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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.

In today’s episode of the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive, Jeremy Larkin and co-host Jesse Poll invite Matt Green, well-known Utah Real Estate Investor, Keller Williams Realty Franchise owner, and all around family man, to talk about a bill that’s ready to pass at the Utah Legislature, HB 121, and how it may improve the home buying and selling process in the Beehive state!

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. It is time for the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive with Jeremy Larkin. Jeremy, how are you, man?
Jeremy: Good morning everybody. Jeremy Larkin here. How am I? I have never been better.
Andy: That is good.
Jeremy: I have maybe been better.
Andy: That is really good.
Jeremy: I have got somebody very special in the studio today. Besides you, Andy. You are special.
Andy: I am special.
Jeremy: You are special. And Jesse is lurking in the shadows today. Right? There he goes. There is his hand. There is his hand. So any of our folks that are watching this on the live feed this this way. Hey, and guys today, just so you know, we are not broadcasting Facebook Live. So if you are listening right now, always remember that this show is available on 94.9FM, 890AM or what I like to do is I just Google the phrase 890 KDXU Livestream. That is the easiest way to just stream it live if you do not want to listen on the radio. 890 KDXU Livestream. I have got, and we are going to talk about a little bit of real estate first, but I have got someone special here. I have got Colby Neilson here.
Colby: Hey, do your thing, man.
Jeremy: What is it like to be back in the studio?
Colby: That means that we got a race coming up. That is all it means to me.
Jeremy: That means we have a race coming up. We are going to be talking about said race. I want to talk about. There are a couple of things I want to talk about today, by the way. I want to talk about the volunteer element.
Colby: Yes.
Jeremy: I want to talk about some history. I want to talk about the bid for the World Championship for 2021. Right?
Colby: All right.
Jeremy: Is that the year?
Colby: Yeah.
Jeremy: Is that the year? So, kind of fun. Gang, so let me run some real estate out of here though. And this will be fun because you can join in the conversation, man. I love it. So we have talked for some time about our instant offers program. I want to actually give some background as to why we are doing an instant offers program. So for all of our listeners out there, if you visit our website, which is Sold in St. George dot com, you will see something that says, and I will just pull it up, and I think it says get an instant offer. Jesse, does that sound right? Something like that?
Jesse: Yep.
Jeremy: Get an instant offer. Okay? Should I what my actual, my own website –
Colby: Yeah, check it out.
Jeremy: — says. Get instant offer. All right. Here is the background. So Zillow is the big national, and Andy, you know you have had your home on the market. You know what this is about right?
Andy: Yep.
Jeremy: Zillow is, just so people understand, it is the most trafficked real estate website in the world.
Andy: Wow.
Jeremy: An interesting side note is that Zillow is only in North America, excuse me, in the United States. So Zillow does not exist in Canada. I went to British Columbia a few years ago, and I was like oh, I wonder what houses are. There is no Zillow. So it is the largest, most heavily trafficked website in the world for real estate, but it is only in the United States. I realize we think that we are the world’s, like we are the biggest, best thing in the world. But there is a big world out there outside of the US. Canada is giant. China is giant. Europe is giant. Okay. So what has happened, guys, is Zillow and a company called Open Door, another company called IBuyer, all these companies are coming in and here is what they would like to do. Do you remember when there was a thing called travel agents?
Colby: Yes, yes I do.
Jeremy: And there still are. And what is funny is a couple years ago I booked a cruise with a travel agent and it cost me nothing over what I paid for a cruise, but the way that it is booked is they get their commissions built in by the company on the backend. It is little bit like selling a home.
Colby: Okay. Right.
Jeremy: My life was ten times easier. She figured all the dates out, all the scheduling out, ran it all for me, and I gave her a credit card and it was fantastic. But a little company called Expedia came along and Travelocity and they changed the whole process. The consumer wants to go online. Right? And so what these companies are doing is they want to eliminate people like me from the process. And to some level, there are some things you do not need me for. Right? Which would be similar to, at some point, they just go we are just going to go all online learning, Colby. Like you have been great. Appreciate you. Thank you for your service. Right?
Colby: Yep.
Jeremy: But here is a Chuck-o-Rama gift card for you and your family, and it is all online now. And the students just want to get it 24/7, when they want to get it. Let me ask you a question because I have got him in the studio. He is not prepped for the conversation. Is there a difference, my friend, between the experience of a student, and there is online high school in Washington County.
Colby: Correct.
Jeremy: What is the difference, toot your own horn for a second, between doing online high school and coming into Mr. Neilson’s classroom? Because there is a difference.
Colby: Well, there is a big difference. Number one, you are getting someone who is sitting with you, showing you how to do, well, I teach math. Showing you how to do just this certain math concept.
Jeremy: Right.
Colby: Okay. With you, speaking back and forth. It is not someone else’s tutorial video that you are trying to watch and figure out. You are getting maybe a handout, some extra practice, something that –
Jeremy: Right.
Colby: — something I can physically give you and watch you work on, and plus, in my class, we have a great time. There is some social interaction –
Jeremy: And by the way, this is huge.
Colby: — that you do not get otherwise.
Jeremy: How many students do you have total? Because you are a math teacher, so they are circulating all day.
Colby: 120, 130 kids.
Jeremy: How many do you know by name?
Colby: All of them.
Jeremy: Let’s just all just have what we call the power of the pause. He said all of them. Right? You know 120 kids by name. How many of us remember our high school teacher, right, middle school teacher? And everyone has a different one. Like some kids who are really drawn to you will not be drawn to, there are other kids that are not drawn to you. Right? They have their other favorite.
Colby: Oh yeah.
Jeremy: I know that is hard for you. I understand. But I know this guy. He is a good friend of mine and has been for decades, but that element. You know them by name. They like going in your class. They like you coming up to their desk and saying hey man, I see you are struggling. Why don’t you stay after school and let’s talk about this. You know their names. A lot of them you probably have like a pretty cool friendship with, like you know what they are doing in sports. Right?
Colby: Oh yeah.
Jeremy: You know what they are doing around the school. Hey, how is the family?
Colby: Well, I was going to say, not only do I know their name, but you learn more about them as the year progresses. Some of them are involved in extracurricular activities, so you see them. You go to the games. You see them. You try and build that rapport with them because they are doing these other things, and you want them to feel comfortable in your class so they will be more willing to accept your –
Jeremy: Let me ask you a question here. Andy, I know you are at least like, you are over 30.
Andy: Barely, barely.
Jeremy: Who is your favorite teacher? Who do you remember? Name a teacher.
Andy: Mr. Bickmore, Mr. Johns, Mrs. Robbins. I have a bunch of them.
Jeremy: Okay. Pause. How many years ago were you in school? Just give it up.
Andy: I graduated high school in 1984.
Jeremy: Okay. Think about this. Class of ’84. My sister Tiffany same age.
Andy: Great year.
Jeremy: Do you see this impact though? Instantly, he listed, he is like naming them off.
Andy: I could have listed ten more.
Jeremy: They impacted your life and here is the funny part. They are just regular people with families trying to figure it out. So let’s bring this back around, and I think you can kind of see where I am going. What is happening with these big, massive real estate engines, like Google is a search engine, so Zillow is an engine. They would like to eliminate the agent from the process. They would like to make it so automated that you go online. You say I want to see this house, and this is what they would ideally like. You show up, you plug a code into your phone, the door unlocks, you walk in, you tour it yourself, you leave. That is what they would like. That is great for them. The issue is the human element is completely removed from what is an insanely emotional process. Right? Trying to decide what your home is worth. Trying to digest the fact that it is worth less than you think it is because virtually every home is worth less than the seller wants it to be worth. Moving your family. Dealing with a death or divorce or a marriage or a new child. Upsizing. Downsizing. Which side of town should we live on? All sorts of contract issues. You sell your house and you think it is all done, and then the buyer, who you thought they were nice people, and I say that with a tone because they are probably nice people, but now they come back with a home inspection list, repair list that says hey Colby, I want you to fix 21 items. And you are like I thought they were good people. What? That is where you agent comes in and says, puts their hands on your shoulders. Let me give you a little massage. Just relax. Okay? They would like to remove the human element from the process because it makes them money. I am all about automation. We are continuing to automate our business in every way we can, but the reason we launched this instant offer program over at Sold in St. George dot com is because they are trying to buy homes now. They not only want to remove the real estate agent from the process, they also want to pull this one. Hey, Andy, do you want to sell your home? It is real easy. Just plug your address in and a few details about your home in this app and we will send you an offer. Well, if you guys would like to have to some fun, google Zillow Consumer Affairs. I saw 1100 reviews. Guess what the average review was from dealing with Zillow as a consumer? One star. One of five. You would have thought three, maybe four.
Andy: Yeah, that is what I would have said.
Jeremy: One star at the Consumer Affairs. This is for the official Consumer Affairs’ website.
Andy: Wow.
Jeremy: Because you are dealing now with this national entity. You are not dealing with human beings. Right? This is like outsourcing all of your kids’ education to a website, and I think there is an element of helpfulness to that. Right?
Colby: Definitely. Yeah, it is helpful to have tutorial videos or whatever. But who do you really ask your questions to? And how quickly can you get your feedback?
Jeremy: Correct. Let me tell you one of the number one complaints I have had speaking to new real estate agents right now is currently in Washington County there is no live class for the real estate exam. It is all online now. I went to Stringham Real Estate School 15 years ago, and I took it all in a classroom, and man, I still remember B. King. That is who it was. B. Carmen. Her name changed. I remember her. She was awesome. And you learn very differently. Yeah, there is no feedback. There is no nothing. So here is what I just want to encourage our listeners to do and then we are going to talk about Ironman. Understand that there is a big massive shift afoot in the world, and when we get so disconnected that we think our best friends are on Facebook, I am going to soapbox for about 60 seconds. You think about how much you interact with people on Facebook versus the last time you called your close friend and said hey, how have you been? It is scary. It is really scary. And as we get disconnected, it will hurt the economy. It will hurt our businesses. It will hurt our kids. It will hurt our families. There is a level of connectivity. So the instant offer program, by the way, is we offer either maximum value or either maximum convenience. And maximum value is we put your home on the open market and we sell it at retail value. Maximum convenience is you have our investment group, who are local. Not Zillow. We walk over. I or Jesse or Jeff or someone comes to your home and we walk through it, and they make you an instant offer, which is definitely going to be below market value because we cannot make sense of buying and selling homes, talk about full disclosure. What am I going to buy your house for 100% of value and sell it for 10% more? 100% is the only possible.
Colby: Yeah, right.
Jeremy: There is no more than 100. Give 110%. There is only 100 available. Right? It is the famous John Wooden story. You talked about that. Where he pulled his team in it and he said guys, I know it looks like you are pretty tired and some of you were probably out with your girlfriends last night or maybe you had a few drinks, and you are thinking Coach, I do not have it all today. I will give 110% tomorrow, and he said there is only 100% ever available. So you cannot make it up tomorrow. Right? So what we are trying to do is keep a human being in the process. If you want to sell your home and you do not want to put it on the market, and you do not want to repair it and you do not want to stage it, and you do not want to show it, and you want to take an instant offer, we have got an investment group that will buy it from you. And it is not Zillow headquarters in Seattle. End of story. Fair enough?
Colby: Fair enough.
Jeremy: Keep teaching. How long are you going to teach for?
Colby: The rest of my life, Jeremy.
Jeremy: I know you are.
Colby: The rest of my life.
Jeremy: I know you are. We are twelve minutes into this. I have done my soapbox.
Colby: It may not always be in a classroom, but always teaching.
Jeremy: I love it, man. So we have Colby Neilson here. Goes by Bags for those of us who know him well. Good friend of mine. You have now been, you have been involved with Ironman, what was the first year you raced Ironman?
Colby: Did I do my race in Arizona in 2005?
Jeremy: It would have been something like that.
Colby: It was right around 2005.
Jeremy: Yeah, down at Tempe. I saw that venue when I was there last week, two weeks ago.
Colby: Or 2008. 2005 or 2008.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Andy: That is a big gap, Bags.
Colby: I did not prep on that information.
Jeremy: No he did not. So he and his brother-in-law –
Colby: It was right about then.
Jeremy: Yeah, and a lot of you guys know Jeff Gardner. Jeff is no longer involved, but he was really involved in Ironman for a while. So these guys used to race Ironman. See, I was, we cycled together, but I never had the courage to actually go do the Ironman race. I do not know. What am I going to say about it?
Colby: You were always invited.
Jeremy: I know I was. Colby has been involved, he was a participant and then you took over as the director of all the volunteer director for Ironman St. George. What, 2010, right?
Colby: When it started. Yeah.
Jeremy: I saw that banner last night with Michael Vice of Austria on it. That first year. Remember when he won that first year?
Colby: Yeah.
Jeremy: That was pretty cool. So tell us about what it means to be the volunteer director. Because we know that he is teaching kids math at Pineview High, but his side job.
Colby: Yeah, so it is busy. What I really have is a good group of captains that are all each over a different area of the event. Right?
Jeremy: Right.
Colby: So you have registration. You have packet stuffing. You have aid stations. You have everything out at the lake and wet suits and gear bags and bikes. There are all kinds of areas that need someone to be in charge.
Jeremy: Think of what is involved. How many athletes will come this year to race? 2000?
Colby: 2000 at the start line. Yeah.
Jeremy: 2000. I love that at the start line. Oh, we do not know what happens thereafter. If you think about the Ironman event, and so a lot of people out there listening do not know a lot about it. As a matter of fact, they not only do not know a lot about it. It just seems like a burden because it shuts down traffic for day. Do you remember, man, if we had Kevin Lewis here, he would give us the numbers. $9-10 million or something like that being brought in off the race to the community?
Colby: Yeah, and you are talking not just that week. People, since that initial year –
Jeremy: Nine years ago.
Colby: — it just generates more and more interest. Right? So now people that have come here and raced are now returning and training and visiting and touring and whatever else they do when they come and visit.
Jeremy: Yeah. This is how we feed our kids.
Colby: They will come work out. They will practice on the course. They will come race and they will come back.
Jeremy: I see them as early as, probably earlier, but typically by February the first reasonable weekend you see Ironman athletes here doing training weekends.
Colby: Oh yeah.
Jeremy: Right. Getting familiar with the course. So it drives, so a lot of people do not know what it is. You are talking about let’s say $8-10 million coming in off this event. Off the event. Annually, they are putting tons of revenue into our economy. The event, of course, let’s walk these people through what they are doing. They are at Sand Hollow Reservoir. They are going to swim 1.2 miles. Right?
Colby: Right.
Jeremy: They are going to get out of that water. We are going to help them strip their wetsuit, one of our 40, 50 volunteers there because it is hard to get your wetsuit off when your hands do not, no longer work because you have been swimming for 1.2 miles and it is cold water. They are going to hop onto their bike damp, and they are going to race, ride how long?
Colby: 56 miles.
Jeremy: 56 miles. Which is from Sand Hollow to where?
Colby: Sand Hollow, it is going to go up and over the Red Hill, out towards Ivins, back up through Snow Canyon, which is –
Jeremy: Up Snow Canyon.
Colby: Up Snow Canyon, right.
Jeremy: Up Snow Canyon. It is a treacherous climb.
Colby: And then once you get to the top, you just coast it on it. All the way back into town.
Jeremy: Yep. And so, cool. So they have already swam 1.2 miles, and they have ridden their bikes 56 miles, and then they are going to run a half marathon.
Colby: Marathon. Right.
Jeremy: 13.1.
Colby: Up the Red Hill and back.
Jeremy: So think about the number of volunteers for all of our listeners out there. It requires so many people to make that happen.
Colby: Definitely.
Jeremy: And to pull it off. And the competitors I have heard regularly saying we think St. George has the best volunteer community ever. Like we have never seen an event come off so clean.
Colby: Oh hands down. You have to realize there are a lot of events that Ironman owns or puts on around the country, and I have a traveled to a few others and worked as a crew guy, and I see what goes on. I see volunteers. I see the work that that certain particular town puts into their efforts, and I look back at what we have, and I am like we have people that really understand what it means to go help out and go bring this thing hear and make it something special.
Jeremy: And it is super community-based. And I will point something out.
Colby: It is not like that in other places.
Jeremy: It not like that in other places.
Colby: No, it is not.
Jeremy: That people that realize this, this is part of, man, it is my show. I can say what I want. Part of the benefit of a really, quite honestly like a pretty religious-type community is you have a lot of service going on. And it does not mean that religious people serve, are better than non-religious people.
Colby: (Indiscernible)
Jeremy: What happens is a lot of these kids are raised doing service. They do not even want to do it. Remember you are a teenager. You are like I have got to go rake leaves for the neighbor? But in this kind of community in Utah and in St. George, what has happened is quite a few thousands and thousands of the residents were raised, against their will at first initially, to serve. Right? And so it has created this mindset that what we do is we go and we serve. It is really normal. Check this out. By the way, do people want to know where these guys go? How about they race in Boulder, CO, China, Calgary, Alberta, Ireland, France. I am just highlighting. Santa Cruz, CA, Imperial Beach, CA, India, Sweden, Coeur d’Alene, ID, and where is the national championship?
Colby: For a (indiscernible)
Jeremy: Yep.
Colby: I think this year it is in France.
Jeremy: It is the World Championship. World Championship.
Colby: World Championship. Yeah.
Jeremy: So the World Championship. Right? Then you have the World Championship, but the North American Pro Championship is St. George.
Colby: Exactly. Yeah.
Jeremy: So the reason I point this out is to impress upon people like Ironman is everywhere. They pick the most beautiful locations on the planet and they are having their North American Pro Championship here.
Colby: Right.
Jeremy: So, let’s talk about volunteers and then let’s briefly touch on trying to be in the World Championship. But we need volunteers.
Colby: Oh yeah, we need many. We need about a couple thousand to make it work like it should.
Jeremy: Yep.
Colby: With enough people so that it is not overly burdening others. Right?
Jeremy: Yep.
Colby: But right now, we are at about 350 that have signed up.
Jeremy: Yep, and we need way more.
Colby: And we are a month away.
Jeremy: And we are a month away. So guys, the race is May 4th, and you can volunteer anywhere from the lake, which you are going to be out there bright and early, like 4 or 5 in the morning early. The race is going to be over over, like the last competitor is coming over the line at what time of day? Downtown.
Colby: Downtown. It will be done by 5.
Jeremy: Okay. I was going to say 4 or 5. So I want to tell people where they can volunteer, and I just want to make my own personal plug because I have been that involved. Visit Ironman St George dot com, Ironman St. George dot com. Is it Ironman St. George dot com?
Colby: Yeah.
Jeremy: Yeah, it is. It is just going to send you over to their page. But you will see a link to volunteer. Go in. Pick any freaking thing that sounds fun to you.
Colby: Yeah, just scroll down and look through it.
Jeremy: Yeah, scroll down. Hey you want to be involved in athlete drug testing? Maybe you want to be involved in athlete registration? How about this? Athlete registration happens on Thursday, Wednesday, Thursday. You get to hang out at Town Square in beautiful weather and meet people from all over the world.
Colby: Yeah.
Jeremy: It is pretty fun. Right?
Colby: Yep.
Jeremy: I am going to make my plug. I was involved in 2010. I was involved in the first five years, and then I kind of went MIA. And I am back this year.
Colby: He is back.
Jeremy: As I was one of volunteer captains. Guess who is back? I am just going to tell you something. If you have got to the St. George Marathon finish line that is the feeling. You go to the St. George Marathon finish line and you start crying. You are like I do not even know these people and I am crying right now. And then you want to race. It is that kind of electricity at the event. And to volunteer, it is just such a blast. Yeah, you get a free t-shirt, but you feel like, you do not feel like, you are part of something that day. And the athletes, the thing that is cool. The average Ironman competitor is they are wealthy. They talk about the demographics. These people, they are doing well for themselves, right, all over the planet financially, and they come here, and they are very, very appreciative. The athletes are high-fiving. They are thanking you. Right?
Colby: Right.
Jeremy: It is kind of an incredible experience.
Colby: It is an incredible experience. A lot of these athletes, you do not know if this is their first time for this type of major endurance event or their fifth time.
Jeremy: Yep.
Colby: But either way, it is a goal. It is a dream of theirs, and we as volunteers, we are helping this dream become a reality. Right?
Jeremy: Yep.
Colby: We are encouraging them. We are offering our services if you are at an aid station or if you are helping them with their bike or whatever, you are a part of this dream of theirs.
Jeremy: Of this, I love this, and you have always said this, man. This is like your great case. Right? The sales pitch to volunteer. And by the way, the benefit of volunteering is you get the incredible prize of feeling really happy. Right? Which is better than any fee. But you do not realize that every athlete that comes to town, they have a story.
Colby: And like American Idol –
Jeremy: This is Jim Smith from Travers City, Michigan, but there is a story.
Colby: Yep.
Jeremy: Every one of them. They do not have to have this crazy life story that they came out of a fire and raced Ironman. They all have a story.
Colby: They all have some pathway that got them here.
Jeremy: Yeah, it is a dream, and a lot of people are just two minutes, perfect, hoping to finish the race. Right? Most of the competitors are not competing. They are finishing. They are completing. I talk about competing versus completing. 2021, this week at Town Square, we had the little pep rally. St. George is bidding. We call it bidding to become the World Championship host in 2021.
Colby: Right. So it is coming back to the North American continent that year, so we are going to try, we did our best. There was a lot of excitement and a lot of fun downtown, just trying to sway them, let them know hey, we have the people that is going to make this work. Which we do.
Jeremy: We do.
Colby: So whether we get it or whether we do not, either way, we have got the folks that make this happen.
Jeremy: Yeah, we have a volunteer community. We have a service community. Guys, please.
Colby: You just need to go sign up and get started.
Jeremy: Visit Ironman St. George dot com or if for whatever reason, if you are just cruising along, just google Ironman St. George.
Colby: Hey, if you have got a group, that is even better because we have, Ironman donations that you can apply for. If you have questions, my email is right there when you go to sign up to volunteer.
Jeremy: So you are saying a service group, like scout troop, a Boy Scout, a Girl Scout troop –
Colby: Yeah, a church group, community groups –
Jeremy: — a church organizations.
Colby: — clubs.
Jeremy: They actually get financial support, right?
Colby: They can, yeah.
Jeremy: They can. So guys, Ironman St. George. Colby Neilson, volunteer director, always love having you, man.
Colby: Always a pleasure.
Jeremy: Visit and sign up to volunteer today. Sign up your office. Sign up your family. Sign up your parish, your ward, whatever you do. Get a group and come on out. May 4th. It is going to be fun. All right. Over and out. Thank you.
Andy: All right. News radio 94.4, 890 KDXU. This has been the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive, Jeremy Larkin, Bags Neilson here, and Jesse behind the scenes.

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

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