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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.

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. Southern Utah morning news. Your time once again for another look at the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive as we check in wit the voice of St. George Real Estate Jeremy Larkin.
Jeremy: Good morning, and I hope you are driving, all of you out there driving somewhere important. What time did you all get up this morning, guys? Chantry, I want to know about you. 4:30? Mike, that mic is not live and I just said Mike twice. I love it.
Chantry: How about now?
Jeremy: Mike, we have been talking about the mic. And Mike says the mic is live. All right. Love it. 4:30.
Chantry: 4:30.
Jeremy: Ouch.
Chantry: I know. Everyday. I cannot help it.
Jeremy: What time do you go to bed?
Chantry: Early. Like I am in bed by nine.
Jeremy: Okay, Mike, when did you get up? I want to know. He is not on the mic, but he is going to tell us. How early was it, Michael?
Michael: 4:45.
Jeremy: 4:45. He got up in 15 minutes, Jeriah. What have you got?
Jeriah: I cannot compete with that. Six o’clock.
Jeremy: Yeah, you know what? 6:30 for me. I have got Andy. Andy is the new guy in the studio today. We do not even have him on. Andy, when did you get up? Like seven. He was five. Okay. So he did not roll in here. Jeremy Larkin here. We have got the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive. I thought we should find out when everyone got out of bed this morning. Actually, the problem is I was not asleep, so I spent much of the last two hours of the morning thinking about, you know the psychology?
Chantry: Yep.
Jeremy: I should go to sleep. What is going on?
Chantry: Stressed yourself out. Yeah.
Jeremy: I do not know what is happening. Something must be weird. I do not know. Is the house going to cave in? Is my kid alive? This is the stuff that goes through your head. Right? Finally, at 6:30 I said maybe I should just get myself up, and that would help it. Jeremy Larkin, host of the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive. The voice of St. George Real Estate. Happy to be with you all this morning. It is raining, and it needs to be raining, by the way. We are in St. George, Utah, and if it does not rain and it does not snow for everyone who is bellyaching this morning, I am going to tell you something. There is not going to be any economic development because they are dry.
Andy: Yeah, water is a big thing. We need it for sure.
Jeremy: It is huge deal. So I have some friends, close friends and family, oh the rain. This is just the worst thing. You have to realize that in late January or February, and typically during the Parade of Homes –
Chantry: I was going to say it is going to wait until the parade, doesn’t it?
Jeremy: Typically, during the Parade of Homes it is going to rain for three straight days, but these are these soaking rains that give us the moisture that we need to run this community. So we are happy to do it. Today is January 17, 2019. I do not know how many times you all put 2018 so far on whatever your putting dates on, but I have definitely had a couple.
Chantry: Oh yeah, lots of times.
Jeremy: Well, yeah, you are doing mortgages. I have got Chantry Abbott here who is one of my very close friends and just an absolute amazing home mortgage lender. Someone who, he and his team, Steven Stout and the people at Guild Mortgage, they help people get the money they need so they can buy a home. And I have been having such fun discussions with my kids lately, my 12 and 13-year old. Because they will be like, Dad, how do you buy a house? What a great question. Dad, you do not have $300,000 laying around, do you? Well, no I do not. And then I get to talk about –
Chantry: That is cool.
Jeremy: Right.
Chantry: I have not done it for a while, but even a handful of years ago I had a college professor that taught finance. I would go teach him about credit even at the college level. That was kind of fun.
Jeremy: Oh yeah, it is. Right?
Chantry: Even now, adults do not have a clue yet still. Unless you have bought one, there is just no way to know.
Jeremy: There is no way to have any real kind of concept of that. So I have this conversation with my boys. Well, no, most people, some do, what percentage of deals are cash right now?
Chantry: I have heard like 40%. It is a lot.
Jeremy: It is a lot.
Chantry: We are always higher. The national average is probably more like 25.
Jeremy: It is a lot of cash deals, man.
Chantry: Southern Utah has always been high, right. Just because it is a big retirement, selling homes in California, it has always been a high cash market.
Jeremy: Right. Right because, and Jeriah says he is surprised. And if you think about this for a minute, gang, and we are going to introduce him better momentarily. A lot of these folks they have a home. Regular people, ooops, I knocked that right off. Regular people have a home in California. A regular home. Like regular folk, as they say. They buy a house for $250,000, $450,000. It now appreciates to $850 or a million and they go to sell it. They have been paying the mortgage down for 15 years.
Chantry: Yep.
Jeremy: And they show up in St. George with $500,000 in their hands. Right?
Chantry: Yeah.
Jeremy: And they look, it is different than you think. And they look really rich. Like man, these rich buyers from California. A lot of these people are regular people just like me and us and our listeners. These are not people who are so independently wealthy. They are just folks who bought at the right time, they held real estate. We have been talking on this show for five years that it is such an incredibly better decision. Chantry, you probably heard us talk about, maybe you have been on here, the average net worth of a homeowner over 60 years old, over 64 years old is $300,000, and the average net worth of a renter over 64 years old is five grand.
Chantry: Wow.
Jeremy: That is what Keeping Current Matters put out.
Chantry: When you speak about the average, a lot the California people –
Jeremy: There is no net worth.
Chantry: The average buyer typically what we see is they are retired on a pension. We get a lot of firefighter, retired policemen, school teachers, five grand a month pensions, not very good in Southern California, but here it is pretty good. They can do well.
Jeremy: Yeah, you are not doing anything in Southern California.
Chantry: So that is what happens is –
Jeremy: That is your property taxes.
Chantry: — they have to change.
Jeremy: So I have got Chantry Abbott here with Guild Mortgage. We have got Jeriah Threlfall. I love saying your name, and everybody does. I got up this morning and I just said it a lot of times so it could be easy. He is with St. George Economic Development. Do we call it the Economic Development Council anymore?
Jeriah: Yeah, sometimes we do. Economic Council office. Anything works.
Jeremy: I am going to put into my English, and I am going to let him correct me. But these guys work with really pushing healthy growth for St. George, and what we are talking about is economic development. Right? Bringing businesses in, especially value-added businesses. I am going to have define that momentarily for our listeners.
Jeriah: Okay.
Jeremy: And the reason I speak with fluency, right, because, you might remember, but my first career was with Gilbert Jennings and Larry Gardner. That was my first real career doing Fort Pierce Industrial Park. I got a lot of experience at the time. Scott Hershey. But these guys are looking to bring commerce to Washington County, jobs to where we live. So define value added, Jeriah, for us. What a value-added business is.
Jeriah: To keep it simple, historically, we have always looked for people that make something in our area and then it sell it to someone outside of our area.
Jeremy: Beautiful.
Jeriah: Just a really dumb-downed version of value added. We try to look for people who are not competing with established businesses in the area, and then recently, we have expanded as well. We are also looking for professional. We are having some good success going and recruiting, for example, like small engineering firms out of California.
Jeremy: Cool.
Jeriah: Need a place to relocate. It is interesting you were talking about a pension. Five thousand a month pension does not do as much for you in California as it does here. We have got companies where their engineers are making $160,000 a year –
Jeremy: Good grief.
Jeriah: — and they cannot buy a house.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Jeriah: And they live four hours from the coast. It is not, they are not trying to buy a beach house.
Jeremy: Yeah, they are not on the water.
Jeriah: They are in a climate that is almost exactly like ours. Kind of a high desert. They cannot afford. The older, the people who have been at the company 20 years or so, they have their houses. They are okay. But the people coming out of college, unless the husband and the wife are engineers, they cannot buy a house at $160,000 a year.
Jeremy: Is that wild, Chantry?
Chantry: That is wild. Yeah. How many people in St. George do I meet that are making $160,000 a year? That is very few.
Jeremy: How many? How many a year? What percentage?
Chantry: A handful. Less than 1%.
Jeremy: Less than 1% that come through your mortgage office are making 160. Combined incomes.
Chantry: Yeah, probably combined household. Yeah.
Jeriah: Yeah, one of the companies that we have been working with is in Paso Robles. I think their median home price is like 675.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Chantry: So 675, what would you say ours is?
Jeremy: 300.
Chantry: 300. So yeah, more than double.
Jeremy: They might see 330 but 300 realistically. Because the median is the middle. Right? And Jeriah makes a great comment here about value-added companies. So for instance, Olive Garden is not a value-added company. Right? Because it is almost like to tell people, show people what it is not.
Jeriah: Right.
Jeremy: Talk to me about a company that is coming to St. George. Let’s talk about the economic summit from a week ago and then we can put this in perspective.
Jeriah: People who are coming right now? We have got a lot of people we are working with that we are still under confidentiality agreements with.
Jeremy: Okay, what type of business?
Jeriah: If you look at someone who presented at the summit was Ram, the Ram Company.
Jeremy: Okay.
Jeriah: Textbook. They are value added. They make their solenoids and their aircraft parts and all these things and they sell them all over the world. So they are taking money from other local economies and bringing it in to our economy.
Jeremy: Versus coming in and saying well, we are competing with all the other companies locally. They are really not.
Chantry: So value added, let me understand that one more time. They do not compete with somebody local.
Jeriah: They can and still be value added. We try. We are not going to go recruit someone who does the same thing Ram does.
Chantry: Ideally, not competitive, but (indiscernible)
Jeriah: For us. Yeah.
Chantry: But the main thing is they are exporting outside of our area, so they are bringing money into Washington County that Washington County is not paying for.
Jeriah: Fresh dollars.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Chantry: Wow. That is cool. I love that, too.
Jeremy: I love that. Fresh dollars. That is a good way to say it.
Chantry: I have known Jeriah for years. I have been to the Economic Summit for years.
Jeremy: You did his mortgage loan. Right?
Chantry: Yeah.
Jeremy: He did. Yeah.
Chantry: And we get this all the time. I get this all the time.
Jeremy: Even Jeriah had to borrow money to buy a house.
Jeriah: Just a little bit of it.
Chantry: People always say I wish St. George would get some jobs. It is like it is not lack of effort. It is just probably a long road.
Jeriah: It is.
Jeremy: Sure.
Jeriah: It is, and it is interesting that when the economy is down people are nervous to make a move because they are like things are down right now. And right now, we are facing the battle that the economy has been good for so long that people are afraid it is going to go down. And so, time is huge. We have got companies that have relocated to the area. Most of them have made initial contacts with us two years before. Sometimes you get a really quick one on a smaller-sized business, but we have got 13 projects in our pipeline right now.
Jeremy: Whew.
Chantry: What do you guys do to help the company?
Jeriah: It depends on how sophisticated they are on their own end. If they are a bigger company, they will have their own, like Family Dollar that just recently came here. They have their own site selection team. So, we help them. We make connections for them. We help line up state incentives, local incentives, anything we can do to help.
Chantry: So some of these companies can get state government incentives or local –
Jeriah: Right.
Chantry: — money to help them come here.
Jeremy: And this is kind of cool. I am just throwing a thought in here. So, Family Dollar comes to down. Do you remember what they spent on that land? I am trying to remember. It was a ton.
Jeriah: It was a lot. It was right before my time, but it was a lot.
Jeremy: It was. So they come into town. They buy the land, which pumps tons of money in the economy.
Chantry: Yeah, think about how much that cost you.
Jeremy: They built this massive facility, which pumps tons of money into the economy. They create jobs. Right? Which is creating jobs. Then the facility is now using, has usage, uses things. It uses power, and of course, one of the number one reasons that these companies go to Fort Pierce is, Jeriah, drum roll, please.
Jeriah: Cheap power.
Jeremy: Cheap power.
Jeriah: Very reliable. Very good power.
Jeremy: Cheapest or second cheapest power grid. Was that what I remember?
Jeriah: In the nation. Yeah.
Jeremy: In the nation. Is that crazy, Chant? Dixie Escalante.
Chantry: So that is a big reason that they are coming.
Jeremy: Huge reason, man.
Jeriah: We are working with a company right now that is in Southern California. On this on, southern California helped us by taking their building for eminent domain.
Jeremy: They kicked them out.
Jeriah: So they are in a building they do not like right now. But yeah, just what we can safe them in power will cover the lease on a building here.
Jeremy: Could you imagine? Think about that. Just what they save in power, and that is Dixie Escalante right out there on Brigham Road in Bloomington.
Chantry: So I am just a mortgage guy. That is all I have done my whole life. I do not know any of this stuff. That is really interesting, I think, for the average person that is not involved in the development to think that the county is actually trying to give money, finding ways, grants, to bring these businesses. It is a tiny, tiny investment for the return the county is going to get probably.
Jeremy: Correct.
Jeriah: The way I think about it is 90% or more of all incentives that are given are actually just a return on the property tax that they are going to pay. So you take a vacant piece of land and whoever owns it is paying $2000 a year on property taxes. Making up easy numbers.
Chantry: Because they are just being taxed on the value of the land –
Jeriah: Right.
Chantry: — which is not a lot.
Jeriah: Then you go throw a million-square-foot building for Family Dollar –
Jeremy: A million square –
Jeriah: — and all of it that entails and all of their equipment and everything, and now, they are not only paying $2000 in property tax. Maybe they are paying $100,000. So the incentive actually isn’t cash typically out of anyone’s pocket. They pay that property tax and say we, however it gets approved. I think each project, depending on the jobs they bring it and everything—
Jeremy: Right.
Jeriah: They may get 20% of that property tax back for the first five years. So it is not even new money. It is not taking –
Chantry: That is crazy.
Jeriah: — money out of our coffers, so to speak.
Chantry: The crazy part is we are making our money back on the property taxes. You did not even mention that. You mentioned jobs and employment –
Jeremy: Yeah, property taxes.
Chantry: — and building the building and all those other cool things that go along with it.
Jeriah: The companies that, I say we, Scott was here forever.
Jeremy: Sure.
Jeriah: For those that know Scott Hershey. He was here for 20, 21 years before I came in when he retired. The companies that our office has brought in over the last 25 years, the property tax, we went through just for fun once and added it all up, and then allocated it out. And for example, just those companies that we helped, let alone all the rest, contribute about $750,000 a year to the school in property taxes.
Chantry: And all property taxes are county-driven, right? Each city gets a little click, but you are mostly talking about the county?
Jeriah: Yeah, so the county gets, say out of this, I cannot remember the numbers. I should have brought them. Say it is a million dollars, just for easy, that these companies that we brought in pay in property tax per year. The county would get about $20,000 of that. Most of those companies are located in St. George, so they would get about $75,000 say. The school district, the library, the mosquito abatement gets like $2000 a year. All the different tax amenities, the water conservatory district gets some. Any taxing entity gets their portion –
Chantry: Very cool.
Jeriah: — and that is all set by, that is all pre-set.
Jeremy: Right.
Jeriah: When you look at your, when you get your property tax bill, you can go and look at the same thing. It says right on it what percentages, what multiplier, how much goes to the school district, how much goes to the –
Chantry: Jeriah is the monopoly man on a county level.
Jeremy: He is. He actually is. Utahopoly or whatever it is. You guys, I am going to ask both of you. So Jeriah is with, of course, St. George Economic Development. Chantry Abbott is a great lender here in town, and Chantry was at the economic summit last week. I was not. I was here. So give me the highlights. What do you feel like the highlights were? And Chantry, speak up, too, because you attended.
Jeriah: For me, the highlight was all the technology worked and there were no glitches because that is what I sit there and worry about the whole time. If the mics quit working or everyone has videos. It just stresses me out.
Jeremy: How many people attended, by the way?
Jeriah: About 900.
Jeremy: So you have got 1000 people almost. All of them on their phones. All of them on the free wi-fi.
Jeriah: Yes, we have issues before but the Dixie Center has upgraded and it went flawlessly this year as far as the technology goes. But I really felt like the keynote speaker in the morning, Shawn Nelson, the CEO of Lovesac –
Jeremy: Lovesac.
Jeriah: — just absolutely killed it.
Chantry: He nailed it, man. It was awesome. I loved it. He was my favorite part, too.
Jeremy: People said he was great.
Chantry: He is just very like super down-to-earth guy. Even kind of had some funny photos. You know the 10-year challenge that is going around right now?
Jeremy: Yes.
Chantry: Before the 10-year challenge last week, he had like three photos of him of when he was on, in fact, he was on a show with Richard Branson.
Jeriah: Yeah, the rebel billionaire.
Chantry: And he actually –
Jeriah: — with the bad hair. He kept saying –
Chantry: He wore it and had like, I want to describe whose hair, but I, it is like bleached, really long, like down to his shoulders, kind of a chubby-faced looking 20-year-old basically when he started this thing. It was cool.
Jeremy: Oh man. Boy-band hair.
Chantry: Yeah, and he is just making fun of himself, just really easy going.
Jeremy: Who are we talking to? It is his brother-in-law. Who are we talking to this week?
Chantry: Jeremy Back.
Jeremy: Jeremy Back. Thank you. It is Jeremy Back’s brother-in-law. Jeremy Back is my, really the only other Jeremy really in real estate right now, and the CEO of our brokerage.
Jeriah: Okay.
Jeremy: It is his brother-in-law. Classic. Okay, so Shawn Nelson was awesome with Lovesac.
Jeriah: Yeah, he really was amazing.
Jeremy: What is a takeaway from him?
Jeriah: His message is incredible as far as the sustainability of their business model. But the thing that I got the most I went home and told my kids that are little, inspiring entrepreneurs is that he never gave up. His first order was for 12,000 lovesacs, and he did not have a way to make them. So he went and got an agricultural loan and bought a tractor and a haybuster and used that to shred foam. So he got a USDA agricultural loan, drove it to downtown Salt Lake, parked his tractor outside the building, ran a pole in so he could turn the haybuster and shredded foam to make this order.
Jeremy: This is so good, man.
Jeriah: He had to put a ticket to Shanghai, China on his credit card so he could go order the fabric.
Jeremy: Right.
Jeriah: He did not know he could speak Mandarin Chinese thanks to his mission.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Jeriah: So he was able to negotiate better than the average 20-year old.
Jeremy: Oh heavens.
Jeriah: It was incredible.
Jeremy: This is good.
Jeriah: It was a great story.
Chantry: Same thing and then I think the order wanted, the first company wanted a $60,000 deposit, which he did not have $600.
Jeriah: Right.
Chantry: For the order. Right?
Jeriah: To the factory, the Chinese factories.
Chantry: He said well I am Lovesac, and I have never had to pay a deposit.
Jeremy: He put it out there.
Chantry: And they thought wait a minute. So they gave him the money because he just acted like he had it figured out.
Jeriah: The factory needed 60,000, so then he called the people who placed the order and he said yeah, I need the 60,000 deposit. They are like we do not do deposits. He is like well we have never done one without a deposit.
Chantry: I am Lovesac. I have never done a deal without a deposit. Which is true because he had never done a deal.
Jeremy: This is pretty funny.
Jeriah: He kept saying we are the best not beanbag company in the world. It was like him and his cousin.
Jeremy: Wow. I have to tell you that it is super helpful to me just a couple of thoughts you just shared there.
Chantry: And the journey he went through I think was the point Jeriah was making. Knowing how hard it was, would you start over and do it again? I do not know. It was, was it 20 years in the making and he has had a lot of, he has failed a lot of times and had a few really crazy successful moments.
Jeriah: Yeah, he showed pictures of the Lovesac Limo and then the restructuring and then the ups and downs. But the thing that I kind of relate everything to my kids and how interested they are in things. And the thing that I told them that I was really impressed with is that he had an idea and he got off the couch and did it. And that is his slogan is get off the couch, and it makes sense because get off the couch and onto a Lovesac, but it is also a life creed. How many 18-year-old kids, he tells it he was just sitting around eating a bowl of Captain Crunch like a week after school, and he was like how cool would it be if I had a beanbag that was as big as from me to the TV? And then he was like I am going to get in the car and go to Joann Fabrics and make a big beanbag.
Jeremy: We are going to do it.
Jeriah: And now he is the CEO of a publicly-traded company based off getting off the couch for that one good idea.
Jeremy: Yeah, a northern Utah kid.
Jeriah: Yep.
Jeremy: Born and raised in Utah at the risk of the risk. A Mormon kid. Right? They are not Mormons anymore. It is the Church of Jesus Christ, but truly a local kid. Not Richard Branson. Right? Not Bill Gates. Not Seth Godin, one of the great thought leaders that we follow. Because it is always somebody else. But what he is saying well, not really. Why does it have to be somebody else?
Jeriah: Yep.
Jeremy: Why can’t it just be anybody right off the couch right here? So what other highlights from the summit?
Jeriah: That was my favorite. Do you have anything you want to say?
Chantry: How many people normally do you have? It seemed, I have been to a few and it seemed sold out. It was awesome. A great turn out.
Jeriah: Yeah, we have been growing. We sold about 70 more tickets this year than we did last year. We are about the maximum.
Jeremy: You almost sold me one. Well, Dixie State D1. I do not want to miss that.
Chantry: Yeah, that is cool.
Jeremy: Dixie State announced they are Division 1. It was pretty cool this morning on my way, I live right downtown, Jeriah, close to our office. I am by Town Square, so I take a kid to Tonaquint and then I take a kid to Dixie Middle, and then I come back up to the show. It was fun to see the one up here with the light where the D was not lit up and then you could see the one was completely temporary.
Jeriah: Yeah, it was pretty exciting.
Jeremy: Right. So Dixie State is going Division 1, which, what does it really mean for the university and the town? In a simple overview. Better athletic opportunities, of course, and athletics in college is money to the college.
Jeriah: For me, and I do not speak for the whole university or town or anything obviously, but for me, I think it validates it. There is no higher level –
Jeremy: Right.
Jeriah: — and so we all have believed in Dixie State University clear back when it was the high school, the junior college, the everything in between. The thing that I am excited is to be able to watch them compete against the top level in sports or anything else.
Jeremy: Right, and just for fun, Division 1, just because I know a lot of out, I know you are a sports fan, but a lot of listeners would not know this. So to give you perspective, when we are talking about Division 1, here are your top five ranked football teams – Alabama, Clemson, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Georgia. That is Division 1.
Jeriah: Right.
Jeremy: So even the non-sports fans are like oh, that is Division –
Chantry: We are one of those.
Jeremy: — yeah.
Chantry: Dixie is one of those now.
Jeremy: We are going to get killed in the short-term at sports.
Jeriah: At first. Well, the nice thing, I was at, they announced that on Friday at the university and they had all the student athletes come.
Jeremy: Cool.
Jeriah: And I was just standing there waiting to talk to somebody, and I heard a couple of the athletes talking about now they are Division 1 athletes and just the pride that they felt in that, that they get to compete at that level for the next four years.
Chantry: That is a good point because if you are high school kid, you want to be able to say hey I went D1. It is top, top level. That is cool.
Jeriah: Yep. I think it is a great thing. It is a great opportunity for all of the students. It is a great opportunity for our town. For me in economic development, it is huge too because anything you can do to get outreach and get some notoriety, and people ask questions like that. It is not, the number one concern is is my business going to be profitable? Can I succeed there? But then right away, they typically go to the university and the culture that it brings.
Jeremy: Yep.
Jeriah: That is where you are going to get most of your plays and your concerts and your sporting events and all of these things and being Division 1 is going to be a good thing for us.
Chantry: So what Division 1 schools are there in the state? BYU? Utah? Weaver? Logan?
Jeriah: Yep. SSU.
Chantry: SSU is D1. And then Dixie.
Jeriah: Utah Valley.
Chantry: They are D1 as well?
Jeriah: Yeah, so we will be in their conference now. And that is the amazing thing is when this started being talked about, we –
Jeremy: Ten seconds.
Jeriah: Because no one thought we could get into a conference and we got –
Chantry: How cool.
Jeremy: By the way, I was a Dixie State graduate when it was a two-year college.
Chantry: Same here.
Jeremy: Got my associate’s degree. You got your associate’s degree.
Chantry: Yep.
Jeremy: Jeriah Threlfall, thank you, man.
Chantry: So cool.
Jeremy: Chantry Abbott, thanks for being in here. Folks, Mike is going to give you some contact information if you have got real estate questions. We will help you in 2019. Thank you.
Mike: Thanks for joining us. If you would like to know more about St. George Real Estate, give them a call at 275-1690 or Sold in St. George dot com.