitimately.
Jesse: And that is a good thing to point out because we were talking about it every week. Okay, this is our activity. This is the feedback. What do we need to do? Because we did not get to the 60-day mark and have that be stale. So we actually did two price adjustments on that property to make sure that we would find the sweet spot before people were looking at us funny.
Jeremy: Correct.
Jesse: Because they were already looking at us.
Jeremy: Correct. It is interesting because these guys come along and well, remember I said earlier that the Arrulians, they had allowed us to do our job. It is hard when you come in and you give the seller the news they do not want. Okay? Because they had it on the market for $349,900. And then we sold the home, and it is under contract somewhere in the 300s. Above $300,000. Well, it sounds like you gave it away. How would we know if we gave a home away? How would we know? There is an answer. I am going to see if I can, I am going to quiz you. How would you know if you gave a home away? What would we have out the front door the day we put it on the market?
Jesse: Oh, you’d have a line. Like literally.
Jeremy: We would literally have a waiting list.
Jesse: Kind of like –
Jeremy: (Indiscernible) at us, Jeff. Have you ever seen a line at any one of our listings?
Jeff: No.
Jeremy: Okay.
Jesse: In 2011, in Las Vegas, they would put a home on the market and literally have a line clear down the block to see these properties.
Jeremy: Yeah, but I do not want to give my home away, people say. Right. So here is how we know if we gave the home away. We would have an unlimited pool of investors, buyers, humans, dogs, cats, you name it, lined up to buy the property. Now, we have an interesting property this week that we had nine offers on. Well, did you give it away? Well, we actually sold it for $10,000 over the asking price, which is kind of fun. -Ish. Kind of we are in that range. Right? So the Harrolds, what happened, Jesse, is they came in and they said we want to sell the property. But often what the seller says is I want to sell at this price. Do you determine price?
Jesse: No.
Jeremy: Do I determine price?
Jesse: Nope.
Jeremy: Does the seller determine price?
Jesse: Nope.
Jeremy: Who determines price?
Jesse: The market. The buyer.
Jeremy: Absolutely.
Jesse: And then the seller gets to decide if they accept that or not.
Jeremy: So what happens is –
Jesse: And that is actually the conversation we had several times because it is hard when you are attached emotionally to a property and you think it has got to be worth this, and you are looking at all these other homes that selling. It is a hard conversation to go yes, but we are getting rejected, and what we are going to do is find the sweet spot, and then decide if we are going to sell it or not.
Jeremy: Yeah, because there is I want my property sold. What is your outcome you want? I want my property sold. So the Harrolds came in, and Jesse said we have got to do several things. We need to enclose the garage. We need to get the price where it needs to be. Jesse went up with hour videography team, shot a beautiful video up on the hillside. It is down here off of Red Hills Golf Course on the hill, on the mountain above, to give people perspective of what is going on there. We went in there, took the photo. We updated brand-new photography, brand-new videography. The primary photo across the front of it says priced to include a $12,000 buyer’s renovation credit at closing. How often do you see that on a listing? Not often. What was the $12,000 for? Ideally. Theoretically.
Jesse: So they could do either the roof or they could go in and update the kitchen or they can go in and update the bathrooms. Whatever they wanted to.
Jeremy: Yeah, and they listened. Okay. And they listened. But we are not done. Hey Jeremy, but it is only $250,000 homes that have contracts. Right? Wrong. How about the Welkers, my good friends here in town? Beautiful home in Morningside Estates, 3795 square foot home built in 1991. We put the home on the market at $438,581. Man, that price has a ring to it. $438,581. It took us 15 whole days. Guess what we put it under contract at? $438,581. $438,581. We held a neighborhood barbeque the first weekend it was on the market. Flyered the doors of 50 homes around the listing before we put it on the market to invite the neighbors out. Cooked hot dogs, chips, soda, water, whatever it was.
Jesse: Those have been a lot of fun.
Jeremy: Yeah, it was the weekend of the Master’s Golf Tournament. Done a lot of promotion and a lot of activity there, and they had that thing sold. How about the Retreat at Sand Hollow? This is a nightly weekly rental zone. $505,000 under contract. How about the Mulberry Estates? Jesse, you know that property very well. The Lidals.
Jesse: I do.
Jeremy: What is the asking price on that?
Jesse: It was 508.
Jeremy: 508?
Jesse: Yep. 508.
Jeremy: 508.
Jesse: 508 was the asking price, and they just bought that five months ago for a whopping 490. But what I did on that one was they actually bought the home and they thought they were going to stay there for a while, but he actually got a job offer, a dream job, to go back home where his family is. And we knew we really had to showcase that property to recoup as much money as possible for them.
Jeremy: We held the barbeque.
Jesse: We held the barbeque. Shot a lifestyle video.
Jeremy: Shot a lifestyle video.
Jesse: I did everything possible –
Jeremy: So cool.
Jesse: — to make sure that that home shined so much that it could not be ignored. I think I had it under contract within, well, I had an offer within 4 days. And then it took us a couple of days to go back and forth and negotiate it up.
Jeremy: Pretty amazing.
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: Pretty amazing.
Jesse: But there again, they allowed us to build a strategy and then they allowed us to do our job. So they were involved. We were a team on that property. She did so much work to get it ready, and they just allowed us to do our job.
Jeremy: They allowed us to do the job. Okay, but let me wrap this up with a couple more. Recent sales, now those are all homes we have under contract for people selling their home right now. Sky Ridge sold for 303,500. Olive Grove off of, that is Hurricane, Olive Grove off of Dixie Drive sold for 303. Legacy, the most expensive freaking home per square foot in the Legacy at Southgate sold for $382,000. Dixie Springs sold for 470. Desert Sands, Painted Desert off of River Road, 261. Coral Springs Condos that I sold for the Hammond family, 298. Jesse, how about your selling Empress Circle in Bloomington Hills for $13,000 over the asking price? Let’s talk about this little home. So we have a property today that we have nine offers on. And what is fascinating about Empress Circle that I just mentioned, Jesse encouraged these folks to get aggressive. And they listed the home for 394 and change, and they sold it for 408. And people, listeners out there, may think that there are no bidding wars at the higher price points. But there are. There are in fact bidding wars at the higher price points, and here is what it requires. It requires condition to be fantastic. It requires marketing to be spot on. It means we say the right things in the right places. Provide the correct photography and videography to the buyers where buyers and agents will find the property. Right?
Jesse: One thing that they also did is they redid the carpet. They did the paint. They did their part –
Jeremy: They nailed it.
Jesse: — of making that home the best value in that price point, which is why it drove the price up.
Jeremy: Yeah, to the point where people would fight for it. So we have got a little property over here in Cotton Acres, which is, I call it Red Cliffs. It is off of 2450 East. We listed the property at $249,900, and that was on Friday. By Saturday, we had two offers. Sunday, we had four offers, and by Monday afternoon, we had nine. Nine offers. Now when you get into a multiple-offers situation as a seller, you have several options. One is you could accept one of the deals if it is an awesome deal. The other is you could counteroffer to any and all of the buyers. The other is you could send out what we call a notice of multiple offers, a request for a highest and best offer, which is what we ultimately did. And we felt like to be fair to these buyers, we would send everyone out the notice and say give us your highest and best shot by tomorrow at five o’clock. Now, I think it would be fascinating for folks to know what I said when I sent that notice out.
Jesse: I think it would, and is it okay if we talk about the conversation that you and I had Friday as well?
Jeremy: It would be fantastic except we are going to run out of time.
Jesse: Okay. So I am going to shut up.
Jeremy: I love that. Yeah, I do love you. Honestly, you mean a lot to me. I think, do you like that? Let me say what I shared with these folks. Okay. This is the transparency that we do real estate at, and we had permission from the seller. Thank you so much for the offer. As you have likely heard, we have received nine. When it is the best deal on the market, we expect it. We worked with the folks, the Seamans, to make this the very best home. Absolutely fantastic home. Darling even for one of our listeners that is giving me a bad time today. This home has been part of two generations of the family and near and dear to their hearts. With so many offers on the table, they feel the only way to be fair is to ask for your highest and best. They have asked me to be clear that it is not their intention to drive up the price up. On the contrary, it is to determine who is committed to moving forward to purchase. Because if you have nine offers, Andy, you kind of wonder who is going to actually close. Right?
Andy: Sure.
Jeremy: Because what if you get nine offers, and they are all a bunch of freaking charlatans?
Andy: Right. Right. Right. Right.
Jeremy: You wonder this. I said, all of that said, a few things you should know. Number one, this is a form email. All nine of you are receiving this. The agents that offered. Number two, they will not accept an offer subject to the sale of another home. That eliminated two of the offers, but that is up to them. Here is why. Two of the buyers wanted to write an offer subject to the sale of their home. What did I just give them the option to do? Find a different way.
Jesse: Well or take away the contingency.
Jeremy: Yeah, so instead of rejecting two of the seven right off the bat, I said they will not accept that. Number three, the roof is visibly tired. We are not sure whether it will pass an FHA or VA home inspection. Number four, in reference to number three, the home is being sold as is shy of a safety hazard that a home inspector may bring up. Offer accordingly. So what we did is we played transparently with these people. Guys, this is the great news of St. George real estate market. It is an incredible time to sell. Still and probably will be through all of 2019. It is actually an amazing time to buy. Prices are high, but interest rates are really, really low. It is cheaper than renting and renting is just escalating. It just continues to escalate. If you have questions about buying or selling, please reach out to us, of course. Your own real estate situation, at Sold in St. George, that is Sold in St. George dot com. And let’s go enjoy the Iron Man this weekend. Not running it. Just observing and serving those people. Thanks, Jesse, for your amazing comments.
Andy: St. George Real Estate Morning Drive. Time now for news.