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

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

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

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: News radio 94.9, 890 KDXU. Good morning to you. Tell me this guy has the coolest music in the biz right here. It is Jeremy Larkin. I did not even want to turn it down. You have got Jeremy Larkin, St. George Real Estate travel show, and I know Jeremy is trying to get all is tech set up and everything over there. Are you ready, Jeremy?
Jeremy: I loved how you stuttered there. You had a hard time.
Andy: Well, it has been a weird kind of –
Jeremy: I do not know what else to say about it, Andy. Let’s just name the elephant in the room. Right?
Andy: It has been a weird kind of day. You look outside and our red rocks are covered in white snow. I know you had issues this morning with the two-hour delayed start for school.
Jeremy: Yeah, this threw the kids’ schedule off a little bit this morning. No one in this room has a child going to school except for me.
Michelle: That is true.
Jeremy: And there are a whole bunch of us in this room. There are five people in this room. You know what is amazing?
Andy: I have two by the way.
Jeremy: Oh you do have two high schoolers?
Andy: Yes.
Jeremy: Okay. So you do.
Andy: Yes.
Jeremy: That is nice. That is good. So for them, it is cool. They are like I have got to sleep in and I will just drive to school. I have two boys that are going to school at odd hours. So normally the one is going either at 6:55 at the bus stop or he is being delivered at 7:30, and then the other goes at 8:15. So with the radio show and then a meeting at 9:30, I am finagling this kind of thing. It is being finagled as they say.
Andy: That is a good work.
Jeremy: Really, it is. It is being finagled. Today, Andy? Whoops, I dropped my microphone. I am going to invite you to lend that microphone to these guys today because we are going to have three of us on the show today.
Andy: Okay. Okay.
Jeremy: I have got some incredible guests in the studio. Andy Griffin is almost a guest because he is brand new. I have got Chantry Abbot with Guild Mortgage, on the air with us. One of our great friends, incredible home mortgage lender. And I have got, well, why don’t you introduce yourself, Michelle.
Michelle: Hey, Michelle Evans with the Larkin Group. Glad to be here.
Jeremy: I like it.
Michelle: Glad to get here safe and sound in all the slush.
Jeremy: It is kind of slushy out there. It was 33, I think, all night long.
Michelle: Oh perfect. One degree.
Jeremy: And I think that is why school did not get cancelled. So the kids can blame one degree. Because I think at 32 degrees, you would have had some really extra nasty roads and it would have been different. Right?
Michelle: Yeah, I was surprised that they were all right. They are slushy, but it is doable.
Andy: Yeah.
Jeremy: Chant, what do you got over there?
Chantry: See this kid is making a snowman. Kind of cool, right?
Jeremy: Isn’t this amazing?
Chantry: Bluff Street Park.
Jeremy: Yeah, it is absolutely incredible. We are at the Cherry Creek Studios on North Bluff Street, which is on the west side of Bluff, up on a hill. And those of us watching our live feed, we are on Facebook dot com slash Jeremy Larkin. Or we are on YouTube Live which is YouTube dot com slash Go St. George TV. But from here we see everything. Like we see everything.
Michelle: It is a great view.
Jeremy: It is incredible. It is amazing. So we are looking out at Bluff Street Park, and the famed snowstorm of 2013, we could not get up this hill, and last night they were forecasting five inches. I would be shocked if we even got two inches. I do not know.
Michelle: Yeah.
Jeremy: Chantry, what did you get at your house? Maybe an inch?
Chantry: Yeah. But I think there was more in like Santa Clara. I saw some folks this morning that got quite a bit.
Jeremy: Where it is higher.
Chantry: It was pretty hard.
Jeremy: Yeah. I went up to the Ledges last night at 8:30, eight o’clock, maybe to take my kids to a little get together and it was like a full-scale, winter, just a blizzard on the way up to the Ledges. It was incredible. And there was this fog later between here and the Ledges.
Michelle: Yeah.
Jeremy: So then you were going up and then it was snowing and you could not see, and it was wacky. So anyway, gang, look, clearly everyone knows it is snowing outside, and all of our friends on Facebook are going to make sure that we know that. Are they not? Everyone is going to do that today. So we are going to have a fun discussion. I do not know what Jesse has got going on. He is over there. What do you have going on over there? What is that? My phone died? I do not know, man. Who knows? So we are running Facebook Live. We are going to talk today about what realtors and lenders actually get paid for. Is that fair?
Michelle: That sounds good.
Jeremy: So Chantry has been with us for a really long time. How many years? A decade?
Chantry: I remember working with you back when you were starting to take over all the foreclosures. So that was probably –
Jeremy: 2010.
Chantry: So let’s say 2010, 2009 or 10.
Jeremy: 2010.
Chantry: I am tangled with my coat here.
Jeremy: So there you go. I do not know about this phone. So it is funny, guys. We are running a Facebook Live, and for whatever reason, it just died on us. I hope we are still live, but I think we are still going to, we are good to go. We are good to go. So 2009, 2010, you came into our world. Right? And since that time, have you ever been paid a salary to close mortgages?
Chantry: I have not.
Jeremy: Right. Michelle, how long have you been in the real estate business?
Michelle: Going on ten years.
Jeremy: Ten years. Have you ever been paid a salary to sell real estate?
Michelle: Never.
Jeremy: No, so we only get paid, right, gang, when the deal closes. That is the only way to describe it.
Chantry: Yep.
Jeremy: Right. And so Michelle and I were in this discussion I think yesterday talking about this dynamic that folks perceive, so this is the perception. So the perception is like Michelle goes out and shows homes and that is where she is doing the work. So the real work she is doing is showing people homes. Like find me a home. Correct?
Michelle: Right. It is all in the finding.
Jeremy: Yeah, it is in the finding. And the perception of course, is that that is where it is. That is where the pay –
Michelle: The value (indiscernible) –
Jeremy: Where the value is.
Michelle: Yes, to open the door.
Jeremy: It is to open the door, and at the end of the day, let’s all be frank with ourselves. What hourly rate could we pay someone to open doors? Could we pay someone minimum wage?
Michelle: We sure could.
Chantry: Sure.
Jeremy: Yeah, what is minimum wage anymore?
Chantry: Seven-fifty or something. Right?
Jeremy: Yeah, $7.50 a hour. We could theoretically pay someone $7.50 to open doors. And the issue is that for us in the real estate business, the real work, the real work especially if you are buying a home, right, begins when Michelle?
Michelle: When it goes under contract.
Jeremy: Right. So, what do you mean by under contract?
Michelle: Well, and putting it under contract, too. So it is the negotiation of getting it under contract, and particularly in the last few years where it has been a seller’s market, so you have really got to know your stuff to be able to win that contract for your buyer.
Jeremy: Yeah, absolutely. Right? So the work for the real estate agent happens we, like when it goes under contract, and of course, what Michelle is saying is when we get into the negotiation for the contract. Right?
Michelle: Right.
Jeremy: That is the issue. That is the issue.
Michelle: Yes.
Jeremy: You told me a cool story, and Chant, I am going to have you chime in here momentarily. You bought a home here how long ago?
Michelle: Yeah, back in ’05.
Jeremy: Okay, and you were not even an agent at the time.
Michelle: No.
Jeremy: Of course.
Michelle: I was teaching out at Tuacahn High School and I used Will Potter, who is now our competitor.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Michelle: He was great. He did a great job.
Jeremy: Great guy in town.
Michelle: We had three days to find a home. He blocked that out for us. We looked at 32 homes. I just want to say, so sorry, Will. I am just going to apologize publicly for doing that to you.
Jeremy: 32 homes. That is ten a day. That is a lot of homes.
Michelle: Oh my gosh, we ran the guy ragged. And ironically, we went back and bought the very first home that we saw. Anyway, and then I was teaching out at Tuacahn High School and he called me and he said when is your lunch hour? I said well it is from 12-1 or whatever it was, and he said I need to come out and have you sign this addendum. I said well you do not have to do it then. You can do it later or whatever. I had no perception that we have legal confines, legal deadlines that, he said, no, I need to have you sign this by five o’clock. I was like wow. Okay.
Jeremy: Hey, come on, you do not have to do that. It is fine.
Michelle: Like it is okay. I was trying to be so nice to the guy. Clueless. And what is funny is that I had bought four homes prior to that. So I think a lot of times agents think oh well, they have been around the block. They have bought a home or two before. And granted, I was probably not as smart as most about it. But you just do not realize what is the process once it is under contract? And I think that is probably some of the pushback of millennials. Well, I can find a house online.
Jeremy: Correct.
Michelle: And we are like right. That is just getting us into the game.
Chantry: And you probably will find it online right?
Michelle: Yeah.
Chantry: No matter how many –
Jeremy: 95% likelihood, guys.
Chantry: And no matter how much somebody tells you what they want –
Jeremy: 95% likelihood.
Chantry: They know what they want. Right?
Michelle: Yeah.
Chantry: They cannot really relay it. So look online. That is just the beginning. That is the easy part.
Michelle: Yeah, yeah. That is the fun part.
Chantry: Jeremy, when did you get in the business?
Jeremy: 2005.
Chantry: That was probably right after they had the books. Do you remember the books?
Jeremy: The books were obviously previous to my time.
Chantry: Not by far though, right?
Jeremy: I do not think by far.
Chantry: Probably late 90s, early 2000s.
Jeremy: What was the MLS called at that time? The Multiple Listing Service. It was called –
Chantry: I do not know.
Jeremy: Oh, what was it? It was this weird –
Michelle: I do not know.
Chantry: So those you that do not know, was it once a month, once a month the Board of Realtors would print out a book with a page for every single listing that was out there. So if there were 500 listings, there were would be 500 pages that would have property for sale.
Jeremy: Right.
Chantry: There was not an internet so the buyers could not go find the homes. So they really did need to sit down with an agent and flip through this book and try to figure it all this out and which ones were sold and which ones were not.
Michelle: Right.
Chantry: Now with the internet you find a house on the internet.
Michelle: Right.
Chantry: So anyone can do that.
Michelle: And the contract was so much less back then. So it really was, their perception was correct.
Jeremy: Yeah, we have added five more pages of contract paperwork.
Michelle: It really was finding the house. The weight was more on that.
Jeremy: Right.
Michelle: And much less with the contract. Now it has flipped. Now it is reversed.
Jeremy: Well, and let’s understand how buyers, let’s hit that door. These guys are exceptionally loud down the hall, aren’t they? Let’s remember how a buyer finds a home. Right? And so this is really good. If you are a home seller, I hope you will really listen really closely to this today. So what will happen is someone will put their home on the market, and they will be like if I can just broadcast this enough times, if I can just be in everybody’s face long enough, we will find a buyer. Right? But how do buyers, in fact, find the home they want to buy?
Michelle: Almost always online.
Jeremy: But how? When I say how, how does a buyer find a home? Do they go hey, a realtor called me and said they have the home for me?
Michelle: Oh, no never. They are out on the home websites. They are out looking. They are searching themselves. They can do it online.
Chantry: So wouldn’t you say really the only accurate, there are others. Yeah, we talk about Zillow and stuff, but only one that is truly live, real-time accurate is probably the Multiple Listing Service that you have to get by –
Jeremy: Yeah.
Michelle: Primary source. That feeds all those websites.
Chantry: — through a real estate agent.
Jeremy: Yeah, so let’s think about this. Chantry, let’s say that you want to buy a home today. What kind of home would you want to buy? Let’s just have some fun here.
Chantry: If I were to buy a house today?
Jeremy: If you were to buy a house today, what would it be?
Chantry: Let’s buy a million-dollar house in Green Springs.
Jeremy: And what would be a couple basic criteria that you –
Chantry: Really nice swimming pool, maybe a game room in the basement.
Jeremy: Okay.
Chantry: Four or five bedrooms, maybe a big casita. Kind of know we are dreaming. Right?
Jeremy: Okay. No, we are dreaming. Okay. Beautiful. So what you would do, where would you go to start looking?
Chantry: Well, me, knowing what I know, I would call a real estate friend, one of you guys, and say hey, this is what I am looking for. Set me up on a search.
Jeremy: Yeah, so two things that actually happen. Right? Number one, you call an agent and say set me up on a search. Tell me if you find anything. And then number two, you and your wife at eleven o’clock at night would be on a computer –
Chantry: Yep. Michelle said –
Jeremy: — or on an app searching. And you would be like Zillow dot com. Show me every home that is four bedrooms, three bathrooms, 3100 square feet or bigger, in the Green Springs area. I want a pool. It needs to be under a million dollars, and here is what would happen. You would actually burn yourself out looking, obsessing, you would obsess. Let me explain. This is really good. Jesse, just yell. Am I accurate with how buyers search for homes?
Jesse: Oh yeah.
Jeremy: They will drive their agent crazy searching. Hey, I saw this new one. I saw this new one. Did you see you the new one? Hey, what did you do this weekend? Well, actually we know that we are working with you, but we drove around, and we went in 27 open houses because we figured that somehow what we wanted you were not showing to us. But we could not find anything. And then we went to Craigslist and then we went to KSL dot com and we went to Zillow dot com, and then we came back around. They will literally drive themselves sick and they will get to this point of fatigue where they are like I do not even think I can look at another home. So what I always remind sellers is that if your home is a great home priced in a proper way, will buyers find it, yes or no?
Michelle: Absolutely.
Jeremy: Instantaneously.
Michelle: Many times over.
Jeremy: Yeah. So here is the other thing that sellers do not realize. Is it the buyer that is overlooking your home? Probably overlooked it like 30 times. Here is why. They tried KSL. They saw it there. They went to Zillow. They saw it there. They figured maybe realtor dot com would have it. They saw it there. They are getting listings emailed to them from five different agents because bless our hearts, that is what we do. We are consumers. So we go around and we see five different real estate signs. We call all of them, and all the agents being agents the way we are, hey Michelle, thanks for calling. Hey, how about we set you up on a home search. We will send you all the new listings in the morning. Wouldn’t that be great?
Michelle: Oh yeah.
Jeremy: Chantry is smiling because that is exactly what we do. I will just get you what you want in the time you want. Won’t that be great? There is a real estate script. They are getting listings from 5 to 10 agents based on their criteria. Are they seeing the home, yes or no?
Chantry: Absolutely.
Jeremy: They have overlooked your home so many times. Actually, you would be offended at how many times they looked at it and said no. We have seen it. No. Right? So we are having this interesting conversation here today about understanding the consumer’s mindset. Right?
Michelle: Right.
Jeremy: So the consumer’s mindset is number one, from the seller’s perspective, well, maybe there is someone out there who does not know about my home. Trust me, everyone knows about your home that is looking for a home, especially if you hired a good agent.
Michelle: And when they come in for a consultation and we pull up a list of homes that they are interested in and I will say hey, I just want to make sure we vetted the process. Have you seen this one, this one, this one? And not only have they usually seen it, but they have named it. Oh yeah, the big tree home. Oh yeah, the lion house because there is lion statue on it.
Jeremy: They have named every home.
Michelle: They are very familiar. They have seen it multiple times on multiple occasions.
Jeremy: And this is a my reminder I would give to sellers. For people who are selling and trying to find a home, I want you to think about what you are doing. You are doing what I am saying the buyer for your home is doing. You know you have seen all the homes. So the buyers come in. You take them out, Michelle, and for $7.25, $7.50 a hour, no pay per hour, you show them homes. And the real work begins the day that you say oh we found a home.
Michelle: Yeah. We want to make an offer. We do not want to let this one get away. So then we start the negotiations.
Jeremy: What kind of paperwork is required to buy a home right now in the state of Utah?
Michelle: Well, you have got the contract, six-page contract.
Jeremy: Real Estate purchase contract.
Michelle: Right.
Jeremy: A Rep-C.
Michelle: Yeah. Then you have got a buyer-broker agreement so that we have –
Jeremy: With the broker.
Michelle: — a right to represent you in the deal.
Chantry: Six pages does not do it justice. There is no inch that is not used. It is a lot.
Michelle: Yeah, it is a lot.
Jeremy: It is 29 sections, 26 sections.
Chantry: It is not like hey let’s just hand this to a, we have seen horror stories when people try not to use a realtor. It is like let’s just take this contract and fill it out and turn it into a seller. There are so many things in that contract that if they do not know exactly what they are doing, they are going to miss out on something.
Jeremy: Yeah, so it is six-pages. There 26 sections.
Michelle: Yeah.
Chantry: 26 sections, yeah.
Michelle: Yeah, and for example like what loan are you using? What loan are you using? That will determine an additional addendum that is required for that loan.
Jeremy: Okay.
Michelle: Then there is the buyer due diligence checklist that the state requires that. So that is something to warn the buyers hey here is a list of stuff to be sure that you are checking off so that you make sure that you are making the right decision. That has to be included. And then negotiations go back and forth which will add addenda to the contract. It can get pretty –
Jeremy: Addenda.
Michelle: Yeah, did you like that?
Jeremy: You know what is interesting?
Michelle: Not addendums.
Jeremy: How about this? How about this? Section 8.4, additional earnest money. If the Rep-C has not been previously cancelled by the buyer as provided in Sections 8.1, 8.2, or 8.3 as applicable, then no later than the due diligence deadline or the financing appraisal deadline, whichever is later, buyer will or will not deposit additional earnest money. Any additional earnest money deposited, if applicable, and sometimes referred to herein as the deposits, that the earnest money deposit or deposits, if applicable, shall be credited toward the purchase price at closing. Did anyone hear anything I just said?
Chantry: It is very attorney-speak.
Jeremy: That is one stupid paragraph —
Michelle: Yeah. Legalese.
Jeremy: — of 26 sections of a contract. Right?
Chantry: And I know I should not use this term, but I do tell them when they are working with Michelle or someone that is really good like Michelle that Michelle is your attorney. You can find the house. She has to let you in, and there are a lot of things that she does need involved there, but she is your attorney, really.
Jeremy: Yeah, because they sign (indiscernible) that we are not legal help but we are playing that.
Michelle: Yeah.
Jeremy: How about this, and by the way, I have got Michelle Evans with the Larkin Group with our team over at the Keller Williams Realty. I have got Chantry Abbott, Guild Mortgage. So Chantry, you are a lender. What about if somebody submits a contract to you and it has deadlines that say that there is a financing and appraisal deadline? You get to deal with that. Right?
Chantry: Yeah, we have to make sure that we have got their loan approved and their appraisal reviewed, and everything looks good, otherwise they are potentially risking their earnest money deposit, which if you do not know what that is, like a security deposit, and sometimes it can be really expensive. We have seen $5,000, $10,000 can be in trouble if they are not having a real estate agent that is taking care of those deadlines.
Jeremy: How many pages in your typical loan contract to close a loan? I do not mean the contract with you. I mean the actual loan agreement with the bank. How many pages? Typically.
Chantry: Like at closing, it is probably roughly 30 pages.
Jeremy: 30 pages. Has anyone ever read one of those? It is epic. Right?
Chantry: Yeah.
Jeremy: It is epic boilerplate –
Michelle: Take your dictionary.
Jeremy: — legal-speak. Right? So Chantry, what if I turn in the contract to you that says listen, Michelle, wrote an offer. The offer is contingent on an appraisal. It is contingent on –
Michelle: Due diligence
Jeremy: — due diligence or a home inspection. It is also contingent on the seller who is in San Francisco selling their home, and there is an addendum that says that they have just put their home on the market in San Francisco, and they have 21 days to sell the home, and if they do not sell the home in 21 days, then we can cancel the contract and come back. While that is at it, we have a 72-hour clause that will allow other buyers to come in and the other buyers can make offers on the listing that Michelle wrote an offer on and then they could kick the first buyer out of place. Do you see that stuff as a lender?
Chantry: Yeah, quite often.
Jeremy: All of the time. When does the work begin, guys? The work begins at contract.
Chantry: Yes.
Michelle: Very much so.
Jeremy: And so if we are selling your home, by the way, the work, of course, begins when we start marketing your property. Of course, right? But we are really more, the day that we sign that listing agreement and we start saying let’s schedule photography and let’s do what we do. But if you are buying a home, the heavy-duty work, that is contract work.
Michelle: And I think that they do not realize that there is a second set of negotiations. So during that due diligence period, that is 10 days, two weeks roughly that you have to get a home inspection done and then there is a second set of negotiations. Because a home is sold as is, but often sellers will defer maintenance and just feel like well the buyer can take care of that.
Jeremy: So you mean there is a negotiation to buy the house and then there is another second negotiation once they have done an inspection?
Michelle: correct.
Jeremy: What if the appraisal comes in low, Chantry?
Chantry: Another opportunity for a negotiation. Right? So I guess that is a third potential negotiation.
Jeremy: What percentage, Chantry, of deals do you see have an appraisal come in low right now?
Chantry: Probably 95% of them are just fine. So maybe 1 out of 20 or something along those lines. There is an appraisal something. Sometimes it is not just value. Maybe it is the roof has an issue that needs to be fixed or things like that.
Jeremy: Guys, it is snowing really hard out there. I just want to interrupt this previously scheduled program.
Michelle: Gosh, it is pretty.
Jeremy: So, Michelle, Chantry, so happy you are with us today. Let me share some statistics with some folks this morning. It is February 21st. We got a little bit of a slow start at the Larkin Group this year. Last year, we had 173 buyers or sellers, families we helped. But we have 21 properties under contract, representing a buyer or seller. We have closed 13. So all that paperwork we just talked about, 13 times we have closed it. We have 21 under contract. We have executed 31 contracts since January 1st, meaning we took a buyer out, went through all that nonsense, negotiated a purchase price, negotiated a deal, went through the inspections, went through the appraisals, went through all the headache. Chantry, does sometimes days before closing a lender, like the underwriting lender come back and say that they need a pay stub from 2007 to prove that these people are actually real?
Chantry: Can. We sure try hard to avoid it but yeah, it is just one of those things sometimes. Right?
Jeremy: Yeah, right. So we have put 31 contracts together like this, and eight of them have fallen apart so far this year. That is the numbers so far. So 8 of 31 have fallen apart. And why do contracts fall out, Michelle? Like what would be the reasons? Why do deals fall apart mostly?
Michelle: They cannot qualify for their loan is a big one. They change their mind is another one. Something happens during the home inspection and if the seller is not willing to credit or repair that issue, then they are like we are out.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Michelle: So that is another thing.
Jeremy: You mean they get scared. They get nervous, they do not like the neighborhood, they do not like the church, parish, whatever they went to. They found five broken roof tiles and maybe they are concerned that, and the list goes on and on. Right?
Michelle: It does.
Chantry: Appraisal. Appraisal does not come out good. There is an issue.
Michelle: Their home does not sell. It was contingent on –
Jeremy: Yeah, they had to sell their home.
Michelle: Their contract fell through back in San Francisco or whatever it could be.
Jeremy: Yeah, the domino chain. Chantry, as we wrap up, final minute. Most important message you feel like buyers and sellers need from a lending perspective today.
Chantry: Yeah, I just think that I have preached about this a bunch of times. But interest rates, we all know at some point, are going to be going up. Right? They have gone up about 1% in 2018. They went up about 1% in 2017.
Jeremy: Yeah. By the way, that costs people 20% of their purchasing power.
Chantry: And that is what I was going to tie it into. Perfect.
Jeremy: Ooops.
Chantry: If that goes up, no, it is great. If that goes up 1% again in 2019, which it probably will, most likely, who knows, but probably, that impacts their purchasing power or their monthly payment by 10%, which means home prices would have to change by 10% or they would have to buy a 10% less home. So I know the price of the house matters. I bought a place in 2007. I still have it. I have a ton of equity.
Jeremy: Worst possible time to buy a house.
Chantry: I have a ton of equity because it does not matter that much unless you are going to sell it next year.
Jeremy: Yep. Exactly. Exactly.
Michelle: Yeah.
Jeremy: Michelle, thank you for being on here with us today.
Michelle: Thank you.
Jeremy: And for bringing your expertise and talking about what realtors, I was about to say real estate agents, real estate agents and mortgage professionals, mortgage lenders, we get paid to produce an outcome. Right? At the end of the day, we do not get paid for the hours we work because sometimes we work 100 hours and sometimes, we work seven on the same deal. Right?
Michelle: Right.
Jeremy: We get paid to produce an outcome. We get paid to walk somebody through the most complicated and emotional process of their life, and that might include needing to reduce their price if they are selling the home. All sorts of things.
Chantry: I think we protect them through that process. Right? That is what we do.
Jeremy: Bingo. Bingo. Guys, I want you to visit St. George Home Searching dot com. St. George Home Searching dot com because we are talking about the MLS. If you want to look at every single house that is on the Multiple Listing Service right now, St. George Home Searching dot com. You can click on the link there to find out what your home is worth. Check it out. Thanks, Chantry Abbott, Guild Mortgage. 674-1090 if you want to speak with him. 674-1090. If you want to reach out to us, 275-1690. Sold in St. George dot com. There you go. End of story.

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.

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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. 

Jeremy: Happy New Year. By the way, that was one of my favorite elements of the new year is we were at the grocery store last night at the Winn’s down there in the Washington Fields, and people are so fun. The produce guy was really cool. Theywere having a debate about sauerkraut by the way. I was a cilantro fan –
Jesse: What is there to debate about sauerkraut?
Jeremy: Well, I do not like it.
Jesse: Oh, okay. So that is in debate?
Jeremy: Yeah, it was a debate. Yeah, it was a debate. And then the produce guy started kind of pitching the sauerkraut. He was a great guy. And then as we walked away, he said Happy New year. I love that about the holidays. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year. It is fun.
Jesse: I would like to see it if people could keep that attitude or thought all year round. Why not be happy every day?
Jeremy: Yes, thank you.
Jesse: Well, I have been accused of that.
Jeremy: You do get accused of it, and you resemble the comment, and I will tell you that it is very similar to the whole 9/11. Remember when 9/11 happened –
Jesse: Yes.
Jeremy: Suddenly everyone in the country was fearful believer in God and very patriotic. That lasted about twelve months. But good morning to everyone out there. Jeremy Larkin, host of the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive. I have got multiple co-hosts in here. I have got Jesse Poll from the Larkin Group. Mike McGarry is here.
Jesse: I told Mike this morning we are happy he is back.
Jeremy: Yeah, it is nice to have him here.
Jesse: We do not like it when he is gone.
Mike: I will hang around for a little while.
Jeremy: Yeah, he has just has this thing dialed in. Yeah, I know. He is going to hang around about 30 days.
Mike: Pretty close to that, yeah.
Jeremy: Good morning, David. Love it man. Love it. 343 never forget. Absolutely right, David. Isn’t amazing, by the way, Dave, and Dave is a fireman, and one of my childhood friends. Literally, our families go way back. But this is not a political show. But it was crazy how patriotic and God-fearing we were for about twelve months and –
Jesse: And really how –
Jeremy: Then we were just like ah, we are busy now.
Jesse: And really how the country really came together.
Jeremy: The country came together. I will tell you. Crisis a very, very interesting gift and teacher for us. Is it not, Jesse?
Jesse: It is.
Jeremy: I want to share some New Year’s Resolutions. We ran a little Facebook thing where we said are you believer in New Year’s resolutions. I am going to share my theme for 2018. I think our listeners want to know what my theme is. Don’t you? Does anyone know, please say you do, The Christmas Story? I have it almost memorized, the movie The Christmas Story.
Jesse: We actually did not watch that this year.
Jeremy: It was on TBS and TNT for 24 hours straight. You do not even have to have the DVD, but I do have the DVD. So on the Larkin Group Facebook page, by the way, we will announce our winner this morning.
Jesse: Right on.
Jeremy: Somebody won $50 cash. The $50 cash is sitting –
Jesse: $50.
Jeremy: — on my desk.
Jesse: I saw that sitting on your desk.
Jeremy: Yeah, sitting on my desk.
Jesse: I thought it was for me. A gift.
Jeremy: Sorry, dude. Sorry. Sorry. Sitting on my desk. $50 cash. So I asked the question New Year’s resolutions or no? Chime in. Chime in. And I thought that this was very fun. We will talk about real estate. We are going to talk about selling a home for $1, and what happens every, $1. This is like, you know what you can get for a buck? You can get a drink at McDonald’s.
Jesse: Can you really still?
Jeremy: Oh, all the drinks are 99 cents. You can get some chicken nuggets. You can get a little French fry, a small shake, a parfait. Okay?
Jesse: Okay.
Jeremy: I do not even think you can purchase a pack of gum almost anywhere for 99 cents.
Jesse: I do not think so.
Jeremy: We will talk about that.
Jesse: Very few things can you buy for a dollar.
Jeremy: Yeah, for a buck. We are going to talk about $1 home sale program because we decided to have some fun in January. It is just for fun. But people, this is so interesting to hear what people said. Mark said yes. Natasha said yes, but not so much traditional New Year’s goals. More like intending to improve myself. I have chosen a word for the year. That is mine for the year. Mine is build. Relationships. Build our business. Build each other up. Beautiful. One of our past clients.
Jesse: I like that.
Jeremy: McKennon, did you know your daughter chimed in?
Jesse: Yes.
Jeremy: Yes, absolutely. We never know where we are going, but we always know where we have been, and we need new goals to set new heights to see how far we can get. It is all for naught. Is life even worth living? Right? I said kind of. What I do not like is the resolution because it is usually like a two-week campaign. I like more what she is saying which is we are looking, that idea of build. I love having a word for the year, and I have a theme, which I will share. But for me it is more like the new year is such a gift for new beginnings, and to kind of rethink and say where I have been. We know where we have been, she said. Andrew Young, absolutely yes. Cassie Segmiller, yes. Brett and Natalie Johnson, yes, and on and on. But let’s go ahead and let’s give congratulations to Cassie Segmiller who won the drawing for fifty bucks.
Jesse: Nice.
Jeremy: Yeah. We will respond on Facebook to her today. So here goes, Jess. I do not know how you say it. He is one of the famous, what do you call him, he is Tao. He is a Taoist. He is a Taoist. T-A-O. It is one of my favorite quotes. Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny. So that is my theme for the year. Rather than a word, it is this idea of monitoring how my thoughts become my words and actions and habits and character and destiny and how much we mess ourselves up.
Jesse: Without even knowing it.
Jeremy: Oh, we do not even know it.
Jesse: This stuff happens so gradually that one day we wake up and realize that somewhere over the last 20 years I have become somebody I do not really want to be.
Jeremy: Yep, yep. So yeah, like the boiling pot of water. So hey, happy January. We are waxing a little philosophical, but guess what? It is our show. We will talk about whatever we want to talk about. Right, Jesse?
Jesse: It is your show. I will just follow along.
Jeremy: It is my show. Good morning. So gang, you need to understand that we actually are now broadcasting. There are, I wish I had my other phone. I would take a picture.
Jesse: Yeah, where is your other piece of technology. You do not have enough here.
Jeremy: I have another phone in my car. There are two phones on the countertop right here in two different tripods. One is broadcasting Facebook Live, and one is broadcasting YouTube Live.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: So if anyone ever wanted to know where you could watch this on YouTube Live, I should have put that in the comments. It is YouTube dot com, of course, but it is Go St. George TV. G-O-S-T George TV. We have got about 1300 subscribers there or something, and we have done very little live. So if you want to be on YouTube Live and that is your preference, see our YouTube channel Go St. George TV. G-O-S-T George TV or hang out on Facebook Live, and of course, all of our radio listeners, you are already on with us at 94.9FM, 890AM. Jesse, it is January 3rd, and there is a phenomenon that happens, especially in St. George because the Parade of Homes is six weeks from now.
Jesse: It is coming right up.
Jeremy: What is happening? You brought some data this morning.
Jesse: The data –
Jeremy: Every January.
Jesse – that I brought this morning is peanuts compared to what is coming.
Jeremy: Can I show them?
Jesse: Yep.
Jeremy: Anyone who is looking. This is his data. Three days.
Jesse: During the last –
Jeremy: I hope everyone is looking at this.
Jesse: Hey, every genius scribbles.
Jeremy: It is a 4×7 –
Jesse: Ask Einstein.
Jeremy: — scratch paper. I like it.
Jesse: In the last three days you have had 36 homes hit the market.
Jeremy: Last four days or two days? It is really two days.
Jesse: Two days. Yeah. So since the first. The first and second.
Jeremy: But there was not a first. See, the first did not exist. You could not put a home on the market.
Jesse: That is true. Because everyone was off.
Jeremy: That means in the last 24 hours 36 homes hit the market.
Jesse: Yes.
Jeremy: I did not mean to correct you, but –
Jesse: That is true.
Jeremy: — if you think about this –
Jesse: That is true.
Jeremy: — one day 36 homes hit the market. Holy cow. Okay?
Jesse: And what is coming over the next two months will be probably 1100 homes. I am pretty sure last year it was about 1100 homes between January and February.
Jeremy: Good grief.
Jesse: But before the Parade of Homes, and by March, that number will be 1500.
Jeremy: 1500.
Jesse: Every year.
Jeremy: 1500.
Jesse: And it is just gearing up for our spring season. Especially the Parade of Homes.
Jeremy: I am just looking at some of this data myself. Wow.
Jesse: One thing that is interesting. We have been talking about this is the price reductions. I went and pulled those. There have been 29 reduced prices in the last two days.
Jeremy: Twenty-four hours.
Jesse: Well, this is from the 31st because some of us did work Monday.
Jeremy: Define a price reduction for the listeners.
Jesse: That is somebody that is on the market currently, and they have reduced their price because they realized they were too high.
Jeremy: Yeah. Because look if the market is not supporting what you are buying, what you are selling –
Jesse: What you are selling then you have got –
Jeremy: Yeah, it is very simple. There is Dillard’s had their big annual sale. Oh man, I wanted to go. I am such a shopper. Every January 1st, New Year’s Day, a lot of retailers are closed. They put all of their clearance on 50% of the clearance price, and the place is like a zoo. Right? Well, why? Because the product has not sold –
Jesse: Yep.
Jeremy: — and new product is coming into the store, and the challenge you have as a homeowner is that new product is coming in the store –
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: — and it is called other people selling their house. Right? So this has happened for how many Januarys in a row?
Jesse: Geesh.
Jeremy: All of them?
Jesse: Yeah, probably since the Parade of Homes started.
Jeremy: Yeah, yeah.
Jesse: Because that is really what drives January and February is the Parade of Homes. So how long ago did that start? 20-25 years ago?
Jeremy: Yeah, and I want to be clear about this. He said it drives it. It drives people’s psychology. It does not actually drive sales in St. George.
Jesse: It does not drive the market, but it drives them wanting to be on the market by then.
Jeremy: Yeah, yeah, this is absolutely true, and it will be interesting to see because we had, for instance, one luxury real estate firm here in town put five homes on the market yesterday. Cancelled the listings in the fall, late fall, and they put them back on yesterday because the belief of every seller, and by the way, if you want to see a video of me talking about that from the chair lift at Bryant Head yesterday.
Jesse: Oh, a new one?
Jeremy: Yeah, you can check it out. A rash of luxury homes hitting the market after January 1. What does this mean? Published 18 hours ago. So I shot a video yesterday at Bryant Head. I was with my kids because the kids all went back to school this morning. Second greatest day of the year, by the way. First greatest day is when they go to school in August.
Jesse: Yes.
Jeremy: And it was interrupted by a phone call, which was fun. The live video. But you might want to check that out. It is right on the Larkin Group Facebook stream. Just look up the Larkin Group and you will find us. But I said what does this mean? Well it means that people believe –
Jesse: That they will sell their home during the Parade.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Jesse: They believe that more high-end, first of all, high-end buyers come for the Parade. And that might be true. But are they really buying homes?
Jeremy: Yeah.
Jesse: But people really believe that not only can they get a buyer at that time of year, they can get a buyer that will pay extraordinary prices.
Jeremy: Yeah. Oh yeah. Right. Let me share something cool with you folks. If you hop on our Facebook stream, we have, so we have been on this show for almost six years.
Jesse: Wow.
Jeremy: Five plus years we have been on the radio.
Jesse: Has it been that long?
Jeremy: It has been a long time, and we have been delivering content via the show, via Facebook, we have a really great video blog, and a lot of our listeners have received those video emails. I am looking at our Facebook stream. This is just the last few days. Excited about buying a home this year? Here is what to watch. These are articles that we have produced.
Jesse: Yep.
Jeremy: Let me share a few more. Selling For Sale By Owner. Questions and comments and concerns. Where is the market headed in 2019? Where is it headed? How to save thousands of dollars in interest on your mortgage. What makes a house a home for you and more and more. We have produced so much content for so long. And by the way, where is the market headed in 2019? A couple of things that we will give you, and then we are going to tell you about something really fun that we are doing. And folks, if you enjoy our program, we are going to ask you for your help today. For the amount of content that we put out compared to the ratio of that to asking for help is pretty low, pretty high to content and low asking for help. Where is the market headed in 2019? This is a really great infographic that we have on our Facebook stream, and again, look up the Larkin Group or Facebook dot com slash The Larkin Group. So what do they predict? They predict that home prices will appreciate across the country 4.8%. Historic home appreciation is 3.6, averaging all the years together.
Jesse: Averaging –
Jeremy: Every year.
Jesse: Okay.
Jeremy: 4.8%. St. George? Jesse says yes. I say no.
Jesse: Yeah, we have a debate there. It is going to interesting next January when we pull, when we come out to really see what happened this year.
Jeremy: Yeah, I say no. I say that we are not going to have any appreciation in Washington County. I think we are going to be exactly static. Interest rates have risen, but they are currently at the lowest point that they have been in six months.
Jesse: Yep, they just went down again.
Jeremy: Yeah, guys, the lowest point in six months. Interest rates right now. Interest rates, amazing, so home prices, Core Logic, which is like the biggest national prediction type firm saying 4.8% appreciation. All four major reporting agencies believe that total home sales will out pace 2018. That is interesting. And interest rates are projected to rise. Are projected to rise. However, let us remind you that in the year 2000, interest rates were 6.2%. In 1990, they were 8.1%. In 1980, they were 12.7%, and in 1970, 8.86. We are so far below everything. Now, I produced a video that has not been released yet, and it is about seven and a half minutes. It is four things you have to know about St. George Real Estate moving into 2019. It is upcoming, forthcoming. It will be on our YouTube channel and on our Facebook page in the next week. So, Jesse, the homes that hit the market this morning. Price ranges?
Jesse: Well, you have got six of them under 250, and that is going to be a problem for your average worker here in St. George.
Jeremy: So only 6, 36 homes hit the market, and only 6 of them –
Jesse: Were under 250.
Jeremy: — were under $250,000.
Jesse: Which is where your average worker can afford a home.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Jesse: You have got six between 250 and 300. That is a pretty good number. That is pretty solid.
Jeremy: Okay.
Jesse: You have got seven between $300,000 and $400,000, six between four and five, and then 11 over 500,000.
Jeremy: Holy smoke. Eleven –
Jesse: Eleven.
Jeremy: — of the 36. So our greatest, over $500,000.
Jesse: Actually, let’s break that down. You have got 3 between 5 and 6, and then 8 over 600.
Jeremy: So I need to say, folks, that is going to be a problem. Just so you know. It is going to be a problem for the average, like you say, the average worker.
Jesse: Yeah, because your average household –
Jeremy: I actually like the word worker. It is like the average, typical, employed human being.
Jesse: Right because your average household income in Washington County is 50,000.
Jeremy: Yep.
Jesse: So somebody making $50,000 a year, how much house can they afford?
Jeremy: 210.
Jesse: Right, so that is –
Jeremy: Maybe 250. If they have a good down payment, 250. So that will be a challenge, and I am here to explain to our luxury homeowners in Washington County, it is going to be tougher than you think it is, and you had better take the job of selling your home very serious. And if you are thinking oh well, this sounds negative, maybe it is not the year. No, remember values are at their highest point in ten years.
Jesse: Yep.
Jeremy: We are at the top. You know the waves out in the ocean if you have been on the ocean. They grow up and they go down. Kind of like when you swim out from the shore 50 yards, and you are floating out there with your friends.
Jesse: Especially –
Jeremy: We are at the top.
Jesse: Yeah, especially up in the higher price points because if you, once you step over $600,000, the amount of inventory just increases astronomically. It goes from 4 to 5 to 18 months.
Jeremy: Yeah, we are at the peak, so you had better take that very serious and work with an agent who is very serious about telling you the, it is funny, there is a script that we use in real estate. We are trained to use it. Hey, Jesse, on a scale of 1 to 10, how honest can I be with you? Well, what do people always say?
Jesse: They say ten until you do it.
Jeremy: There is a reason we are trained to ask this.
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: Because we have to set up the homeowner to actually hear the truth. Hey Jesse, do these pants make me look fat? You are like the fact that you asked me that means that you already knew the answer. Right? The seller, does your price make you look fat and greedy? Kind of. It sounds so terrible, but here is why this is so important. Because if you are thinking well, isn’t it marketing that is going to sell my home? Oh, it is marketing with the right price, and if you are not priced correctly, you will not sell your luxury home in 2019. It is not happening.
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: You will spend the next year of your life, you hear the passion, folks. I emphatically, you will not sell your home if you are not very competitive in that luxury home market. There is so much inventory. We are talking about years, and the market is at its peak.
Jesse: I cannot tell you –
Jeremy: Good grief.
Jesse: — how many homes in the luxury market that we have seen that have been on the market for a year or two off and on.
Jeremy: But we have seen homes that have been on 500 or 1000 days.
Jesse: What is interesting is that even the worst market, luxury homes sold within four months. Very rarely does it take a year to sell a home.
Jeremy: You are right. You are absolutely right. This is just a completely different market than say downtown St. George. All right. We are doing something fun.
Jesse: All right. Let’s do this.
Jeremy: McDonald’s Dollar Value Menu. The Larkin Group Dollar Menu. The Dollar Menu. Okay.
Jesse: We have a Dollar Menu now.
Jeremy: So here is what you have to do. Yeah, we do. And the dollar menu is just like this. We have got a program that we are running for January only. So I was sitting there over the holidays thinking why are we not having more fun? Seriously. We are dealing with people who are stressed out.
Jesse: Yeah, they are.
Jeremy: Think of some of the transactions we are dealing with right now. Folks, a domino succession, chain, they can only, we have a client. Incredible people who, think about this, the spouse is going to pass away in the very near future because of some serious health elements. The other spouse cannot physically afford to live, will be homeless or bankrupt if they do not sell the home now because the retirement and Social Security will go away when the husband passes away.
Jesse: Yep.
Jeremy: They have to sell the home. They cannot live somewhere if they do not sell the home first, but if they do not sell the home, she is going to be homeless. And by the way, prices are high in St. George, so now they are trying to figure out what she can possibly afford at her new income. Do you see this? And, of course, then you are depending on the buyer if their home, it is crazy. Right?
Jesse: Yeah, it is kind of emotional.
Jeremy: So then you have another seller on the other end who is hoping these people close on their sale so they can make the purchase of their home. It is very complicated. So I said why aren’t we having more fun? So we are going to have more fun. You can sell your home for as little as one buck. Now you do not need to sell it in January. You just need to enroll in the program in January. $1. I do not have time to get into all the details, but I will give you the one detail. The absolute specific criteria is you have to buy another home through us. And by the way, do you know that when you buy a home, you do not pay a commission? Because remember the seller pays the commission.
Jesse: Yep.
Jeremy: There are other terms and conditions. You have to be born in 1957. You have to have an odd number ending your Social Security number, and you have to have sandy blonde hair. I am kidding. You know those crazy, it is actually not that crazy. The terms and conditions are not crazy at all. But you do need to buy another home through us because we are literally going to charge on the listing side a dollar if you buy another home through us. Meaning no income for us on the listing side. Okay? Here is an alternate. If you are not buying home through us, we said okay, then what can we do? Because we want everybody to win.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: If you are not buying another home through us because meaning you are going to rent a home or you are moving out of town, you still can save up to $10,000 selling your home. And you will save no less than $1250. Right?
Jesse: Yep, $1250.
Jeremy: One thousand two hundred and fifty dollars at the lowest price point. It is based on price point. Most of our clients are going to save $2,500 selling a home. That is the most typical segment will be at $2,500.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: There is no gimmick. There is no qualification. If you sign a listing agreement with the Larkin Group in January, you will be getting that discount or you can be in the dollar program. And by the way, both apply. So the dollar programs applies if you are trying to buy another home. You can work through both. Now, here is the deal. We made a goal. We sat down as a team several days and said what do we want to do? And last year we helped about 180 clients buy and sell real estate. We decided we were going to procure 90 families in 90 days, in the first 90 days of 2019. We decided that for our families, now again, folks, earlier I said we have given you this content for years and years and years, and we are asking for your help. We are asking today for you to be mindful of the Larkin Group as, 90 in 90 is almost unheard of. Okay?
Jesse: Very few people –
Jeremy: Very few people have pulled this off. We want to find 90 great clients like yourself that need our services. It is a win-win situation. We are doing the dollar home sale program or the save up to $10,000. If you or someone you know has thought about selling, we are asking will you send them to us?
Jesse: Have them give us a call.
Jeremy: Will you let us talk to them? You do not have to commit them to anything. There is no obligation to talk to us, but you can reach us on Facebook dot com slash St. George Experts or at Sold in St. George dot com. It is going to be fun to report what happens when we get to the end of these 90 days to see what we do. We are going to have a good time this year.
Jesse: It is going to be fun.
Jeremy: It is going to be a great year in St. George real estate. Hope you guys can help us, and we will guarantee we will help you. Thank you.

Click on Facebook Live. to see the entire recorded show from Facebook! Below is the actual show transcript, word for word – enjoy and please share if you find it valuable! 

-Jeremy Larkin, Host of the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive. 

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