Tag Archives : home values

On this week’s show Jeremy Larkin and Jesse Poll of The Larkin Group at KW Realty discuss Zillow.com. The fact that Zillow is here to stay, consumers (want) to trust them, and how to determine if they’re your friend or foe when buying and selling real estate!

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: We are still doing the technical part of things.
Jesse: Yeah, I was having some technical issues here this morning.
Jeremy: We were.
Andy: That is always an issue –
Jesse: All of the above.
Andy: We have got all the, like in this room, if we count our phones, we have like nine computers in this room. There is a laptop. There is like three desktops. We have three phones in the room. I think we are going to be streaming on Facebook Live. All kinds of things. Right, guys?
Jeremy: I actually just hung up with NASA and they have their super computer headed here on an 18-wheeler. So we are going to get that set up shortly, and your mind is really going to be blown.
Andy: Yeah, looking forward to that.
Jeremy: That is not bad, is it? Jesse, can I trust Zillow for my home value? Can we answer that question today?Andy: KDXU news time. 8:35. Welcome to the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive with Jeremy Larkin. We have really just one issue right now and Jeremy Larkin is not in the house yet. I think he is in the house. He is not in the room yet. But we will get things started and start talking about St. George Real Estate. A lot on the mind and what are your thoughts as we get things going early with Jeremy in the other part of the building? You got any ideas for me? He is still working on the technical side of things. Maybe we will keep the music going a little bit longer. If you are in the real estate market, you ought to check in with the Keller Williams team, or the Jeremy Larkin team under the umbrella of Keller Williams Realty, and it is a great time of the year to make that move to maybe your dream house. Or maybe you want to downsize if you are in a situation where perhaps your house is too big. That is kind of where I am at right now. I had raised five kids, but I have got this big old house and only two of the kids are left. So I start thinking about things like downsizing and changing the situation in my household. These are the kind of things that you think about. Dream house. Maybe you want a pool. Maybe you want a pickle ball court in your backyard. Whatever it might be. This is a great time again to contact the Jeremy Larkin Group at Keller Williams Realty. He just made it in the house, so that makes me a lot happier. I do not have to sit here and filibuster a little bit while we wait for Jeremy Larkin to join us. He is here somewhere, and he is looking rather dapper by the way as well. You ready to talk a little bit, guys?
Jesse: Yes, sir. You have got to push play on the other one, too.
Jeremy: Oh my gosh.

Andy: Oh, that is a good question.
Jesse: Yeah, we can.
Jeremy: Yeah, can we?
Jesse: Well, it is actually –
Jeremy: We can answer the question or can we trust Zillow?
Jesse: Well, I do not think you can trust Zillow without doing a lot of homework because they do not know, they do not have access to the real closed data and they do not know what your home looks like or has or anything. I can give you some good examples of that, if you would like.
Jeremy: I would love to hear. No, the listeners want to hear.
Jesse: We just saw a home over in the Legacy the other day, and Zillow says that it is a 4-bedroom, 8-bathroom –
Andy: Eight bathrooms?
Jesse: — so I know for a fact that this home has got three bathrooms.
Jeremy: Ah, the old eight-bathroom home. We know everybody loves that one.
Jesse: So chances are they are giving them probably four grand each for one of those bathrooms, so if they have got five extras, that is what? $20,000 extra that they are getting for their home value or their Zestimate?
Jeremy: Yeah, it is crazy. It is crazy, which is insane, right?
Jesse: Yes.
Jeremy: Which is insane. So I had somebody yesterday reach out to us and they said hey, I want to look at my Zillow home value. What do you think my home is worth in Bountiful? I said is your home 2700 feet? They said yeah, the main floor is 2700 feet. What do you think happened, Jesse? What do you think was missing?
Jesse: Their basement because in the state of Utah it counts basements differently and Zillow cannot track that.
Jeremy: Yeah, imagine that. Imagine that, Andy, you go on to Zillow dot com thinking of hey, I am going to find out what my home’s value is. I am just going to go ahead because I heard that Zillow, I saw these Zillow ads, and the Zillow ads are so lovely. They feature these families that are doing great family things like making pancakes. We saw one. We are going to talk about making unicorn pancakes, and we are going to talk about an instant offer program today. And you go on there thinking well, I will see what Zillow says my home is worth, but here is the problem. Zillow only, if you have a basement, they do not show it.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: They do not show it. Jesse, what would that mean to a consumer? Value-wise.
Jesse: Oh quite a bit. Probably half as, so on a basement, you will get about 40% more, less value than you will on your main level, so you may be missing 30-40% in your Zestimate value.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Andy: That is a lot of money.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: It is a ton.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: It is a ton. All right, guys. We are going to do Facebook Live here.
Jesse: We are getting our technical difficulties situated.
Jeremy: We have got it figured out. We had to reboot the system. So just envision, for our listeners out there, I am Jeremy Larkin, host of the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive, and I drove and it was morning and it is beautiful out there. But you are talking about you could be missing 50 to 100 grand.
Jesse: You could. Definitely.
Jeremy: Right?
Jeremy: And vice-a versa. It could be over. For a good instance is that bathroom. Their Zestimate is probably is $30,000 over what it should be.
Jeremy: Yeah. Yeah.
Jesse: What it would sell for in the market.
Jeremy: Absolutely. This is an issue, and we just went Facebook Live, so if you want to watch this morning on Facebook, Facebook dot com slash St. George Experts. Facebook dot com slash St. George Experts. Check it out. Actually, you know what? I lied. We are actually Facebook dot com slash Jeremy Larkin.
Jesse: It is on your personal page.
Jeremy: Yeah, I apologize. Facebook dot com slash Jeremy Larkin. We want to answer some of the most typically asked questions that we see in real estate, and the first one is can I trust Zillow for my home value? Now, Zillow is up to something else, Jesse, which is their Instant Offer program. What are they doing?
Jesse: They are going in to markets, and they will actually give you an offer for your home. It is right there. Hang in there. So they will give you an offer for your home and buy it.
Andy: Zillow will?
Jesse: Yeah, they will.
Andy: Really?
Jesse: And then they will turn around and sell it for market value. So that is a good thing to keep in mind that they are actually going to turn around and sell it so that the chances that you are getting market value for that home are slim and one.
Jeremy: Yeah, they are slim and none, not slim to none. Thank you. So there is a video that I watched yesterday. I guess it was released to YouTube. Zillow dot com slash offers, and here is the fun part. Here is the great part. So many real estate agents love to hate Zillow. They love to hate Zillow because Zillow, of course, is trying to take the real estate agent out of the process very subtly. So instead of running from it, we are just going to talk about it on the program this morning. So Zillow dot com slash offers, if you would like to see what that looks like. People are going to find it anyway.
Andy: Grab the bull by the horns, right, Jeremy?
Jeremy: Yeah, here is the issue. Zillow is going to make you an offer, an instant offer, online, without ever having seen your home. The offer will be subject then to them sending in a real estate professional appraiser inspector and deciding what they really want to pay for it. Okay? So first of all, Andy, if they come in and offer your $400,000 for your home it does not mean they are buying your home.
Andy: Right.
Jeremy: Right. There will be tons of fine print that says oh, that is subject to this. So here is the fun part. We saw that Zillow was doing it. What do you think we started doing? We said we have got an instant offer program. And the reality is we have an instant offer program. So if you visit Sold in St. George dot com, Sold in St. George dot com, you will see a big old button that says instant offer.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: Now here is one of the challenges. So Zillow is doing this. Who else is doing that? IBuyer?
Jesse: IBuyer. Purple Door.
Jeremy: Purple door. So here is what is happening. They are coming in. They are making an offer, and then they are charging a buyer’s premium of some kind which is like 3-5% of the purchase price. Right? There is no commission, air quotes.
Jesse: Yep.
Jeremy: Good morning all of our Facebook Live viewers. If you have got questions, we want you to ask them. But they are going in, hey, Andy you should vote for us for Best of Southern Utah. Right there. It is right on your screen. Just two clicks, man. Two clicks.
Andy: I have got to do it now. Yep.
Jeremy: So I was just watching it with Best of Southern Utah. So they come in and they make an offer sight unseen, which is subject to them actually inspecting it and deciding if they want to buy it. And then they charge this strange fee, this strange buyer premium fee, which is just wacked out. Right? So the next thing you know you think are getting 400, but the reality is you are actually getting 360. Let’s flip this on its head. We can bring a local investor in right now from St. George who will make an offer to buy your property, close in seven days, cash, with no strange strings attached. Really simple. They will buy your home. It will sell for blank. You will get blank if they buy it cash. Or we can put it on the market, distribute this thing to every single real estate agent on the planet. Zillow dot com included, smile and a wink. Trulia dot com. Homes dot com. Realtor dot com, all these websites, and we can sell it at market. By they way, in most cases, you will get more selling your home at market. But here is what they do on the Zillow offer ad. They show this dad in the kitchen, and he is really having a good time. He is making pancakes. And then you see he is trying to make a shaped pancake, and it says, excuse me, making unicorn pancakes is hard. And the music plays. But you know what is easy? Selling your home. And he is sitting there and bing, bing, bing, bing. His phone bings, and he is in his apron and he is talking to his child and he looks over and it says you have an offer from Zillow. 365. He goes oh. I hope our listeners can see. Do you see the face? It is the raised eyebrow look. Like hmmm, well that is interesting. Let me finish making these pancakes. So easy. Like hey, just pack up your belongings and they will be here tomorrow. But that is not real. That is actually not real. You have to understand that. So we want to go straight to our consumers here in Washington County and say look, if you want an instant offer, we will make you an instant offer.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: Literally right now. We have an investment group who will purchase your home cash. Let’s talk pros and cons. So the pros are you sell your home in seven days, if you want to sell it in seven days. You could sell it in 45 or 90.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: The investors are real flexible that way. But if you wanted to be out in seven days, if all the boxes are checked and things work out, then it could close in seven days cash. It is a cash deal. It is not contingent on an appraisal. It is not contingent on a loan. Right? And you do not have to prepare. You do not have to stage. You do not have to make beds. All those things. Now here is the flip side. That is what Zillow is trying to get people to do. Hey, look how easy it is. But see the difference is we are not going to pitch to you that it is just so much easier that you should do it. No, no, no, no.
Jesse: Well, in any part of our life, convenience comes with a cost. It always will.
Jeremy: Right. Right.
Jesse: It always will.
Jeremy: Right. So we would not propose to you that you should be doing this because it is easy. You should be doing this because for some reason it makes sense that you have got to get out of there fast.
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: Otherwise, we will take your home. We will put it on the market. You will have to do some work. We will require you to do some work because you are going to say to me I want the most money for my home.
Jesse: Yep.
Jeremy: And I am going to say well, if you want the most money, then you have to do the most prep work –
Jesse: Yes.
Jeremy: — which we are going to guide you. We are going to hold your hand. We are going to walk you down the road. We are going to schedule all the showings with you. Yeah, you are going to need to make the beds. You are going to need to close the toilet lid. All that kind of jazz. If you have got dirty clothes on the floor, you had better just kick them under the bed. I do not know what to tell you. Those things are going to have to happen, and it is going to be a nightmare in some ways, but you probably will not be sad if you get the money at closing.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: So just be aware. Just be aware that these groups, Zillow is a big, massive entity. It is a behemoth, and they are a company that is actually running no profit. So it is one of these strange Wall Street things. They are running no profit, but they are multi-billion-dollar corporation, and their goal is to set themselves up as kind of the replacement to the real estate agent, and eventually just have the whole entire thing. So look, people are going to go there. They are going to go to Zillow dot com, look for a Zestimate. Here is what I would say. Go get your Zestimate at Zillow dot com, and then call us and say I got a Zestimate. Can you please produce a courtesy, right, free of charge market analysis for my property, and let me know what you believe it will sell for on the open market? And then we do that and then you have the real information. Then you can compare the Zillow Zestimate against our information. And if you are paying close attention you will notice that they skipped your basement. Right? So kind of crazy. I just think that people need to be aware of that. That we are not trying to get people off of there. They are on there. Good grief.
Jesse: Well, you are never going to get them off of there.
Jeremy: 20% of our clients came to us last year from Zillow. Right? Wasn’t it 20%?
Jesse: Yes.
Jeremy: 20% of our clients actually contact us through Zillow. Hey, it is what it is. But buyer beware. Right. This instant offer, the Zillow dot com slash offers thing, you are dealing with a corporation. You could just be dealing with someone right here and get all of your options. Right? And of course, their goal is it seems so easy. You do not even call an agent. You just go oh man, this seems easy. I was making unicorn pancakes for my child, and I got an offer on my phone. I should just get out of here. Right? The rest, as they say, is history. If you would like to see what we are doing with Instant Offers, visit Sold in St. George dot com slash or just Sold in St. George dot com. The Instant Offer button will hit you in the face. Have you voted for Best of Southern Utah today, Jesse?
Jesse: Not yet.
Jeremy: Andy did.
Andy: I just did.
Jesse: Because you have to wait 24 hours.
Jeremy: No, you do not have to wait 24 hours.
Jesse: Oh yeah. It will not let me do it unless it is the next 24 hours.
Jeremy: Oh no.
Andy: So he voted yesterday is what he is saying.
Jeremy: It should not be 24 hours. It should just be 12:01am. I do not know.
Jesse: Oh really?
Jeremy: Yeah.
Jesse: Because the other day it would not let me because I had just voted at like ten o’clock the night before.
Jeremy: Oh just come back once per day. That is what they tell me. I just voted. Folks, visit, if you visit the Best of Southern Utah, we are, over at the Larkin Group, our real estate team, we are aiming to win that title. Some of you saw a Facebook video I posted last week. It was me with my high school yearbook.
Jesse: I was telling my wife this morning that, because she asked me if I could do a Miami Vice pose, and I told her, you know I was voted the most likely to be the next Don Johnson.
Jeremy: Dude. I so believe it.
Jesse: That is the only title I ever got.
Jeremy: I so believe it. At every level I believe it. But if you visit Sold in St. George dot com, we made it easy. You can vote for us right through that page, and yes, cast a vote. It is Jeremy Larkin for Best Realtor and Larkin Group for Best Real Estate team. I have the very best people in Washington County working with me, and there you have it. Whose phone is buzzing?
Jesse: Yours probably.
Jeremy: I do not know. That is kind of weird. Some thing is buzzing. It is in my ears.
Andy: Not mine.
Jeremy: Man, this is weird. All right, Jesse. Should we talk about a couple other questions that these guys are, that these folks out there are asking?
Jesse: We can, but I am going to depend on you because my laptop died.
Jeremy: Did it die?
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: Oh man. So this is going to be really good. So we talked about answering the best questions, the questions here in Southern Utah that people have been asking. These questions from our 2019 Parade of Homes survey. And many of you will remember that we created a survey and asked folks questions about the market and just to find out what they were doing and then we turned around and we had about 140 people respond to our survey, maybe 150. Okay, what about, Jesse, are there good options for young couples who just graduated college? I am going to qualify that because it does not have to be just graduated college, but let’s call it young couples, just graduated college. Let’s guess that these are couples that are in their like 22-25 years old range. Okay? Are there good options? Is buying a house a good idea at this stage in life? What do you think?
Jesse: I think it is because you can step into a starter home and start building equity, start building your life, and it will help you think differently. It really does. The home ownership is almost like the next step in life. It is like having a kid. It just changes your life.
Jeremy: Is there any reason, and we will back into this, are there good options? Is there any reason that they wouldn’t buy a home at this stage in their life? What would be good reasons to not purchase a home at early 20’s, graduated from college?
Jesse: If you are not really sure you are going to be here say two years –
Jeremy: Yes.
Jesse: — then it does not make sense at all because if you end up having to sell that you will end up possibly paying capital gains and that could hurt you.
Jeremy: Bingo. Yeah. Absolutely, so a lot of these couples, they are not permanent here.
Jesse: It just depends on what are you doing.
Jeremy: Yeah, at least two years, and Jesse says at least two years because if you stay in a home, sell a home less than 24 months after you purchase it, you are going to be paying what is called capital gains taxes.
Jesse: And there is no way around that.
Jeremy: No. There is no way around it at all. But let’s take this a step further. How long should people really be in their home? Like if we want to wait out a real estate cycle, what are you thinking?
Jesse: Five to ten years.
Jeremy: Okay.
Jesse: Because every cycle for the last what, 70 years has been up and down every ten years. Five up, five down.
Jeremy: Absolutely.
Jesse: Five up, five down.
Jeremy: Absolutely. There is no question. Right?
Jesse: But let’s kind of hit on that. So with that said, we are probably in the height of a market, and does that really mean that they wait? I do not know that it does. If it makes sense to buy a home.
Jeremy: Okay, let’s pretend that I am young couple. Okay?
Jesse: Okay.
Jeremy: Just graduated from college. Maybe have a baby or two, maybe do not have any.
Jesse: Okay.
Jeremy: I buy a home, but there is a concern that in the next two to three years that my wife, let’s say, or if somebody says their husband, one of us might get a nursing position in Salt Lake City, and we might leave.
Jesse: Okay.
Jeremy: But we really want to own a home right now. So what is going to happen when we go to leave? Do we have to sell it?
Jesse: No, you could actually make sure that you buy one where you could possibly rent it.
Jeremy: He is following my cues real nice.
Jesse: Okay, so in that case, and as long as you have lived in a home the last two of five years, it is not technically an investment property –
Jeremy: Right.
Jesse: — so you could still wait out a market and sell it say five years from now and be safe.
Jeremy: So you are saying my monthly mortgage payment is $1400 a month. I could theoretically rent that home for $1400 a month. Or fifteen.
Jesse: You would have to check on that, but possibly yes.
Jeremy: You would want to do some research.
Jesse: You can either definitely offset the rent or get all of the mortgage paid with the rent. That is a good possibility, but I would make sure that you prepare, think about that first.
Jeremy: Right.
Jesse: Because you do not want to have to have the money in the bank or –
Jeremy: What are options though? For these young people, what are the options? And for my team out there who are watching and listening, what are the options?
Jesse: There are plenty of options, but you really have to do your homework and you have to be quick on the draw. Because a young couple is probably going to be under $300,000.
Jeremy: And maybe under?
Jesse: Under 250, which is really a tough market still even though we are getting more inventory. My biased opinion is you have to have a good agent that has feet on the ground for you and is really looking because the homes that are the best value that are the right homes are selling so fast you do not see them.
Jeremy: They are gone.
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: They are gone. So a couple of things. So there are some options.
Jesse: There are.
Jeremy: But, Jesse, I can only afford a $2500 car. There are no options for me. There are.
Jesse: There are.
Jeremy: It is just I had better set my expectations –
Jesse: Yeah, look where the expectations are.
Jeremy: And this is the same thing. And where I am going with this, right, Andy, do you have adult children? How old is your youngest?
Andy: My youngest is 15. My oldest is 27.
Jeremy: Are they homeowners?
Andy: My oldest is, yes.
Jeremy: The reason I ask you that is you have kids that you could counsel. I do not quite have a child buying a home yet. But do you think that the expectations of young people today, because of the wealth that has been enjoyed the last 30 years are different than the young people 30 years ago?
Andy: Yeah, I think so. We did not dream of buying a home at 21 years old. There is no way.
Jeremy: And the reason I say this is by the way there has been such a beating up of millennials and Gen Y and this, that, and the other. These kids are terrible. Here is the deal. We are all just a product of our upbringing. So these kids do not even know what it was like because we did not have the internet. Well, of course, they do not know. There is no reason to assault people because they grew up when they did. Just the reality is that there is so much wealth right now. Right? And when you were 21 years old, it was like man, if people could get into a 1000 square foot, two-bedroom, no bath, young and married, especially my parents, who are older, who are 78, for them to own an 800-square-foot something was like a dream.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: Yet what is the perception now, Jesse? I drive down there to Little Valley and what do I want?
Jesse: You want that $400,000 house.
Jeremy: I want a $400,000 home.
Jesse: And also the perception a lot of times is I will just wait for the market to come back down.
Jeremy: Yeah. Yeah.
Jesse: But what they do not think about is when that market comes back down, it most likely will be interest-rate driven. That $400,000 house that probably is not going to go down by $100,000.
Jeremy: No.
Jesse: We are not going to see a crash.
Jeremy: That is not happening right now.
Jesse: But that $375,000 house is now more like a $425,000 house because the interest rate has just went up.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Jesse: So have you shot yourself in the foot by not really thinking that through?
Jeremy: Yes.
Jesse: I think that is what we are going to see.
Jeremy: Keith asked a question. Let’s just segue there. Are home prices up right now in St. George or has higher interest rates stopped any increase in prices? Well
Jesse: They are still up.
Jeremy: Yeah, they are still up. They are still up. Are they going up? No. They are not currently going up in Washington County. Maybe in a pocket here or there. I just listed a Coral Springs condo, which is going to be kind of interesting. We will be listing it for $309,900.
Jesse: Nice.
Jeremy: Interestingly, there are three that just closed at 290, 295, and there are two under contract above 300.
Jesse: That is crazy because you know three years ago when we talked to him –
Jeremy: Yes.
Jesse: — that was 250.
Jeremy: 250.
Jesse: Holy moly.
Jeremy: So here is a pocket and the pocket is this. They are selling homes, like they are vacation rentals. Remember we talked about nightly, weekly rentals. They can be a vacation rental. Well, they are selling Coral Springs for say $300,000, 310. Across the street, literally across the street, Cole West is building new vacation rentals for 500.
Jesse: Four to five hundred. Yeah.
Jeremy: So, what you have is a little micro-pocket there where the buyers look at them and go oh, well, gosh, I would love to buy a $500,000 vacation rental and then they would walk across the street and say I guess I will buy one that was built in 2007.
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: And 2007, it is the big rock fireplaces and the dark trim and the
Jesse: They are pretty cool.
Jeremy: — dark doors. Yeah, they are really cool. It is just a different style, and so some folks just say I will just take that style and I will paint it. Right? So folks, if you have not done so yet, we would ask please if you will vote for us. Sold in St. George dot com and cast your vote. That will pop up. Vote for the Larkin Group. Jeremy Larkin. Best in Southern Utah. Jesse, thanks for being on and handling things as we were having techno difficulties.
Jesse: Sorry for the technical difficulties.
Jeremy: We got it, man. We are off to the races. Have a great week.
Andy: Thanks, guys.

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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: These guys have maybe the coolest theme music out there.
Jeremy: Yes, we do.
Andy: St. George Real Estate show with Jeremy Larkin. Jeremy joined today Carl Wright. Guys, I love talking about real estate. I am always kind of in the market for a different house even though I have been in my current house seven years. Maybe you can help me out a little bit.
Jeremy: Listen, I have got some stuff in the $2-3 million range I think you should look at.
Andy: Okay, can I borrow a couple of mill?
Jeremy: Yeah.
Andy: Okay.
Jeremy: Here is the deal. I would happily contribute to your down payment. I cannot say what, but hey, by the way –
Andy: A couple of cows or –
Jeremy: — welcome. Welcome to the show, Andy.
Andy: Thank you, Jeremy. It is great to be here. I have been looking forward to this day for about a week. I have been here what, three times now, sitting and listening to you guys –
Jeremy: Yeah, yeah, this is –
Andy: — but Mike would never let me talk.
Jeremy: No he would not. He would not.
Andy: Now, I get to talk.
Jeremy: Last week was the famed, final, final, the farewell show. Mike is no longer with us. Is that how you say it?
Carl: That is sad.
Andy: Well, I will say this. I called a basketball game with him last night, so I know he is still with us, he is just not with us.
Jeremy: He is with us. Which game did you guys call?
Andy: Pineview Dixie. Three-pointer at the buzzer in overtime. It was a great game.
Jeremy: Wait a minute. Who won?
Andy: Pineview won it.
Jeremy: Oh man.
Carl: Oh wow.
Jeremy: See I was not, literally I was so focused in other things I did not even know they were playing last night, which is sad because I am a Dixie High graduate. And that used to be, that was the rivalry. But the rivalries now, there is a variety of rivalries. It used to be Pineview and, excuse me, it used to be Cedar-Dixie, which was –
Andy: Right.
Jeremy: — when I was young. And then it became Pineview-Dixie. And now there is, there is kind of a variety of rivalries. Isn’t there, Carl? What do you think? What do you think the real rivalry is now?
Carl: Gosh, it is, I think there is a rivalry between everybody now.
Jeremy: Your kids, your kids will go where? Crimson or Desert Hills?
Carl: We will go to the new Crimson.
Jeremy: You will go to Crimson.
Andy: Brand-new school in the fall.
Carl: Brand-new school.
Jeremy: Yeah, so it is has changed. The dynamic has changed. Three-pointer at the buzzer. Good grief. I think I just had a traumatic episode thinking about Jordan and him, the fallaway three-pointer on the Jazz in the 1996 –
Andy: Oh, flashback.
Carl: Thanks for bringing that up.
Andy: Yeah, thanks a lot.
Jeremy: Yeah, we are never going to live that down because genuinely speaking the Jazz are never, ever going to probably have that chance again. I am sorry, guys. It is what it is. It is hard to attract, hey welcome to St. George Real Estate sports show. It is hard to attract, I have said this forever. Now, I am going to beat up on my own state. I was born and raised in St. George, Utah. My father was born and raised in St. George, Utah. So we love, we love this state. We love this city. We love, but it is very hard to attract talent to Utah. Right?
Carl: Agreed.
Jeremy: Because the big stars are not super interested in, and can we just call it what it is, our liquor laws. Our lack of nightlife. Very much like state religious kind of predominance. They are just not interested. And that is the same for BYU and University of Utah. University of Utah has done pretty well, but at the end of the day, I love my state, but it is just hard, right, to attract talent.
Carl: True, but I have to say that Donovan Mitchell has totally –
Jeremy: Yes.
Carl: — revitalized the sports enthusiasm —
Jeremy: Yes.
Carl: Can I say that?
Jeremy: Yes.
Carl: — for the Utah Jazz. I love Donovan Mitchell. I love what he is all about. His on and off the court. He is a great, great face for the Utah Jazz.
Jeremy: Yeah, and they have come along.
Andy: To illustrate your point a little bit, Rudy Gobert should be an all-star right now. He did not get it, and I think, more than anything, is because he plays in Utah and not in New York City or LA or –
Jeremy: Bingo.
Andy: — somewhere else. And that is another reason why the great talent is not going to sign –
Jeremy: Not. It is, it is frustrating.
Andy: Yeah.
Jeremy: That is okay. That is okay. Here we are. We are here. We are live. St. George Real Estate Morning Drive. I am Jeremy Larkin, the host of the program. I have got, by the way, if you look on Facebook it says the insanely handsome Carl Wright. By the way, the insanely handsome Carl Wright joins us to share some trends that are not being told or shared, I should have said shared, by any other real estate professionals in town. And the reason I say this, it is not that it is going to be that controversial, but it is what we have been talking about, and there is this kind of, remember when you were a kid and you plugged your ears and said I am not listening, I am not listening –
Carl: Right.
Jeremy: — to your brother, sister, sibling, cousin. There is a lot of that going on right now in Washington County. A lot of I am not listening, I am not listening, I am not listening. Gang, we are inviting you this morning to actually save yourself a whole bunch of pain in 2019 by listening to what we have to say in this program. And the question that might come up, are they going to tell us that the market is crashing? No.
Andy: No.
Jeremy: No, but, but, right, Carl? But there is information that people need to know if they want to make a good decision this year.
Carl: Totally.
Jeremy: We are happy to be here. I am happy to have Carl here. Happy to have Andy Griffin here, who is not the new Mike McGary. He is Andy Griffin, and he is going to be fantastic. You moved here from where?
Andy: I have been in Southern Utah for 25 years. I grew up in Texas. In high school, my parents, much to my chagrin, moved to Salt Lake County and I told them flat out I am not going. I am staying here. I am going to stay with my friends. But when you are 14, 15 years old, you really do not get that choice.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Andy: So they actually sent me off to a camp and moved while I was gone.
Jeremy: Nice.
Andy: I no longer had a home.
Jeremy: You were strong when you said you were not going even though you were going.
Andy: Yeah.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Andy: Exactly. And then, I have been kicking around Utah. Spent one year, way northern Idaho, Moscow, Idaho on a (indiscernible) there. The thing I did not like about Idaho is the thing I love about here. The clouds rolled in October and did not leave until March. It was gloomy. It is cold out there, guys, but it is a glorious, sun shiny day. I love it.
Jeremy: It is. I am a big mountain biker. And I would happily go out this afternoon, get a beautiful ride in, put an extra layer one. It is going to be high 40s. That is a cold day, but not a big deal. Right? By the way, Bryant Head Ski Resort, I have, just so everyone knows how I operate. The Bryant Head webcam is typically pulled up on, there you go, Carl. On my computer.
Andy: Oh wow.
Jeremy: It is just always up. Bryant Head, check this out. So I was up there over the weekend. They had 10 inches Saturday night, and I thought well, that was nice. They have had 35 inches since then. So 45 inches, almost four feet. Eagle Point Ski Resort is at 31 inches. Storm total. So if you are wanting to get up there and get some skiing in –
Carl: It is a good time.
Jeremy: — or snowboarding, I have got to say –
Carl: That is the wonderful thing about St. George is that you can enjoy —
Jeremy: Right. That is why –
Carl: — you can enjoy the sunshine and not having to shovel your walks, but 45 minutes you can be on the slopes.
Jeremy: Yeah, gang, I have absolutely biked and skied in the same day in St. George.
Andy: Nice.
Jeremy: Many times.
Andy: Nice.
Jeremy: So you can do that, and that is kind of why I segued that. I thought how fun is this that Bryant Head, by the way, an hour and twenty up, typically I am an hour and twenty up and an hour and fifteen down. It is always just a little quicker coming down. That is pretty static. I am an 85 guy on the freeway, cruise control, and it is an hour and twenty minutes to that resort, and I am talking on a stormy day it is an hour twenty. It is just kind of an hour twenty to go up there. So check that out if you are looking for some fun this weekend, but welcome, Andy. Where do you live now, by the way?
Andy: I live in Washington City.
Jeremy: Washington City.
Andy: Yep, a new subdivision. Hobble Creek subdivision, and I have a beautiful home and really enjoy it. My only complaint is where our backyard backs up to 300 East there in Washington, so we are kind of looking to get something that is a little more secluded, a little off the busy road.
Jeremy: You know exactly what he is talking about.
Carl: I do.
Jeremy: Yeah. I know people who can help you. But –
Andy: I know you do.
Jeremy: — do that when you are ready to do that.
Andy: Yep.
Jeremy: Carl Wright. Welcome aboard.
Carl: Thank you for having me.
Jeremy: Yeah, I am happy to have you. We are going to have, so this is fun. We are going to have Carl today, and then we are going to have Carl and his entire team at my office at noon. His team, our team. Carl is with R1 Appraisals here in town. By the way, I need to have you guys go measure a home in New Harmony. That is after show, but –
Carl: Right.
Jeremy: — just so you know.
Carl: Love to do it.
Jeremy: We are listing an incredible, oh my goodness, incredible home in New Harmony. We will be placing this home on the market hopefully in the next week, and amazing views. Almost 5,000 square feet. Pretty cool home. So it has an entire detached guest house –
Carl: Wow.
Jeremy: — and when I went in it, it is like country home, like going into my home I grew up in with my mother. It is interesting, Carl, this is probably a great way to start this off, is they had the home on the market for six months with another agent, and they are very frustrated. Right? With an agent from Cedar City. So if you are in New Harmony, I want you to think through this. They listed the home with a guy from Cedar City because it was geographically closer by the mileage. But the issue is New Harmony is not in Iron County. It is in?
Carl: Washington.
Andy: Washington.
Jeremy: Bingo. So what they did is they hired somebody on the Iron County MLS to sell a home that is actually in Washington County. Now I am sure the home was on both Multiple Listing Services. And when we list your property and sell a property, we are always on Washington, Iron, and Wasatch MLS. We kind of go for the trifecta. But they were frustrated and then as we dug into this, it looked like everything was fine, and at a glance. So we do what is called a home marketing audit. And by the way, if you are selling a home right now, very quick plug, but it is not selling. That is the key is if your home is on the market and it is not selling and you are frustrated, I invite you to visit, this is kind of fun, we have a page that we have never talked about. It is called Why My Home Won’t Sell dot com. Literally. Why My Home Won’t Sell dot com. Go in there and plug in your critical information. This is not a solicitation of your listing. It is what called a home marketing audit. Maybe you are someone whose home just came off of the market, and it did not sell. Right? Let us know, and what we do is we just do an audit. And the audit is we look at three factors, which are marketing, condition, and pricing. And then, Carl, you know because you are a professional appraiser, that underneath those three, that canopy of three are probably another fifteen items. Right? So either marketing, the story that was told about your home was not compelling enough or it was not told to enough people. The condition, either the condition, the staging, or the location or all three were such that it was not compelling to a buyer. And or, and maybe all three factors were present, or the price of your home was such that either just buyers said sorry, there is something better for us at that price. Or maybe it was bracketed in a way that they did not, they did not see it. But we did this audit, and what do you think we found when we started looking through the square footage? The main floor was wrong. The basement was wrong. The upstairs was wrong. It was not reflective of a guest house. There is an entire detached guest house that is completely legal on the property that is about $150,000 to build that was not advertised.
Carl: Not presented. Yeah.
Jeremy: So it looked like everything was fine at a glance. I said, man, I do not know why this home has not sold. Then when we dug into it, so how often do you see data, Carl, as a professional appraiser that is just not accurate?
Carl: Oftentimes. Our job as an appraiser is to sift through all of the information that is out there and try to come up with a realistic value. We are looking at everything from marketing time. We are looking at the square footage. That is why we do not ever rely on what the county says or the, as far as square footage, bedroom, bathroom count. That is why we go in and we assess the property. We measure the property so we know what your square footage is. We will come up with your bedroom bathroom count. We look at your condition, the quality. We look at from your roof to your foundation and everything in between to determine how the market reacts to what components you have in your home, and then we come up with a value.
Jeremy: Okay, so this is kind of a fun question. Real estate agents, typically when they go to put a home on the market, they pull the square footage from where?
Carl: They usually use the county.
Jeremy: Correct. They just go to the tax records, and they go well, it says it is 4100 feet. How many appraisals have you done in your life, because you go out and you laser measure, you digitally measure where the square footage you actually measured in real life matched the county?
Carl: Hardly ever. It is usually —
Jeremy: Like 5%?
Carl: — maybe, I would say less than 5%. We are usually a little bit smaller –
Jeremy: Crazy, right?
Carl: — a little bit bigger than what the county says, which is, we use the outside measurements. You use ANSI standard of measurement, which means we measure from the outside corner to the outside corner. So we are usually a little bit bigger than what the county says, which is beneficial to people who are selling their home because then you get the actual square footage of what an appraiser is going to be using as their measurement, and then you can market your home at a slightly larger –
Jeremy: Right.
Carl: — so it behooves you a little bit to get an appraisal or have somebody come measure your home to determine what your actual square footage is.
Jeremy: Well, and Robert MacFarlane commented, good morning, Robert, it was missing almost 900 square feet.
Carl: Wow.
Jeremy: And it was 6 months on the market.
Carl: That is –
Jeremy: Ooops.
Carl: Let’s just say $100 a foot, right? That is $90,000 that they misrepresented in that.
Jeremy: Yeah, so this is kind of crazy. We are doing something we have not done in a while. We are taking this property on that was listed by another agent, and they came to us after it was no longer on the market. We are raising the price.
Carl: Wow.
Jeremy: And we do not do this very often, but we are actually going to, we believe that we can sell this home for more money than they were asking previously.
Carl: Wow. And that goes against the trend I am seeing right now, Jeremy.
Jeremy: Yep.
Carl: As I have looked at the market and looked at trends, we look at, as appraisers, we look heavily at absorption rates and months of housing supply and things like that. Something very interesting that I am seeing right now is 2018, there was a perfect storm. There were, interest rates were good. It was like the jet was taking off the runway –
Jeremy: Oh yeah.
Carl: — and we built speed all the way until September about, and I was talking to my business partner, Nick –
Jeremy: This is exactly what I noticed.
Carl: — and this is exactly how Nick put it is that the jet took off in September and started to level off in September of 2018, and now we are gliding.
Jeremy: Yep.
Carl: We are in a gliding mode right now, and we are in a transitional from being a seller’s market to a buyer’s market. We are seeing more months, more time on market. We are going from about a two-month inventory of homes to a three-and-a-half-month inventory of homes in the greater St. George area.
Jeremy: So let me throw a perspective in here. And when Carl talks about months of supply, right, or absorption rates, what he is saying is well, two months’ supply is really simple. It is how long, there was enough housing that if no one else listed a property, now I want, this is really important, if no one else put their home on the market, it would have taken two months to sell them all. Correct?
Carl: Correct.
Jeremy: The simplest way to look at it?
Carl: Correct.
Jeremy: Well now he is saying well now, we are at three-and-a-half. This is what throws people off. Three-and-a-half-months’ supply is still really strong market. It is a really strong market. But the issue is we are talking about the inventory going from two to three and a half. Right? Three and a half does not sound like a lot, but an increase from two months to three and a half months is a gigantic increase.
Carl: It is a big increase.
Jeremy: Make sense, you guys?
Andy: Yeah.
Jeremy: It is not like three and a half is a big supply. It is going from two to three and a half is a massive jump.
Carl: Yeah, and I found some more statistics. I was looking at the Washington Fields area, this is right where you live, Craig. In the Washington Fields area, I was looking at homes –
Jeremy: Or Andy.
Carl: Andy. Sorry.
Jeremy: Craig just walked out.
Carl: That is right. I am sorry, Andy. I apologize.
Andy: That is okay. No worries.
Jeremy: Craig is on his way back to Parowan to play in the snow.
Carl: Washington Fields, 2000 to 2500 square feet, the months of housing supply 12 months ago was 3.26. Right now, currently, there are 6.25 months of supply in Washington Fields between 2000 and 2500 square feet.
Jeremy: But I thought Washington Fields was one of the best markets in town?
Carl: It is one of the best markets in town, but that means everybody is trying to sell their home, and so if you are going to be competitive, if you have got your home listed right now, you really need to analyze do I really want to sell my home. If I really want to sell my home, then I probably should reduce the price by, I would say, by 5%.
Jeremy: Bingo, brother. What did I say to you on the phone when we chatted?
Carl: Yep.
Jeremy: 5%. Let me share something with folks here. Carl, I have got the Multiple Listing Service pulled up. Since January 1st, have you looked at how many properties I have listed, by the way? Washington County. And of course, I should say Washington County. This includes Iron County because it is on our Multiple Listing Service. So bear with me for a second. I am going to come in here to location and I am going to say Washington County since the first of the year. Now remember, folks, when you go to sell your property, you are saying I have the best home. Hey, I looked around. I looked at every, Andy, I was over there off of 300 East in Washington, I looked around. I feel like I have the best house on the quarter mile. That is nice. Here is the issue. 724 properties hit the market in Washington County since January 1st.
Andy: Wow.
Jeremy: 700 competitors. Right? Sounds about accurate?
Carl: Yep.
Jeremy: That is what MLS is telling me.
Carl: Yep.
Jeremy: And by the way, I am talking about homes. I am not even talking about lots. If I talked about lots and water shares, there is another how many you think? A couple hundred?
Carl: Couple hundred.
Jeremy: 724 properties hit the market in Washington County since January 1st. Right? That is 700 new competitors that came to the market. Andy, how long have you lived in that house?
Andy: Seven years.
Jeremy: So you have been there seven years. The reason I asked is that is what I thought you said. A lot of our listeners have been in their property 5-7 years, 7-10 years, because a lot of people moved into the market. Right, Carl? Like ’05, ’06, ’07, ’08. Some of them ’10. But here is what is interesting. Values have come up since seven years ago in Washington County, Carl, what percentage you think?
Carl: I think we are right around 40%, 36%.
Jeremy: Since then. Close to 40%. So while Carl is telling us a story that is accurate and he is telling the truth, inventory is almost doubling. It doubled in Washington Fields. Right? We went from three to six months. At the same time, if I had told you seven years ago that your home value would go up 40%, the home values would go up 40%, how many homes would you have bought?
Carl: Everything.
Jeremy: Every one of them, right?
Carl: (Indiscernible) Right.
Jeremy: You would have bought all the $5 bills for $3 that you could have purchased. Okay?
Carl: Yep.
Jeremy: Right? Which is the math.
Andy: Makes sense.
Jeremy: We are saying hey, I have got a sale on $5 bills. They are on sale for $3. How many do you want? I want them all.
Carl: Yep.
Jeremy: But we did not know that. Did we?
Carl: Right.
Jeremy: So talk to me about a trend here because seven years, I would love, I love that you are in studio at seven years. What seems to kind of happen every 6-8 years, Carl?
Carl: Usually, it trends up for seven years and then it trends down. And you look at –
Jeremy: It is biblical, by the way. Seven years of famine. Seven years of planting.
Carl: Right. If you look at the trends, we crashed in the third quarter of 2007. That is when the trend started to go downward here in Washington County. And it went down until 2011. In 2012, we started the trend upward, and how it went, what is the math? Seven years. 2012 is when we started to trend upward. Now, I am not saying there is going to be a big crash. I do not think there is going to be a crash, but we are going to be gliding through 2019.
Jeremy: How many appraisals have you done? You and your company?
Carl: Our company, since we have opened up in 2008, we almost 21,000 here in Washington County.
Jeremy: We have two minutes. Two and a half minutes. I want that to settle in for people. I have got Carl on the show today. 21,000 appraisals. You might want to listen. Right? You might want to listen. Here is what is so fun for me. Everything you are saying is echoing what I have been saying, which clearly makes me feel pretty happy this morning. So 5% across the board. We feel like values are probably 5% overcooked. We have seen inventory in Washington Fields double. Where else? Where else is inventory going up? Everywhere.
Carl: Everywhere. Everywhere, but not to be alarmed. I do not want this to be people that panic and think that there is, that I need to make a huge, a 5% price reduction is not a very big price reduction.
Jeremy: If I am a seller, what do I do today because I want to sell and take advantage of a great market?
Carl: You want to reduce it 5%. It is like chasing that ball down the –
Jeremy: We talked about this.
Carl: We talked about this. You do not, you just want to get ahead of the ball. It is going to calm down. Usually, our market is spurred by the Parade of Homes which is coming up next weekend. A lot of buyers come in. So we are going to see some more buying right in the next near future.
Jeremy: 60 days.
Carl: 60 days. And so, I suspect that jet is just going to coast through 2019. I do not see a big fall. I do not see a big rise. I see it stable for the next year.
Jeremy: What if somebody says I really do not trust my agent? I want to call you and get a third-party appraisal. What is it going to cost them and how do they call you?
Carl: We have got a variety of products that we offer people from $200 to $400 for a full appraisal for a typical home. If your home is a little bit bigger, we charge a little bit more, but that will give you a full valuation of letting us come in, and like you said, give you a diagnostic of why your house is not selling.
Jeremy: Yeah, and by the way guys, we talked about this fun website. I almost forgot for a while that we had even created it. We created it years ago. When the market was crashing, we created this page called Why My Home Won’t Sell dot com. And when you go there, it is just a home marketing audit. And all you do is plug in your information, and then what we do is not a solicitation of a listing. I want to be very clear about that. We simply look at three categories: price, condition, and marketing. And we diagnose it. Right? We do an audit. I know no one likes an audit. But guess what? Would you, again, Carl, if I told you seven years ago that your value had come up, and Andy and everyone in this room, 40%, you would have said are you serious? But people want their value to have come up 45% and now they are frustrated. Are people going to miss out on this market because they are clinging onto last summer?
Carl: Yes, they will.
Jeremy: It is going to happen.
Carl: You have got to look forward.
Jeremy: How do they call you, Carl?
Carl: Our phone number is 435-627-0019. You can talk to anyone of our appraisers, me, Nick Lyman, Evan Wilkins, Jerry Johnson, Kenny Rawlings. We have got a whole crew over there that can help you.
Jeremy: Yep, R1. Literally, R the letter, 1 the number. You can Google it. Thank you, Carl.
Carl: Thank you for having me, Jeremy. Appreciate it. It is always a pleasure.
Andy: Jeremy Larkin with St. George Real Estate here on News Radio 94.9, 890, KDXU. Thanks, Jeremy.

Larkin Group CEO Jeremy Larkin shot this video on 1/27/19 specifically for their Seller clients who are feeling a bit mystified at the shifting market in Washington County. Buyers are widely rejecting list prices after the craziest Seller’s market in a decade. Not surprisingly, the shift is similar to what California and Nevada are seeing. Leaning on experience gleaned from 1200+ home sales, Larkin outlines both the problem and solution in this St. George Real Estate overview. This video is a great watch even, and maybe ESPECIALLY, for other Realtors looking to better understand the dynamics of home pricing in a shifting market.

Looking to buy a home? Check out our free home search: http://www.stgeorgehomesearching.com/ Looking to sell a home? Check out our free home value report: http://gostgeorgehomevalue.com/ Jeremy Larkin Keller Williams St. George and Washington County, UT Phone: 435-767-9821 Sales@GoStGeorge.com

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 8:36. Good morning and welcome. It is a Thursday, tenth day of the month of January. It is time for the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive with the voice of St. George Real Estate Jeremy Larkin.
Jeremy: Good morning. Good morning. And if you happen to be, let’s see, where could it be afternoon? Europe, Mike?
Mike: I am sure.
Jeremy: I was doing the math. I am like okay, in New York City it is still morning. Listen, if you are somewhere in the mid-Atlantic Ocean, good afternoon. If you are somewhere in Europe, good late afternoon. If you are in Asia, it is nighttime. Right? And then I’m going to come all the way around.
Mike: Yeah, it is another day over there.
Jeremy: So anyway, welcome to the world geographic and weather program where we tell you all sorts of fun facts about time zone you are in. Good morning to our Facebook Live, YouTube Live, now this is really fun. Now, Jesse, when we put on the YouTube Live, did we make it public?
Jesse: I do not know.
Jeremy: That is what we do not know. You might want to check on that. Just so everybody knows, we now broadcast the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive live on YouTube and Facebook simultaneously. It is classic. It is classic. As a matter of fact, I will get a photo of this right now. Jeremy Larkin here, host of the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive. So happy to be with you. I have got my good friend and cohort, business partner, Jesse Poll –
Jesse: Good morning.
Jeremy: — looking very sharp in his suit coat. I have got Mike McGarry, who is a short-timer here at KDXU radio. Just over here, he is really, he is spinning the tracks.
Mike: That is right. By the way, it is 3:38 in the afternoon in London.
Jeremy: Thank you.
Mike: Just doing it for you.
Jeremy: So it is eight hours, right?
Mike: Yeah.
Jeremy: Eight hours. Okay. Eight hours. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, give us Singapore. Will you just do one more? What about Singapore? Why am I saying Singapore? It seemed like a place that is far away, and I was looking last night, gang, at the Costco Travel Guide. You know when you are coming out of Costco, there is the travel guide on the wall and I was looking at what time is it, Mike?
Mike: 11:38pm.
Jeremy: 11:38pm in Singapore. So there you go. You did not know that, did you Jesse?
Jesse: I did not.
Jeremy: Yeah, it is kind of fun.
Jesse: I have heard Singapore is a pretty cool place to visit though.
Jeremy: Yeah, it looks really cool, so I was looking at some Costco Travel, and there was Singapore and there was Bora Bora where you can go stay, the bungalows, the over-water bungalows. Now here is why I did know more or less what time it was in Singapore. So for many years at the Larkin Group, for our listeners, you understand that we help people buy and sell real estate here in Washington County. Buy and sell means purchasing a home for their family, selling a home because it is time to move, and of course, work on purchasing a real estate investment property. We have a gal by the name of Charmie Mendoza, this is so fun. So fun. By the way, with her bonus, she is going to help her son buy a laptop. His first laptop.
Jesse: That is really cool.
Jeremy: She is a single mom. She lives in the Philippines. She is right outside of Manila, and we hired her through some friends of ours in Sacramento who run a company where they hire Filipino folks to help real estate agents. Culturally, they are really, really incredible at tasking. Like you give the list of 200 tasks, and whatever it is, they just nail this. Right?
Jesse: Something that will take me 30 minutes, she will do in 5.
Jeremy: In five. Right? So, she has worked for us for four years, four years. She is a single mom in the Philippines. So by the way, it is 11:30, 12pm, probably the same time in the Philippines, right, Mike?
Mike: Yeah.
Jeremy: She has gone to work for us right now. So if I were to message Charmie right now, she is sitting at her desk. Her son has gone to sleep, and she will work for us through the night. So she works nights. She will work all night long, and then her son will get up, and she will send him to school and then she will go to sleep. Just like anyone who works nights. Sometimes I will email her at about 10pm our time. I will sit down and be shooting some emails out, and I have seen her respond because now she is back up. It is afternoon there. Amazing woman, and we did a Christmas bonus for her, and she is going to get a laptop for her kid. Kind of fun.
Jesse: That is cool.
Jeremy: I know you think about real estate as HGTV and what you do is you go and you look at three homes and you go to open houses. Our business is very different from that. It is a very digital business. So when you are hiring a great real estate agent, they are going to have a whole digital backend that you do not have any idea about, and that is what she does for us. She handles a lot of our digital marketing.
Jesse: Speaking of digital business, this report that we were looking at, it is something like in the 80-something percent, I am looking for it right now, of homes find their home or clients find their home on the internet. That is a huge –
Jeremy: I thought it was ninety, I thought it was like 90%. Was I wrong?
Jesse: So let’s see. Newspapers are down to four, less than five percent?
Jeremy: How do people find their homes? Give it to us.
Jesse: Yard signs is about 20% and the rest of them, so about 75% will find their home first on the internet.
Jeremy: Yeah, so to be clear about this, this is the home they purchased. Okay? The home they purchased. Good morning again to our Facebook Live and YouTube Live listeners. So if you want to check it out. I do not even know who is a YouTube Liver, but what YouTube Live is allowing us to do is, more than anything, save the show straight to our YouTube channel, which is YouTube dot com slash, if you would like to look it up, Go St. George TV. Slash Go St. George TV. So what it is allowing us to do is already have the show, when we walk out of here it is done, and it is posted to YouTube, and there is no fuss, no muss. Something like that. I do not know what they say. But with our Facebook Live listeners, if you have got a question, please ask us anything. We are going to talk today about how much you might expect your home value to go up or down. Right? How much will it go up or down, your value in 2019. Amongst many, many other things. Today is the economic summit, the St. George Washington County Economic Summit down at the Convention Center, and I will not be there, which typically for years I have been there. But I have decided, elected that we have got more pressing work. The Economic Summit is really neat, but the challenge is they charge you a hundred bucks to go spend the day there. It is kind of a networking event, but what they do is this is where they talk about all the new business unveilings, who is the big corporation who is going to town and create new jobs. They are going to give a big old massive real estate report. Folks, just so you know. We already have all that information.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: I am literally looking at it on my screen right now. So instead of spending $100 and spending 7 hours, we are just going to go ahead and put on a radio show, and then work to help our clients. The Economic Summit is really cool. I do not want to downplay it. But here is the cool part. We will just take the notes and the summary, and we will present it to you. We will have Chantry Abbot from Guild Mortgage here in studio and talk about interest rates and oh my gosh, about the fact that they went down.
Jesse: Isn’t that crazy?
Jeremy: We are actually going to talk about affordability and why it is such an interesting time in real estate, where it is the best time for you to possibly sell in the last decade. People are going to have their minds blown when we show them, when we talk about how much values have gone up and down over the last decade. They are going to be shocked, shocked, and it is such a strange time, where it is the best time to sell and probably still one of the best times to buy.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: Because of interest rates. Excuse me, I am getting choked up because it is very emotional to talk about real estate for me, Jesse.
Jesse: You are a pretty emotional guy anyway.
Jeremy: I know I am. So Jesse, did you see the stat that we were looking at yesterday in my office about the appreciation in 2005 of homes in St. George?
Jesse: I did, and I am going from memory here because I just glanced at it. I think it said 39%.
Jeremy: 36.
Jesse: 36. I was close.
Jeremy: Very good. I literally had a piece of paper on my desk, and Jesse looked at it. Folks, I want you to think about this for a minute. Jeremy Larkin, by the way, host of the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive. If you have got questions, comments, happy to hear from you, and we are broadcasting Facebook Live, Facebook dot com slash Jeremy Larkin, and we are on YouTube Live. YouTube dot com, so just look up Jeremy Larkin. YouTube dot com slash Go St. George TV. So 36%, I want you, our listeners to really consider what I am about to tell you. Historic appreciation of homes annualized, how much homes went up in value, is like 5%. Right? Four, 4-5% annually. Okay?
Jesse: And that is a good, stable number.
Jeremy: Like a healthy market.
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: Do you remember the economic meltdown that we had, Jesse, and people are trying to figure out how we ever got there?
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: Home values went up in 2005 36%.
Jesse: That is nuts. In one year?
Jeremy: Correct.
Jesse: Wow.
Jeremy: Basically, they did seven years, seven, eight years realistically, eight years of appreciation in one single calendar year. And then we wonder why in 2007 everything fell apart. Very specifically what was going on in 2005 and 6 and whether you are wondering if we are going to have a bubble. We had what was called Stated Income Loans going on. Stated Income looks just like this. Jesse comes in the office. I am a mortgage lender. I am not a mortgage lender. I just play one on TV. But to be clear, we will pretend I am. He comes in the office. He says I would like to buy a home. Well, what kind of home would you like to buy? I would like to buy a $400,000 home. Great. You will need to earn about $150,000, and here is a form for you to fill out your income. Well, you put on the form that you happen to make $150,000, that you just so happened to make $150,000. People were stating their income. That is called Stated Income. And of course, when a market goes up 36%, and by the way, this was not just St. George. This was all of them.
Jesse: That was nationwide.
Jeremy: It was crazy. Definitely was Nevada, California, Florida, Arizona. Then a lot of fraud started popping up. So we are not in that market, and we are not experiencing a bubble. So 36% appreciation in one year. Now here is what is fascinating. Folks say man, values fell a lot after that and it seems like they have come up a lot. Oh, I will tell you exactly how much they fell. Values fell 46% from 2006 to 2011 in Washington County. 46% they fell. From 2012 to 2018, they have come up 42%. So we fell by 46%. We are back up 42%. We are virtually back to where we were before. And people, but wait a minute. Here is the difference. We did that at about 6% a year.
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: That is the difference.
Jesse: Over a five-year period. Six actually.
Jeremy: Yeah, we did that at about 6% per year. We are in a very healthy real estate market in Washington County. Very, very healthy. But we have clients who are struggling because they are saying man, it seems like my home will not sell at its current price. The reason it is becoming a very healthy market is because buyers finally said we are not going to quite pay those prices. Right? Like this is hang on a minute now. So prices are settling. I did not say there is depreciation, that homes are going down in value. It is simply folks realizing they cannot quite ask what they hoped, and so there is an adjustment going on.
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: So, Jesse, let’s talk about this for a minute. Historic mortgage rates by the decade. Okay? Slide number two, and just so folks know, we are going to share this on our Facebook page today. So when this is done, we will post this in the comments. As a matter of fact, let’s see if it will post into the comments as we speak. Historic interest rates by decade. You got that in front of you?
Jesse: I do not. I am looking for it.
Jeremy: Second slide. Let’s look at this. This is kind of crazy.
Jesse: (Indiscernible)
Jeremy: Well, page, slide three, I guess. 1970s, 1970s. Anyone out there born in the 1970s? I was. I was born in 1975. Interest rates were 8.86%. Do you know what an interest rate is today, listeners? Anybody out there? We are at about four and a half. Four and a half. 4 ½%. 1970s the average interest rate was 8.86%. It was twice as expensive to own a home. Now people say wait, do you mean that homes were twice as expensive? No, I said it was twice as expensive to own it, to pay for it with your mortgage.
Jesse: I think we are looking at different reports.
Jeremy: What is that?
Jeremy: I think I pulled up the wrong report. So I am just going to go with it.
Jeremy: Good. There you go. There you go. We are looking at, gang, interest rates were twice, twice as expensive, twice as high in the 1970s. Twice as high. Okay? Is that crazy? Is that crazy? And by the way, Jesse, we are looking at January 2019.
Jesse: Okay, so I had December.
Jeremy: There you go.
Jesse: I did not see January in there.
Jeremy: It is in there if you pull it up there. Listen. Would someone come on the show and help this guy out? I am just kidding. He is great. He is just pulling up –
Jesse: It is probably the one at the very top.
Jeremy: Yeah, it is the one right in front of you that says 2000, it says January. 1980s. Anyone born in the 1980s?
Jesse: There it is.
Jeremy: Interest rates were 12.7% average. The average interest rate in the 1980s was 12.7%. It was three times as expensive to pay interest on your home –
Jesse: Wow.
Jeremy: — in the 1980s as it is today. In the 1990s, Jesse, where were we at?
Jesse: 8.12.
Jeremy: Twice as expensive to pay for your interest rate. And in the 2000s? Because we are not in the 2000s anymore. We are in the two thousand teens.
Jesse: 6.29.
Jeremy: So 30% more expensive to pay for your interest on your home. If you get nothing else from this show today, nothing else, listen, please listen. I am going to talk to three groups. You ready? I am going to qualify every single listener on this show. All right? If you are an older person, an empty-nester, a retired person and you have adult children who are saying should I buy a home. I think values are kind of high. I do not know. The answer is yes. Most likely yes. We would need to ask a few more questions, and you are going to say Sonny, do you know interest rates were in the 1980s when I went to buy my first home? They were 12.7%. They were actually as high 18. Okay? If you are a middle-aged person saying do I buy a home? Do I move up? I have been wanting to sell my home and move up, but the challenge is I am not sure because if I sell my home, homes are so expensive. The answer is probably yes because remember if you sell your home in a high market, if you buy a home in a high market, that means you sold your home in a high market. So you are trading across, and remember interest rates could be twice this. Could be. They will eventually be back at 8%. It is probably inevitable. If you are young person saying I am not sure I should buy a home. I just want to be flexible. Let me remind you that again, if you had any concept because you cannot, because how could you have a concept. I do not know what it was like to live in the 1950s because I did not. If you could have a true perspective on how cheap it is borrow money to buy a home right now, you would realize that paying your landlord is literally insanity if you do not have to. I said if you do not have to. I am not calling you insane. Are you calling me insane? Right? Jesse, am I right or am I crazy?
Jesse: Well, you are crazy sometimes. But I think you are right.
Jeremy: But I am right. Okay. So year-over-year home prices, this is kind of crazy, values have been up everywhere. Everywhere across the country values have gone up. Real estate values have gone up for the last how many years now, Jess? Six years?
Jesse: Six years, since, they bottomed out in 2011 and started coming back up.
Jeremy: So let’s talk about price changes. Okay?
Jesse: Seven years.
Jeremy: Yeah, seven years. So we look at slide 11 here. People want to know, I asked the question do you want to know how much your home is going to go up in value this year or down in value. Let’s look at 11, 12, 13. Those Jess, right? The mountain region, here is what is really cool. We have data right now. I can tell you how much values have gone up in the Pacific, Mountain, Mountain West, West North Central, East North Central, Mid-Atlantic and the New England states, or I can tell you the South Atlantic. I can keep going. We have all this data. Values in the mountain region, and if you want to know what the Mountain region is go straight down to Arizona and then go straight up to the Canadian border through the inter-mountain West. Values are up 8.9% in 2000, year over year for the last year. 8.9%. What about Utah? Do we have Utah? I think we do.
Jesse: There are two different, I think it is Utah is –
Jeremy: What are we year over year price changes? I am trying to remember if they have it.
Jesse: Year over year is 8.8.
Jeremy: 8.8%. So look at this. We have seen an 8.8% appreciation in Utah over the last year. So we do have that information. The United States, by the way, 5.1%. So we are outpacing, do you know what I mean? We are outpacing it. Now the question is asked isn’t it less affordable right now because values are up? Well, of course, it is less affordable because values are up. Right? And I do not want to interpret for anyone listening to our show today that values, that it has not become less affordable because values are up.
Jesse: Definitely.
Jeremy: Yeah, what we are simply stating is that because interest rates are so stinking low that it will likely be just as affordable to buy a home now, it will actually be more affordable to buy a home now than to buy a home that is reduced by $100,000 at an interest rate that is twice as high.
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: It is just, that is just the way it is.
Jesse: Well, the likelihood that the market will go down by $100,000 is –
Jeremy: That is a low –
Jesse: The economy would have to stop again.
Jeremy: Yeah, that is a very low chance. So every single piece of economic data that we have is pointing to us returning to normal, healthy market levels, which means what are we looking at for price changes? Do we think values are going to go up? What do you think? What are they saying?
Jesse: So what they are saying overall for next year is 4.8 for the country, but in Utah here they are saying 4.7.
Jeremy: 4.7. So that –
Jesse: I think that is true. I think that the momentum that we have right now, it will take more than a little bit to stop.
Jeremy: Who is they? I am going to tell you who they is. This is Freddie Mac. National Association of Realtors. Fannie Mae, a company called Kay Schiller, CoreLogic, I could keep going.
Jesse: There was actually I think 104 different economists or groups that was in the study.
Jeremy: Yeah, yeah. So they went out –
Jesse: It is not just one guy.
Jeremy: They went out and they asked the specialists. There are the specialists and then there is the anyway. They asked the scientists. They asked the economists. They asked any and everybody who is a player in studying this information what do you think is going to happen to the home values in 2019? And in Washington County they are predicting, excuse me, not Washington County. Utah. Four point?
Jesse: 4.8
Jeremy: 4.8% in the state of Utah for 2019. Now your home. What does that mean? It is hard to say because we, your neighborhood is very, very case specific. And I am going to tell you that if you are selling a home in Stonecliff or Entrada, it is a very different situation.
Jesse: Yeah that is –
Jeremy: Very different situation than if you are selling your home in downtown St. George.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: Santa Clara.
Jesse: And we will throw a report that will cover that for Washington County, even for St. George because if you are talking Stonecliff, you are looking at probably about a year to two years of inventory that is for sale. If you are talking downtown St. George, you are looking at less than two months.
Jeremy: What do you mean by a year of inventory though?
Jesse: Well, if no other homes came on the market, it would take a year or two depending on what price point to sell every home that is on the market. Downtown St. George, it is less than two months.
Jeremy: Right.
Jesse: So it is a big difference.
Jeremy: How about that? Right? It would take one to two years, up to two years to go through all of that inventory. Can you imagine if cereal was sitting on a shelf for two years? Now there are a lot of preservatives in cold cereal. Right? But guess what? It would go bad, wouldn’t it? And what Jesse is saying is absolutely right. Downtown St. George, it is one to two months. Here is what that means. In two months, if nobody else put their home on the market, we would be out of homes to sell.
Jesse: We would be out of homes.
Jeremy: Okay, and by the way, we have specific areas. If you are thinking about selling a home, we have folks looking for homes and they cannot find them in this market. We played around last week, and we talked about our $1 Listing Program? Is it real? It is absolutely real.
Jesse: It is real.
Jeremy: So, you can sell a home for as little as a buck. Terms and conditions apply. Yeah, you do need to buy another home through us. And guess what? Well, what if I am not going to buy another home through you? We have a program for that, too.
Jesse: We have a program for you, too.
Jeremy: Which is the Save Up to $10,000 Program. So we are having some fun in the month of January. Save as little as $1250. But here is the deal, Jesse, what is that percentage? What can people hope for this year for appreciation?
Jesse: 4.8.
Jeremy: Yeah, we are going to hope for it. The only we are going to find out is –
Jesse: We will have a debate next January.
Jeremy: The only way we are going to find out is we are going to have to spend the next year.
Jesse: Figure out who is right and who is wrong.
Jeremy: I do not know if he is right. There you go. Thanks gang. Appreciate you watching and listening and share this on your Facebook page if you are watching with your friends. Over and out.

If you prefer to view and comment on Facebook vs. the YouTube video above, click here: Facebook Live. 

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. 

Jeremy: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Hey man, talk about shaking off the Christmas, what is it, Craig? I do not know. It is the Christmas cobwebs. How does that sound?
Craig: I can hardly talk this morning.
Jeremy: Well, listen. I am glad you are awake. I am glad you are here. Tell you what. The studio is largely empty, but guess what? We are here. We are here. Jeremy Larkin, host of the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive, live at the Cherry Creek Radio Studios. And the cool part is Jesse and I are wearing similar, similar outfits this morning.
Jesse: We did not plan that.
Jeremy: Listen, this is a new Christmas sweater I have got on. And you know what? Here is the deal. I can go here. I can go hoodie. Do you want to go hoodie?
Jesse: Let’s do it.
Jeremy: I can do the whole show like this. For all of our Facebook live folks, you can see me.
Jesse: Santa brought all my grandkids pajamas with hoodies.
Jeremy: Nice.
Jesse: They were pretty cool.
Jeremy: One piece? Like a one-piece pajama?
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: Nice. Man. Santa, let me tell you about that guy. He knows exactly what kids needs. He knows exactly what grandkids need and granddads and everything else. I like it. You had a good Christmas, didn’t you?
Jesse: Oh yeah. All the kids were here. And the grandkids. It was first –
Jeremy: Beautiful, man.
Jesse: — time I think ever that we have had all the grandkids in one place for more than a couple of hours.
Jeremy: Really? Really? All of them? As in all of them?
Jesse: All four. Yep.
Jeremy: All of them.
Jesse: It was awesome. Last night, the house was just tore up.
Jeremy: Just gone.
Jesse: I got in trouble because I was just sitting there relaxing.
Jeremy: Like what do you want me to do, honey? I am just trying to –
Jesse: Can you not see all these toys laying around?
Jeremy: I am just trying to enjoy myself here.
Jesse: No, not really. Are there toys there?
Jeremy: Well, you know what, let me tell you something. My kitchen was, the house was a disaster. Santa came through. He must have been there at 1am, and then things were fine. I cleaned up, and then the kids decided to do what kids do, and then it was a mess, and then I cleaned it up yet again. Cooked a big breakfast. Do you know what hootenannies are, Jesse? Have you ever heard of them? Do you know what a hootenanny is?
Jesse: No.
Jeremy: Hootenanny is a German pancake. There you go. So a lot of people know what a German pancake is. Have you had German pancakes?
Jesse: I have heard of German pancakes, but I have called them German pancakes.
Jeremy: It is incredible.
Jesse: Or is that crepes?
Jeremy: Nope. Cup of flour, cup of milk, six eggs, salt, you melt a stick of butter in the pan. You mix that all together in the blender. You throw it in there. You cook it for 25 minutes.
Jesse: Hootenanny.
Jeremy: Hootenanny.
Jesse: Did I say it right?
Jeremy: Yeah, I am not sure where that, I would love to know from my mother where on earth hootenanny came from. But we had German pancakes. It is a tradition. Always do it. And guess what? Today is December 27th. The question of the morning: Is it going to snow in St. George today? What do you think, guys? Do we think it is going to snow in St. George today? What do you think, Jesse? Yay or nay?
Jesse: I doubt it. I doubt it.
Jeremy: They are saying maybe. If you are watching us on Facebook Live, chime in. Comment. Tell us what you think. Craig, what do you think? Look, you are the traffic guy. You are the weather guy.
Craig: If you head north probably. I am not sure. It was flurries this morning just barely, but –
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: Yeah. Maybe. Where do you live at?
Craig: Parowan.
Jeremy: Yeah, so you were getting snow then.
Craig: Yeah.
Jeremy: How much snow was down on the ground?
Jesse: Yeah, definitely.
Craig: Not much. Maybe an inch or two.
Jeremy: I knew you lived north, but I did not you were Parowan.
Jesse: That is a dedicated radio dude.
Craig: It was (indiscernible)
Jesse: You are driving what? 65 miles?
Craig: Yeah, about. It is an hour.
Jeremy: Oh, I love Parowan.
Craig: Yeah, I do, too.
Jeremy: There is a building I want to purchase in Parowan downtown.
Jesse: We were just talking about that.
Jeremy: Yeah. I was up there last week, skied, came down, ate at Calavario’s. I love that place.
Craig: Oh yes. I do, too.
Jeremy: It is such a fun little family restaurant. The vibe is amazing.
Craig: Yep.
Jeremy: Great people. Well, we have got Craig Bennett, sticking his neck in here for Mike McGarry. Mike, as they say, his days are numbered, but not that kind of numbered.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: This guy, we have got an upcoming change of careers, as in he is going to go to the career that we all want.
Craig: Yes.
Jeremy: The retirement career. So we are going to talk to him. We are going to have a fun show with Mike this next month and talk about his history in radio and career. When I was quite young, Mike was calling a lot of the sports here in St. George.
Craig: Yeah, 41 years.
Jeremy: Yeah, that is a long time. It a long time.
Jesse: That is a long career on the air.
Jeremy: It is going to be a very interesting time as Mike transitions out and we have a new co-host here in the studios. So it is December 27th, 2018, and we had some fun this last week. I thought this would, before we transition, I thought this would, last week, we talked about five things you absolutely have to know about the real estate market, specifically the St. George real estate market –
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: — as we move into 2019, and this would be anyone who is thinking of buying or selling, and let me tell you who else that would cover because there is really two groups of people. There are people who are thinking of buying and selling, and then there is, might I say there are three. There is a second group that would buy and sell under the right conditions.
Jesse: Right. If I could do this, I would do that.
Jeremy: Yeah, if I could get blank, I would do blank. And then there is another group that it has not necessarily crossed their mind. And this is often, for instance, we have talked about out-of-state homeowners or landlords who go, wait a minute. You mean to tell me that the market is probably at 10-year peak? Well, I do. I do mean to tell you that very intentionally.
Jesse: Absolutely.
Jeremy: We are most certainly at very close, if not at the peak, for this cycle. This might be someone who decides well I could buy an investment property? Well, absolutely you could buy an investment property. You have no idea. There are a lot of things you could do that you are not aware that you could do. These are regular business owners. People who could come in and purchase an investment property, Jesse, and have a stranger pay the mortgage every month plus some profit for the next 10 to 20, 30 years, and you would have quite a little nest egg. So there are three groups. I want to buy or sell. I would buy or sell under the right conditions. I have not really even thought about it, but now that you are suggesting it to me.
Jesse: Yeah, that creates a whole other show right there about (indiscernible)
Jeremy: Absolutely.
Jesse: Really taking the time to do your homework there.
Jeremy: Exactly. That is exactly right.
Jesse: Because that is a long-term haul if you are buying right now.
Jeremy: Well, it is, but it is always a long-term. It is always long-term. So real estate investment is always long term. Buying and flipping homes is something people love to talk about. That is not a play that 97.93% of the people, you know what, no. That is not a play that 99% of the population is ever going to make in their whole entire lifetime. So legitimately, 1% of your real estate investors out there are going to be in the flipping game. And then there is a list of reasons. And that is also a separate show. But we are going to recap those five points, but I wanted to share something kind of fun. This last week, we put a post on our Larkin Group Facebook page, and we are going to give you one shot, one last shot, Jesse. These folks at winning the gift basket.
Jesse: All right.
Jeremy: We said Christmas Eve, but there was a kind of a fun little energy to these comments, so we have a post that says Merry Christmas from the Larkin Group. Would you like a little Christmas boost from the Larkin Group? And if you want to know where this is at, folks, Facebook dot com slash St. George Experts, and you can comment, and you may win the gift basket. Share something on your Christmas list in the comments below, and we will choose one lucky winner from all of our commenters. Right? Commentors. So I thought it would be interesting, because we are in the Christmas season to share what people talked about. You ready?
Jesse: All right.
Jeremy: Do you want to know what they said?
Jesse: I am ready.
Jeremy: Colby wanted a backyard firepit area. Yes or no? We are going to go through each one, and then you tell me yes or no whether you want it. How about that?
Jesse: I have one.
Jeremy: Beautiful.
Jesse: It is just a makeshift right now because it is in the process, but we just had a fire the other night.
Jeremy: And it was nice.
Jesse: It was nice.
Jeremy: A phone call from our missionary from the Abbotts. Well, yeah everybody, these kids that go on all these LDS missions, they only talk to their parents on Mother’s Day and Christmas.
Jesse: Wow.
Jeremy: So it is four calls in two years. That is how that works. That is a long time. Right? So the Graphs, or excuse me, the Abbotts, a call from the missionary. Lynda Wallenfels. She is my good friend. She wanted someone to paint her house. Yeah, I would take that.
Jesse: That I would do because I am right in the process of getting ready to do that.
Jeremy: I love this. Jenae, listen, I hope you are listening Jenae Bang, who is a long-time friend of ours. To sell our house. I responded, yeah, we know how to do that. Andrew Young, who creates our Facebook graphics, all he wanted was an Amazon gift card. That is very simple.
Jesse: I would take that.
Jeremy: You would take it? Okay. How about the Esplins, since I bought all my own gifts, I am excited to open my Instapot.
Jesse: Nice.
Jeremy: I like that.
Jesse: I should just go buy one of those because everybody is talking about them.
Jeremy: Yeah, you need one.
Jesse: I do bone broth every two weeks.
Jeremy: You need one. You need one.
Jesse: In my 20-year old pressure cooker.
Jeremy: You do, man. I will rapid fire these out. Somebody wants new dishes, a sound system for their family room. Steve wants a new, hey a new shave, a nice Christmas shave. A safe trip across the country when we move back to St. George. Welcome back, Quinton and Maury Jensen on the way back. Robert, good morning, my friend, a new backyard landscape. That is cool. We can do that for you.
Jesse: I like that.
Jeremy: St. George Day Spa. Michelle wanted, not Michelle on our team, another Michelle, a full day at the spa. That is all. Jamie Mecham, a Chicago Bears sweater or t-shirt. Somebody wanted our troops to return safe and to be able to speak to their families at Christmas. I think that is fine. Jesse Poll here, you wanted a fancy drone. Did it happen?
Jesse: Not yet. That is a ways out.
Jeremy: Keep the intention out.
Jesse: I do not just want to go buy a cheap one. I want to really plan for this.
Jeremy: I love this. Probably my favorite one, and there is a picture of a tiny, adorable baby with two Christmas stockings that are bigger than the baby –
Jesse: That we already have.
Jeremy: Some money to finish our adoption next month, Tim shared.
Jesse: That is a cool one.
Jeremy: That is very cool.
Jesse: That was very cool one.
Jeremy: So I think it is fun to see what people are talking about. It is Christmas time. These are the things that folks are thinking about, and these are some good answers, some really great answers. If you want to comment this morning, we will draw at noon today. Facebook dot com slash St. George Experts, and that post is pinned to the top of the page. You will see the Merry Christmas and go from there. I better plug this laptop in. It says it is going low.
Jesse: Imagine that.
Jeremy: What do you think? Talk to me about an article that we shared yesterday. Well, we shared it with our team yesterday.
Jesse: Right. Well, this –
Jeremy: The market is shifting.
Jesse: It is.
Jeremy: We have sellers wondering why their homes are not selling. Give us some feedback.
Jesse: We are still in a really strong market even though all over town people are talking about a shifting market. There is still less than four months of inventory on the market. So that is still considered a really strong market.
Jeremy: Right.
Jesse: But there is about 30% or 40% of homes that still fail to sell for whatever reason. They go on the market and they come off unsold. Now there are things that you can do about that. So there are five most common reasons where a home, why a home will not sell in the strongest market.
Jeremy: Let’s hit them fast. I want to hit these because, and then we are going to wrap up the show with a recap of the five things you have to know.
Jesse: Okay.
Jeremy: So what are the five reasons? Because, Jesse, the reason we are talking about this specifically is it is December 27th. On January 1st, which is next Tuesday, there will be a record for the year, number of what we call expired listings. And for our listeners out there, an expired listing is a home listing, the home was on the market for typically six months. Sometimes less. Sometimes more. But typically six months, and it did not sell. And remember that these sellers, these homeowners when they put their homes on the market six months ago, the last thing, they would have had a dialogue that looked like this and tell me if I am close.
Jesse: Okay.
Jeremy: Jesse, how long is your listing term?
Jesse: Six months.
Jeremy: Great, great. Okay. It is June, so that would be the end of December. Well, gosh, there is no way we would not have our home sold by Christmas, right?
Jesse: Oh sure. Yeah.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Jesse: Probably sixty days we will have it sold.
Jeremy: Yeah, okay. That was six months ago.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: And now these listings are going to expire. So there are a large number of the home-selling population who are saying what the heck happened? And the market shifted a little bit. What are the five things, five reasons a home does not sell? And we cannot drill the details, but what are they? And then we are going to share this to our Facebook page this morning as well. Go for it.
Jesse: So number one is price.
Jeremy: Number one is price.
Jesse: Number two is the condition of the house.
Jeremy: Bingo. Okay. Keep going.
Jesse: Three is the seller’s motivation.
Jeremy: Okay.
Jesse: Four is the marketing plan, and number five is lack of communication with your agent.
Jeremy: Okay, let me ask you a couple of things here. What do we have, of those five, read those back to us again.
Jesse: Price.
Jeremy: Price.
Jesse: The condition of the home, the seller’s motivation, marketing plan, and the communication or lack of communication with the agent.
Jeremy: So how many of those do we have? Which of those items do we really have control over?
Jesse: We have control over the price, the condition, and the marketing plan, and well, the communication.
Jeremy: I guess we could communicate.
Jesse: So the only thing we cannot control, and I would even say the seller cannot control, is their own motivation. They are going to have, it is going to be what it is unless they have a change in circumstance or a change in perception.
Jeremy: What do we mean by motivation though?
Jesse: Well, I really have to move. I have a new job in 60 days. I have to move versus well, I would sell it if I could get the right price.
Jeremy: If I could get the right price.
Jesse: If it could really be the perfect condition, I would sell. So that is what we mean by motivation.
Jeremy: Right. I think this is really interesting. So four of those five factors, that is what is kind of interesting about this situation is you actually have control over 80% —
Jesse: Yes.
Jeremy: — of the issues.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: Here is what we do not have control over, which are not even listed. Exceptionally cold weather, a massive snowstorm, a government shutdown, 2013.
Jesse: Location.
Jeremy: We had both of those in 2013, and they hurt the, location unless you have a mobile, you cannot even move a mobile home. Right?
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: You cannot control location. You cannot control economic conditions.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: We cannot control public perception –
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: — of the market.
Jesse: You have to meet that right where it is at.
Jeremy: Yeah, that is just reality. So we actually have control over 80% of these factors. We can control the price we are asking. We can control, you as a seller with a good agent, as professional real estate marketers, we can absolutely control the marketing that we are doing for a home.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: Okay? We have full power over how much we communicate with the seller, and most importantly, what we communicate with the client.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: By the way, us talking to you everyday does not change anything. Us communicating what matters will change something.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: So when we talk about these kinds of things, look folks, there are a large number of homes that just are not selling, and we are moving into 2019, and the market has been hot, and there is a perception that well, maybe the market is not good anymore. Right? Maybe the market is not good anymore. The market is great. Jesse, of all of those issues that you just listed, what is the overarching, number one, primary issue that is almost always the issue?
Jesse: Price.
Jeremy: Yeah, it is price.
Jesse: It is typically always price.
Jeremy: It is. It is. Right? Because there is a market, it is interesting. We have talked about this for a while on the show that Red Bull is one of our sponsors. I had to wink at Craig there. If you consider that I pay for their product and they put it in here. I have cut back on my Red Bull consumption greatly. I have got tangerine this morning. Now Craig, you realize this is 100% pure Florida orange juice in this can. Okay. Maybe it is not. It is interesting though. If I go to, I went to the Sinclair here on Bluff Street this morning. I had myself a really good breakfast, but I needed a drink. It is two for five bucks, this product right now. Do you know what the price is on this product at Maverick?
Jesse: I have no idea.
Jeremy: Do you want to guess?
Jesse: Four bucks.
Jeremy: Well, it is two for five bucks at that store. What do you, now I have given you a hint.
Jesse: Actually three-fifty-nine.
Jeremy: Okay. What do you think the price might be, Craig? If it is two for five at this Sinclair, what do you think it is at the Maverick, their competitor?
Jesse: Oh, at the, oh okay.
Jeremy: It is also two for five bucks. Guess what it is at Chevron? It is two for five bucks. Should I keep going? That is the market for these Red Bull cans.
Jesse: See, I was busy messing with my, my headphones keeping coming off, so I did not hear you correctly.
Jeremy: But it is a great question because it catches you off guard. That is why I ask it. There is a market for a product, and the reason I, it is just so funny this morning, I was thinking about it. I thought it is two for five everywhere. Or whatever, five-twenty-five. I do not know what it is. It is around there. Everywhere they are selling this at that rate. Under what circumstances would you pay two for six if you knew you could always get them two for five? Well, I do not know. If I were in a desperate situation and it was a long drive. Is it a long drive to any gas station? Craig has got three or four great ones in Parowan. There are two I love.
Jesse: (Indiscernible)
Jeremy: I love the Maverick, and I love the new whatever you call it out by the freeway. What do you call it?
Craig: Oh yeah, it is KB.
Jeremy: KB. Those are both great.
Jesse: What is interesting though is people will drive clear across town for the best gas price.
Jeremy: They will. They will. They will kill themselves.
Jesse: They will do the same thing for a home.
Jeremy: Yeah, so, so –
Jesse: Get the best value.
Jeremy: Isn’t that amazing? So I understand that your home is special, and I say that with a wink and a nod, because we all think our home is special. And I understand you have the best children. I do not know. Some of the listeners are like no, no, no. We just did Christmas. I assure you I do not have the best children. No, my kids are great. They are happy. They are healthy. They loved Christmas.
Jesse: And they are fighting just like everybody else’s.
Jeremy: Yeah, they were. They were. But the point is that there is a market. Price will always be the number one, overarching factor that is affecting your home’s, Jesse, what factor does this price solve for a home seller? Name some things that price solves.
Jesse: Price?
Jeremy: Yeah.
Jesse: Well, it will solve, if you are at the right price, you will actually get showings.
Jeremy: But what will it solve? What are the problems it solves? What if my home is by a busy road?
Jesse: Then there is no other way to go but to price it correctly.
Jeremy: Oh okay.
Jesse: Because a buyer is going to look at that –
Jeremy: What if I have a crappy view?
Jesse: Well, that is definitely going to affect it.
Jeremy: What if I have no backyard?
Jesse: Definitely going to affect it.
Jeremy: What if I need to renovate my house or replace my carpets?
Jesse: Then it is price.
Jeremy: What if the buyers are not real excited about buying homes right now?
Jesse: Then it is going to be price.
Jeremy: What if interest rates are rising?
Jesse: It would be price.
Jeremy: This is a fun conversation, isn’t it? Is there any issue that price does not solve? Any issue? Is there any single issue? Let’s pretend the government shut down today, and you could only buy a home with cash. What factor would solve the issue for any seller?
Jesse: Probably price.
Jeremy: Price. But Jeremy, everyone is going to stop buying homes. Everyone will not. Everyone will not stop buying homes. That has never happened ever in the history of housing. It has never happened.
Jesse: (Indiscernible)
Jeremy: Right?
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: Price solves every issue. Why homes do not sell in a strong market, let’s give you things you need to know before they move into 2019. Right? We still have a strong market. Jesse, you know these from last week. Let me review them and you ping in here. Number one, interest are or are not rising? They have been.
Jesse: They have been. They have been going up and down, but they are probably going to continue to go up.
Jeremy: They are going to continue to go up.
Jesse: They say they are, but they are just not sure how fast they will let them go up.
Jeremy: So this is number one. Interest rates have risen. They are rising, and you cannot, we talked about putting the pedal to the metal on your car and just drive it at full speed indefinitely. Number one, you will run into something. But number two, it will run out of fuel. The housing market has been on crazy, crazy, crazy pace for a long time. Number two, we are not in a housing what?
Jesse: Bubble.
Jeremy: Yeah, we are not in a bubble. This is not a bubble. And what is it that Chantry Abbott always shares with us, Guild Mortgage when he comes in here, about qualifications for loans now?
Jesse: They are actually a lot better than they were in 2005, 6, and 7. They are still pretty strict.
Jeremy: Yeah, people are actually –
Jesse: You still have to qualify.
Jeremy: Yeah, people are actually qualifying for homes.
Jesse: And they still check your qualifications.
Jeremy: They do.
Jesse: Pretty harshly. I just went through a refinance.
Jeremy: Yeah, they did. They are like you had a receipt for gas from 1998. Is that in the wallet? Did you keep track of that?
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: It is a file.
Jesse: Where did this money go out of your checking account? Where did it come from?
Jeremy: Exactly. And so I am a little out of order. Number one, interest rates are rising. Number two, we are not in a housing bubble. We are not going to have a bubble burst. Number three, which is connected to number one, which is why I say I am a little out of order. I have some scribbled notes from last week. Rates are rising for a very good reason, which is what?
Jesse: Well, they have been holding them artificially down, and we either let them go back to natural or we are going to cause more of a problem.
Jeremy: Because the market is healthy –
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: — we can do that.
Jesse: Right. They have been holding them down to stimulate the economy.
Jeremy: So if you have got a teenager and did you notice that if they follow the rules and they earn trust, and they do what mom and dad ask that between 12 and 14 and 16 and 18 that suddenly some of the boundaries are lifted, and a little more freedom is given —
Jesse: Interesting to note.
Jeremy: — to that child. Right? The same thing happened with the economy. The government comes in here and puts, originally they put a tourniquet on because literally we were bleeding out.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: Okay? Then we did surgery.
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: Then we stitched it up. Then we had a cast and a sling. We are getting back to health in the economy, so the government says all right, we do not have to suppress interest rates artificially anymore.
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: Interest rates are going up, and they are going up because the economy is actually doing great. One of the massive misconceptions that happens when a market starts to shift a little bit, as we wrap up today, is it slows down a little bit and people go oh, the market crashed. The market has not crashed. It is doing fantastic. Okay? Two minutes. Perfect. Okay. I love this. I love this. Number four, renting, excuse me, buying is again, and has always been, a more profitable for the average human being, American citizen than owning. The average net worth of a homeowner at age 65 is $300,000 versus the average net worth of a non-homeowner or a renter at age 65 was, do you remember the number?
Jesse: I think 30, 30, I cannot remember.
Jeremy: 5,000.
Jesse: Oh, 5,000.
Jeremy: There is no net worth.
Jesse: That is ridiculous. That is unbelievable.
Jeremy: Essentially, unless they have a really good retirement. But this is an average, right? We are talking about people who have nothing versus people who have a lot and average it. Average net worth of a homeowner is $300,000, okay?
Jesse: Wow.
Jeremy: So remember that. Last point, home values in St. George are not only not falling, they are at about a ten-year peak, ten-year peak. This will be a time that people will look back and say I wish I would have sold my home, especially people who are non-occupants. Landlords or second homeowners will wish they had done it. Okay? And they are not only not falling, there is the potential with a lot of the forecasts, 94% of the economists interviewed last week in our report, said we think they will go up in 2019. I do not know that they will in St. George. Jesse and I have debated this. I do not know.
Jesse: Well, the market does not turn on a dime. So they might not, they are not going to be at this intense pace, but –
Jeremy: Yeah.
Jesse: — it is going to take a while for them to slow down and turn.
Jeremy: It is.
Jesse: So that is why I say I disagree.
Jeremy: We will see.
Jesse: They will go up a little bit.
Jeremy: We will see.
Jesse: Just from momentum.
Jeremy: I say they will not. You say they will. We will find out.
Jesse: So next year we are going to have this conversation again.
Jeremy: Folks, if you want to reach out to us, please call us at 275-1690 or visit us at Sold in St. George dot com. A lot of people have questions right now about the real estate market. Absolutely no obligation. Sold in St. George dot com or hop on Facebook and make a comment about the Christmas giveaway. I think somebody may win a basket today.
Jesse: All right.
Jeremy: Jeremy Larkin, Jesse Poll thanking you, saying we know this town.
Jesse: Happy Holidays.