Tag Archives : Soldinstgeorge.com

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: Good morning. 8:36 on News Radio 94.9 890 KDXU. It is Thursday and that means it is time for the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive with Jeremy Larkin. Jeremy, how are you, man?
Jeremy: Good morning, everybody. Everybody.
Andy: Everybody.
Jeremy: Every body.
Andy: You have piqued my interest, by the way. He gave me a little teaser before we went on the air here about the most expensive and least expensive homes in Washington County. And he would not tell me.
Jeremy: I know you asked, Andy asked well what is the most expensive home and what did I say?
Andy: You will find out.
Jeremy: You shall find out. Listen, we have talked about this. It is no different than your newscast. Hey tonight at ten, we are going to find out exactly, tonight at ten find out what is lurking in the shadows for your teens. And you are like what do I need to know about my teens, and then it will be at 10:27pm. 27 minutes into 30-minute newscast.
Andy: You have to sit through the whole thing. Are you going to make us wait 27 minutes?
Jeremy: Heavens no.
Andy: Okay, good.
Jeremy: I would not do that.
Jesse: Twenty-six.
Jeremy: It is not who I am. Good morning, Joe. Joe is watching.
Andy: Hey, Joe.
Jeremy: Joe is in. We got some people. Guys out there. By the way, guys and gals, everybody as they say, make sure you comment and say good morning. Give us a thumbs up. Float a heart. That is one of the famous kinds of webinar things people do because we are in a business where we watch a lot of webinars. Hey, float some hearts over there. Any whose. Gang, Jeremy Larkin here. Host of the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive. It is Thursday. I have got Jesse Poll here in the studio. Jesse decided to show up in a t-shirt and baseball cap. It is like he does not even care. Tell us about your t-shirt because it says red day. I think people are going to want to know.
Jesse: Well, it is, all over the country, Keller Williams offices will be shut down today and out doing a community project somewhere.
Jeremy: Theoretically shut down.
Jesse: Yes. We will still be doing business, but the office will be shut down. We will be out there cleaning the park on our phones doing transactions, but we will be serving the community.
Andy: You have got a red shirt on under your sweater. I am guessing it is the same one.
Jeremy: It is not the same one, but it is similar. It is similar. So this is, today is Red Day.
Jesse: Yeah, today is Red Day.
Jeremy: Which is Keller Williams’ Red Day. Keller Williams is, so you know, a lot of our listeners, most of our listeners know that we are, I am Jeremy Larkin, CEO of the Larkin Group. Jesse and I are with the Larkin Group. We are a home-selling team. So in the real estate world, we have to have our real estate license shingled. Right? Hung under a brokerage umbrella. We could have our own brokerage, and we just felt like it was not worth the hassle and the liability when we belong to the greatest company on the planet, which is Keller Williams Realty.
Jesse: Definitely.
Jeremy: Red Day, there are two kind of elements here. Number one, Keller’s branding has always been red. But in addition to that, red stands for do you remember?
Jesse: Let’s see. Renew, energize, and donate.
Jeremy: Renew, energize, and donate. What does Red Day stand for? It stands for renew, energize, and donate. It is our annual day of service. Every second Thursday of May we celebrate Red Day as part of our legacy worth leaving, which is part of the core values of the company Keller Williams, and we believe that at Larkin Group. So today we will be at Little Valley —
Jesse: Little Valley.
Jeremy: — Park, I guess. Little Valley Park, ballfields and that kind of thing planting trees, and boy, is it strange. The weather?
Andy: Right.
Jeremy: This is, it does not feel like May. 61 right now, maybe something like that. It is really cool. It is supposed to be cool all day long. Seventies for the weekend. Hey, make sure you stay in touch here in the next five minutes for the 10-day forecast. Oh wait. See, at some point I think we are an Iron Man promoter, St. George Arts Festival promoter. What are we? Are we running a real estate program here? I think we are running a real estate program, and today we are going to talk about the most and least expensive homes. So if you see us, by the way, wrapping that up, out at Little Valley Park, all these people in red shirts. That is Keller Williams Realty out here doing our day of service. And it is our little, it is a fingernail portion of something. Right? Everybody needs to do our part. If we are not all doing something, it really does not happen. So there you go. You know what I love, Jesse?
Jesse: What is that?
Jeremy: It is how these companies love to say look at. We are doing Red Day. We are the greatest. We are, you really should know that there is no one better than us. Everybody. There are lots of people doing service today in St. George.
Jesse: There are a lot.
Jeremy: There are probably 50 service projects going on right now by massive organizations.
Jesse: Definitely.
Jeremy: But we are doing our part. Right? So there you go. If you want to check it out and see what that is about, you can google Keller Williams’ Red Day or KW Red Day. So we are going to have some fun. People like to talk about the most and least expensive homes, and there has been some interesting news, and I do want to talk about this as we get the show going. If you do not want to watch us on Facebook Live, if you feel like you cannot swing over or stay on Facebook Live because you know what, maybe your boss will find out, you can make it seem really normal by just turning on the radio in the office. See, people forget, our Facebook listeners forget that we are a radio show. Good morning, Facebook viewers and listeners, YouTube viewers and listeners. Good morning, Jeff. Good morning, Jeff. I have got double Jeffs. I have got Jeffs all over the place. This is crazy right now. But you can listen to 94.9 FM, 890 AM, which is, of course, originally where we stream from, broadcast from here at the Cherry Creek Studios. You can google 890 KDXU Livestream and you can pick it up there, and you can just stream it. I do not know. There are a lot of cool apps you can get on your phone. That kind of thing.
Andy: We have our own app, too.
Jeremy: Wait a minute. You do?
Andy: Yeah.
Jeremy: Wait a second.
Andy: Yeah.
Jeremy: I did not know that.
Andy: 890K. You did not know that?
Jeremy: I am out of it, man.
Jesse: I did not either.
Jeremy: Awesome.
Jesse: All those days that I was trying to stream it from my computer and –
Andy: Yeah, yeah, you could have had the app. The only problem with the app is that it is about 30 seconds behind live.
Jeremy: Ah, that is okay.
Andy: And so, when we do these contests, people call in and I have already given away the prize because they are listening to the app.
Jeremy: Yeah, they are like wait a minute.
Andy: Yeah.
Jeremy: Wait, they feel like they are getting gipped.
Jesse: So you can announce, if you are on the app, just call me 30 seconds before you need to.
Andy: Yeah, read my mind.
Jeremy: Yes, read his mind. So there is an article that came out this week. It said there is this Riverwalk, a brand-new Riverwalk project coming online down on Riverside Drive, St. George, talking about this new affordable housing, and you can only understand that any time anything goes on Facebook, mainly there is negativity.
Andy: Sure.
Jeremy: Because Facebook has become, and social media, but mainly Facebook has become like this outlet for everyone to share all their anger and resentment with the planet. Right? Which is unfortunate.
Jesse: And each other.
Jeremy: Yeah, it is really frustrating.
Jesse: It is sad.
Jeremy: I hate it. So years ago, The Spectrum, The Spectrum newspaper had something called the Vent, and they got rid of it.
Andy: I remember that. Yeah.
Jeremy: Do you remember that?
Andy: It was vile.
Jeremy: It was vile. It was vile. It was like Facebook. So it was like, Andy, when you release an article on affordable housing, and everyone hops in and says can you believe the greed? Can you believe the greed of business owners who would want to like, I do not know, build a house and make a profit? Can you believe these guys? Jesse, can you believe these guys? This guy opens a pizza joint here in town, and guess what, he wanted to make money.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: Can you believe the greed? Can you guys believe that Cherry Creek Studios here sells stuff, radio? Honestly, I am offended. Okay? I am working for, have a I made my point?
Andy: You have.
Jeremy: And this is the classic line we get. Affordable housing, LOL. It is always an LOL. LOL. Yeah, is it just greed or have values really gone up that much? Gang, let me see if I can give you an economics lesson that is going to last about 60 seconds. Here goes. Prices of everything on the planet are driven by you.
Jesse: It is true.
Jeremy: You.
Andy: That was ten seconds.
Jeremy: Well, there is about 45 seconds left.
Andy: Oh, there is more. Okay.
Jeremy: That means you and me and the three of us in this studio and everyone listening to this show, we drive the economy. Greedy builders air quotes and greedy real estate agents and greedy homeowners do not drive the market. The market is driven by consumers –
Jesse: But wait a minute. Isn’t it also greed to try to keep them down?
Jeremy: Of course it is.
Jesse: By buyers.
Jeremy: Because, of course, this is –
Jesse: It is all about greed.
Jeremy: Hypocrisy of the whole entire idea.
Jesse: Or not. It is just about life.
Jeremy: We are really just dealing with an economy, and what is happening in the economy is people start to move here and then what happens is the builders go oh man, I was selling this home for 250, but now the cost of my lumber went up, and the cost of my concrete went up because it is getting busy. Oh, and the cost of my labor went up because I am having a hard time getting guys. So they raised their price a little bit. And then people say I think I will pay a little more. And the builder says well, cool, if they will pay a little more. Gosh, if I was getting 260, maybe I can get 265. But then the cost of their labor and the cost of their materials goes up. So we have this cycle that happens, and as long as, I guess if we just want to boycott development, then we can absolutely, so government by the way, Thomas Sowell, you know who I am talking about, this famous writer, he has been in the paper. He had a piece that was really phenomenal years ago about how government intervention in housing prices does nothing. It actually creates almost the reverse outcome. So folks, listeners, buyers, sellers, homeowners, future homeowners, landlords, renters, I have covered every person that listens to this show. You are responsible. Isn’t that just liberating to know that it was your fault, to know that it was your fault and my fault and Andy’s fault and Jesse’s faulty? It is everybody’s fault that houses are expensive here because we are part of an economy. Here is what is not happening, and I am going to answer the question for all the people that complain about these. I am going to answer the question. Is it just greed? Nope. Sorry. Builders do not find out that they can sell their home for 300 when they were selling it for 240 and raise it to 300. There has never been, that is not, it is just so incremental. What about in 2005 when I bought a house and like 6 months later it was fifty-grand more?
Jesse: That was still the economy.
Jeremy: Still the buyer’s fault. Come on. Right? Now that I have been on my soapbox –
Jesse: But wait a minute. Let’s stop there. Who in their right mind –
Jeremy: Oh should we be done?
Jesse: No. Wait.
Jeremy: Thank you. Okay.
Jesse: Who in their right mind if you were selling a home if it was actually worth 300 and you had for some reason got it wrong, who wouldn’t change that if they could?
Jeremy: Let’s flip it on its end. All the buyers that can afford homes, so by the way, what we have is we have, and there was some great commentary on this article about this riverfront project. There actually are one in like fifty comments is actually valuable. We have a wage problem. Right? We have a wage problem. And understand that wages, that is a whole, that is a whole entirely different can of worms. Right?
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: We have a wage problem. Remember, this is where all this crazy profit that people want to make in their business comes in. We have a wage problem because people want and need to make money. That is what business is about. Right? We do not live in a utopian society where we all get together tonight and like everybody down the street cooks a massive meal, and then we all eat from a bowl together. Right? We live in an economic, a democratic economic system, and what that means is people go out and they do what they want, and if they want to start a business like a lemonade stand, Andy, have you ever owned a business?
Andy: Sure.
Jeremy: Yeah, what did you do?
Andy: Well, first of all, I had a vending business about 15-20 years ago. Vending machines and stuff like that. I have had an LLC for myself. I have been a freelancer for quite some time.
Jeremy: Right.
Andy: And that was a business as well.
Jeremy: So nobody stopped you from doing that. Right? That was part of being an American. You get to do that.
Andy: I loved it. Yeah.
Jeremy: So I can go get a business license in the City of St. George for pretty cheap and I could start washing windows. I could get licensed and bonded and I could be a window washer. And that is part of the beauty of this country. Now, we are going to get to the highest, most, we really are. I am making them wait.
Andy: You are teasing.
Jeremy: We are teasing. But I think this is so important, and I hope that our listeners are really taking this in. When you live in this kind of an economic free market system, hey, the good with the bad. The good is guess what, in the United States of America you are not held down like in some of these terrible Third World or Middle Eastern areas where the people are oppressed. They cannot own a business. They cannot do really what they want. The flip side of that is things get expensive, and right now housing is feeling pretty expensive in St. George compared to wages. We do our little part. I guarantee you we pay more in our office than the average employer in town. I know for a fact because every time I talk to employers, they are like you pay that much, yeah. But that is our part. We are one company. So Jesse, people are, the inquiring minds want to know. It is May ninth. What is the most expensive now that we have soapboxed that, and gang, seriously, I am happy to have a discussion with you. Contact us at sold in St. George dot com. Sold in St. George dot com or you could call us at 275-1690. We are happy to pick this discussion up. All right? So most expensive home sale this year?
Jesse: Home sale?
Jeremy: Does anyone have any idea? Could anyone, I do not know, maybe one of our Facebook viewers has an idea. I do not know. We would see a comment come over there if they had that.
Jesse: So the most expensive home sale –
Jeremy: Most expensive home sale recorded publicly.
Jesse: $4.5 million.
Jeremy: Whew. How did you get a mortgage on that, man? Did it require a down payment for you?
Andy: How many pools do you have, Jesse?
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: $4.5 million. Where was it at, man?
Jesse: Washington.
Jeremy: Say more than that. I know exactly where it was.
Jesse: 2860 South 20 East, Washington Townside.
Jeremy: Yeah, so people are like what is that?
Jesse: It is right downtown. Kind of.
Jeremy: Not really.
Jesse: No, no it is not.
Jeremy: I have got to correct you. I have got to correct you.
Jesse: (Indiscernible)
Jeremy: Clear out in the field. South by Adam Lane. This is this big Tuscan estate. Brent Minor sold it. Congra-freakin-lations, Brent. I know which property he is speaking of. I am not looking at it, but I am very familiar with it. Four-and-a-half, would you believe this? $4.5 million.
Andy: Wow.
Jeremy: Now I am going to give people perspective today. So Jesse, that is the real number. Four-and-a-half million. Was it 4.5 is what it closed for?
Jesse: Yeah, 4.5.
Jeremy: Give us some more data. Like what? Was this like three-bedroom, two-bath, two-car garage with a quarter-acre lot?
Jesse: Thirteen thousand square feet, seven bedrooms, seven bathrooms, five-car garage on seven acres.
Jeremy: There you go. So what this place is –
Jesse: It is an estate.
Jeremy: It is a resort. It has got its own pond, lake whatever you want to call it out there. I have not seen jet skis on it. Maybe it is not that big.
Jesse: Okay, but now, let’s, obviously that is an outlier. Let’s talk about the next most expensive is $2.8 million off of Long Sky Drive in St. George. That is in the Ledges of St. George.
Jeremy: Yeah. $2.8 million. Here is what is about this. I spent some time on Coronado Island outside of San Diego a month ago. We went to a friend’s home and it was a two-story, 2400 square foot home. So 12 on the main and 12 up. Kind of that like wood paneling, almost like a horizontal wood paneling, really basic traditional home built in like the 1980s. Right? I looked at the Zillow Zestimate. We have been beaten up on the Zillow Zestimate, but when you are in that kind of place, all you can do is just kind of look at a trend in the area. $3.5 million. The home was average, guys.
Jesse: Wow.
Jeremy: It was not much.
Andy: Wow.
Jeremy: Somebody said in this thread about this affordable housing. LOL, can you believe there is no affordable housing here. Somebody said why don’t you try living in Orange County? So we have to keep perspective.
Jesse: Right. Because even though our wages are low, they are not astronomically low compared to California.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Jesse: Compared to their real estate prices.
Jeremy: So Jesse, so that person at Coronado Island, they sell the house for $3.5 million and they move to St. George, Utah.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: They are a $3 million purchaser here aren’t they?
Jesse: Possibly or they could pocket half of that and buy a really nice house for one-and-a-half.
Jeremy: And when they buy that home here, whoever finds out they buy it is convinced that the people are independently wealthy. Right?
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: But they may have not been independently wealthy. They simply did what?
Jesse: They bought right.
Jeremy: Bought right. They bought a house a long time ago in a place that went skyrocketed.
Jesse: They bought at the right time.
Jeremy: They might have had a regular job. Sold this home and just become absolutely really cash rich for a short period of time.
Jesse: My in-laws I think have that. They have lived in the same home for 25 years, I believe. I think they bought it for like 250.
Jeremy: Sure.
Jesse: It will probably be over $1.3 million.
Jeremy: Imagine that.
Jesse: 1.5.
Jeremy: And they will have paid their mortgage off.
Jesse: If and when they sell.
Jeremy: So, $4.5 million. All right. Most expensive home sale so far this year. $4.5 million. And when he says Washington Townsite, where it gets confusing is Washington Townsite is anywhere in Washington that does not have like a subdivision attached to it.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: So it is clear out there in Washington Fields by what we call Adam Lane. Adam Lane is this one cul-de-sac of homes where everything is like 52,000 square feet on an acre. So that is a little overwhelming. What is the, give it to us, what is the least expensive home sale this year? And by the way, well, we can qualify it.
Jesse: This throws people because –
Jeremy: Twelve million, Joe. You were high. I would like to know where the twelve was. He guessed.
Jesse: This throws people because if you do not put in single-family home, you are getting trailers that you could buy for $10,000.
Jeremy: So is there something that sold for $17,000?
Jesse: Yes.
Jeremy: I see it. So that is not only an anomaly, we cannot look at it.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: So what would be the most expensive condo, townhome, or single-family home? The least expensive that sold. And I can tell you right now what I have got.
Jesse: You have got it pulled up?
Jeremy: Yep, I absolutely do. So far this year, let me tell you, you can go out there and buy, yeah, you buy a Bryant Head condo. Right? You could go and buy a condo at Bryant Heat for $35,000 or $40,000. You could buy a fractional ownership. You could buy a mobile home on a rented lot, which is what Jesse is talking about.
Jesse: The least expensive property in the MLS was actually a fractional ownership in Las Palmas.
Jeremy: What was it?
Jesse: $20,000 for a condo.
Jeremy: So we cannot use it as an example. What does fractional ownership mean?
Jesse: That means that you just, you are probably a fifth or sixth owner. There are a team of owners, and you get it for what, one or two weeks a year, depending on how many owners. But the least expensive –
Jeremy: So we know, see how that throws Andy off?
Jesse: — single-family home –
Jeremy: If people go well, I saw something sold for $17,000. Well, really it did not.
Jesse: So the least expensive condo, let’s just talk about greater St. George.
Jeremy: I know exactly which one it is.
Jesse: Is $80,000.
Jeremy: I know exactly which one it was. Why do you think I know which one it is? Because we sold it.
Jesse: Because we sold it. That is right. We do not just deal in million-dollar properties, folks.
Jeremy: Thank you, Heidi Flannery. Amazing client out of Washington state. So $80,000, Spring Tree Gardens. One-bed, no bath, no kitchen, just kidding. I just want to see if people are paying attention. A hole in the wall from the demolition. It is a one-bedroom, one-bath, 588 square foot condo in a place called Spring Tree Gardens. $80,000.
Andy: 588 square feet.
Jeremy: That is it, man.
Andy: Wow.
Jeremy: There is just, right. There is not much.
Jesse: Okay so –
Jeremy: So let’s talk about a single-family home. What do people want to know? What is the least expensive sale right now for a single-family home this year? Okay? This is going to be fun here for people to know about. True single-family home. Now what will happen is when you go into the Multiple Listing Service, it will like mislead you.
Jesse: So I am going to take out the 55+ communities. Okay?
Jeremy: Oh, that is okay. I already have the answer for you. Do you want me to give it to you?
Jesse: Yeah, give it to me.
Jeremy: All right. I was just going to see if he had it, if he was beating me to it.
Jesse: I had it.
Jeremy: 1114 North Jefferson Street. Okay. So 1114 North Jefferson Street. People are like what is that? It is a place called Painted Hills Estates. What is that? Well, it is kind of fun because at the end of the day there are like 500,000 subdivisions in St. George and nobody knows what they are. Okay? We have got two minutes. Fifteen hundred, this is really interesting. 1512 square feet for $155,000. Jesse, that is the cheapest sale that I showed anywhere in Washington County.
Jesse: Okay. So you are actually wrong.
Jeremy: Okay, what do you think is the cheapest one? Because when I pulled my search, that was the cheapest single-family –
Jesse: Okay.
Jeremy: — well, you know what?
Jesse: This is tricky because out in Hurricane you have got Quail Lake Estates, which is a single-family home.
Jeremy: No, cannot count it. Cannot count it.
Jesse: It is a single-family home.
Andy: Those are tiny. Those are tiny.
Jeremy: Still cannot count it. I still do not count it.
Jesse: But if you take out those –
Jeremy: Here is why. Here is why it is basically, there are a lot of trailers in there and a lot of modular homes.
Jesse: There is, but this one is a single-family home.
Jeremy: Okay. What was it?
Jesse: It was 770 square feet for $129,000.
Jeremy: Okay. There you go.
Jesse: It is a regular community.
Jeremy: Check this out. So there was a sale on 100 South that Baw Britridges, a good man over at Keller Williams, had that was $144,000 that I did not include. It was interesting because it was listed as commercial and residential, but it shows up in the residential search.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: So, this was a single-family home that was 996 feet, a block from our office. When it says it needs a lot of TLC, let me see if I can describe this for you. It includes a bulldozer –
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: — running it over in the final minute. So right now, gang, let’s wrap this show up with this. Housing is feeling pretty expensive in Washington County based on what is available.
Jesse: Yes.
Jeremy: Based on, excuse me, based on income. $4.5 million was a highest sale. We had a single-family home arguably at $130, call it $150,00 for a true single-family in like downtown St. George or Hurricane.
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: $150,000 is as cheap as you are going to get if you are lucky, and it is going to need a whole bunch of work.
Jesse: You are going to have to be quick, too, because it is going to sell like that.
Jeremy: Greed is not driving our market. Okay? If it is, then it is because we are all greedy.
Jesse: It is pent-up demand. So let’s talk about that next week.
Jeremy: Well, that is exactly. Pent-up demand is driving our market. If you are thinking about buying a home, if you are thinking about selling a home, we want you to visit us at Sold in St. George dot com. Man, we could have fun with this discussion for hours.
Jesse: Next week.
Jeremy: Sold in St. George dot com. Oh, we are going to have some fun with it. We are going to find out when we talk about pent-up demand and what that means, like why people were kind of sitting around for five or six years not buying anything.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: Over and out.
Andy: Thank you, Jeremy, Jesse. Time for news on News Radio 94.9, 890 KDXU.

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: Good morning. It is 8:36 on News Radio 94.9/890 KDXU. Here is your St. George Real Estate guru. It is Jeremy Larkin.
Jeremy: Good morning. Hey, I was hoping you were actually going to run with the hey, it is Southern Utah’s most accurate real estate forecast. That is what you said about Craig. Right?
Andy: That is right.
Jeremy: I do not know about that. That is what we want. We want that same kind of credibility. Good morning, everybody. Host of the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive. Happy to be here. Happy to be in studio and share with you honestly the good news of real estate. And today, we are going to help you really stay out of trouble online. On the old internet. Right. We are going to help you stay out of trouble with the information. There is so much information. There is so much information. You realize that Google is a verb now. Right? It is just a verb and it is just google it. Just google it.
Jesse: That is true.
Jeremy: I have got Jesse Poll here.
Jesse: Good morning, everybody.
Jeremy: Hey. My cohost, business partner, friend, brother. Gosh. Super funny guy. There you go. Jesse, listen. He says he is without his coffee. What is he going to do without his coffee this morning?
Jesse: I either have a water bottle or a coffee cup in my hand all the time.
Jeremy: Yeah, non-stop. Yeah. It is your stage presence. You need to have something. And you really do.
Jesse: It is my whoopie.
Jeremy: And the funny thing is it is, and you leave the water bottle and coffee mug all over the office, too. It is funny. And then he comes traipsing back in. Hey, happy that you are with us this morning. It is the 25th of April 2019. And part of the reason we time-stamped that is we are broadcasting the show right now on Facebook Live, which is easy enough, but we are also broadcasting on YouTube Live, and then we will upload this to our podcast. So we want to make sure that people know what we are talking about and when we are talking about it because the real estate market is like constantly in flux. Jesse, do you think there is another business that, in which the whole entire business environment is being reinvented as often as real estate? Do you know what I mean? Do dentists —
Jesse: I am sure there is, but it is not as public as real estate.
Jeremy: Yeah, would dentists go, oh man, the dental market is down. With everything that is going on in Washington, DC with the new presidential thing, people stop getting their teeth cleaned. Right?
Jesse: That is a good point.
Jeremy: That does not happen.
Jesse: And that is interesting, too, because your teeth are just as personal as your home.
Jeremy: Thank you. Oh, I thought you were complimenting my teeth.
Jesse: You do have pretty teeth, man.
Jeremy: Thank you, man. Top of the morning, Jessica. Good morning. Andy, is that a fair point? As a guy who, I am going to call you a lay person. You are not in the real estate business with us.
Andy: Right. I think that is a fantastic illustration of what it is like —
Jesse: It really is.
Andy: — because it does not affect everyday life for most people like it does the real estate market.
Jeremy: Yeah, correct. It is wild because the, same with radio. Here is maybe a valid point. I understand that people might increase or decrease their radio spend, like advertisers who are spending money on the radio –
Andy: That is true.
Jeremy: — based on economic conditions. But people do not go yeah, man, with everything that is going on in Congress, I decided I will not listen to the radio anymore. Or man, the stock market is up. I just do not think I am going to listen to the radio anymore. Stock market. That is just static. Most of our habits, but real estate, it is crazy. It is completely, every six months we have to reinvent.
Jesse: Actually, there is one other market that probably going through the same thing and that is the stock market.
Jeremy: Correct.
Jesse: But if you back up and look at that from a macro point of view, it is because that affects the whole world.
Jeremy: Yeah, it sure does.
Jesse: A mortgage in St. George, Utah could affect a bond sold in Germany.
Jeremy: Yeah, it actually could.
Jesse: So that, I think –
Jeremy: You are stretching it, but I will give it to you.
Jesse: Well, kind of because they are sold, I am going deep there.
Jeremy: Yeah, you got real deep.
Jesse: But you can see why –
Jeremy: I can tease this guy.
Jesse: But you can see why it is that way because getting my teeth cleaned does not affect somebody across the world.
Jeremy: It does not.
Jesse: And it never will
Jeremy: And the real estate market, it is front and center. People are thinking about it all the time.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: People have to live in a home. They have got to buy one. They have got to own one, sell one, rent one. They have to do something. Everybody needs a place to live, and that is just the way it is. As we move in, this has been a really interesting time. I got a text message on my way in here from a fellow, who is actually a real estate broker out of California. He said, hey do you think anybody is interested in my crazy home in Bloomington? Well, his crazy home in Bloomington is a vacation rental that is completely illegal.
Jesse: The 10,000-square-foot one?
Jeremy: Yeah. Let’s not give too much information out now. No, there are lots of 10,000-square-foot homes.
Jesse: There is.
Jeremy: Anyway, and I have not spoken with him because I went on the air. But this is the kind of text we get. Do you think anyone in your buyer pool is interested in my crazy home in Bloomington? Well, here is why he would be interested in selling it. Because the city is most likely barking at his door.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: Knocking at his door. So when the city forgets about it, and they do not talk about it, then he puts tenants in his home. It is a vacation rental, and it works really great. But these are the strange issues. So the City of St. George right now, Washington County, there is this big push for regulating vacation rentals. Two things we have talked about on the program. There is a big push to build vacation rentals in the county, but there is also a big push from I guess we would call it local government to make sure that we are restricting, we are controlling, or maybe even regulating. Right? We talk about a pressure reducer, a pressure regulator valve in plumbing.
Jesse: I think that is pretty accurate.
Jeremy: Yeah, they are trying to regulate it so we do not end up with what is happening, which is way too many vacation rentals in Washington County. Way too many. I just sold the Hammond’s place. Coral Springs. I want to tell you guys a quick story. We sold a vacation rental over in the Coral, I want to say Coral Ridge, but it is Coral Springs. It is over there next to the liquor store in Hurricane. I know it is Hurricane. It is a funny place to thing that that is Hurricane because, to me, that just does not seem, it seems like no man’s land where that liquor store is at Exit 16. It does not even feel like any city at all.
Jesse: I always get a kick out of wherever Utah puts their liquor stores. Because if you go in any other state, they are right downtown where everybody can get to them.
Jeremy: Yeah, they hide them.
Jesse: In Utah, we hide them.
Jeremy: They hid that thing. They put that thing out there like they are going to have to drive. So, we sold their vacation rental, and these are local folks, and a lot of our listeners will say hey, do you think we should invest in a vacation rental. This is a question we get all the time. Well, they just sold it and it was amazing because they are super happy, and we sent them out of there quick.
Jesse: I bet they were happy. They were talking about selling that a couple of years ago, and thankfully, they did not at that time.
Jeremy: Yeah, it would have sold for $240,000.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: We sold it for almost $300,000 and sold it in a couple of weeks. Now, the issue is for them, they were competing with, so this is where we talk about these local trends, and we are going to talk about avoiding the Zillow trap momentarily. They found that they were now competing, that Cole West, which is a big developer here in town. Well, statewide probably. I do not know how big they are. But Cole West was developing their own brand new vacation rentals on the other side of the highway there in Coral Canyon, and then they could not get their place rented out because Cole West, everybody would go to the Cole West units, and then they would go to the Cole West managed units next, and then lastly, they would go to their unit. These people said this just does not even make sense. Now, it made sense five years ago, and it might have made sense 12 months ago. And the crazy thing about real estate is it might make sense, it changes, but just understand that we are in a market that is constantly changing and here is the big change. The big change that has been happening, but it seems acute right now, is the information online. How much information, Jesse?
Jesse: Anything you want to know. If you know how to find it, you can find out. Almost anything.
Jeremy: Let’s talk about real estate. What is the challenge for the listeners?
Jesse: Well, the challenge with the listeners is there, well there is too much information. And I will give you a good point of that. If somebody does not really know how real estate works or how evaluation works, they could go on Zillow, for instance, and look at the Zestimate and, especially in the state of Utah, that may or may not be accurate by quite a bit. Now, I cannot find the data on that, but Utah is a non-disclosure state.
Jeremy: I can tell you, well, guess what I can find for you. I can give you Zillow’s data. I can get on Zillow’s data this morning.
Jesse: On Utah?
Jeremy: I can tell you exactly what. Do you think listeners would want to know?
Jesse: I want to know. I want to know.
Jeremy: Do you think that our listeners would want to know, by the way, do you know what a Zestimate is? I am sure you do. Andy?
Andy: I do.
Jeremy: How would you describe a Zestimate in English layman’s term?
Andy: Well, Zillow’s estimate of what your house is worth.
Jeremy: Okay. Perfect, man. That is brilliant. And it is fun to have you in studio because you are consumer and you are a homeowner.
Andy: Yes, yes.
Jeremy: So this is really interesting. If you head on over to Zillow dot com and plug in your address –
Jesse: There it is.
Jeremy: — they are going to estimate a value for you. If you visit Zillow dot com slash Zestimate, they will, it is interesting because Zillow has so much information that it is almost impossible to plow through the website in a logical format.
Andy: That is true.
Jeremy: It is like going to a car lot that is all of the car lots in St. George on one lot. This is wild. Well, here is the issue, and we want to help people avoid the Zillow trap. And the Zillow trap is that you go to any online, we are just going to beat up on Zillow because they are easy to beat up on. But you go to any online resource thinking that the resource is the solution because it was online. Kind of like trying to solve all of our relational problems by reading blog posts on the internet. I have definitely read some. Right? Zillow dot com slash Zestimate, they estimate in every state and every city and for every address in the United States, the value of your home.
Andy: Wow.
Jeremy: So what happens is people go in there and they obtain that information, and using that information, they make buying and selling decisions. Okay. They might make the decision to sell a home or to not sell a home.
Jesse: Yep.
Jeremy: Or to buy a home or not buy a home. Or maybe they use the information to decide that they think their realtor sucks. And this is real right? Well, Zillow said it was 440, Jesse.
Jesse: It happens every day.
Jeremy: Zillow said it was 440. Why did you say it is only 420? Which we are not going to answer that question because that is a whole separate. But does that happen to you?
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: Yeah. I looked at Zillow or I spoke to seven other agents. Zillow has something called, and this is so fun, Zestimate Accuracy Table. I am going to read to you. The Zestimate accuracy depends on the location availability of data in an area. Some counties have deeply detailed information on homes such as number of bedrooms, bathrooms, and square footage and others do not. The more data available, the more accurate the Zestimate value. Let me ask you a question. Do you guys think that the Zestimate information would be more accurate based on Washington County being a rural, 160,000-person county, do you think it would be more or less accurate than say Los Angeles, California?
Jesse: Less.
Jeremy: Right.
Andy: I cannot even imagine it being accurate.
Jeremy: Right.
Andy: When you said they Zestimate every house in America, how could they possibly be accurate?
Jeremy: Yeah. So here is what it literally does. It cannot be. So what happens is they take all this information from tax records and then whatever real estate agents supply to them, and it essentially, it averages it out. This is a funny analogy, but it is like saying well, Andy is 6 foot three or four. You are pretty tall, man.
Andy: Five.
Jeremy: Six foot five. Geeze, man. And Jesse is five foot what?
Jesse: Ten. I do not know.
Jeremy: Well, if you divide those two, you will come up with an average and that is the average height in St. George.
Andy: Six one and a half. That is the average.
Jeremy: So that would be a pretty silly indicator of the average height. Right?
Andy: Right.
Jeremy: That we took two people and we said that this is now the average height of everyone in Washington County. We would want a better data gathering. So here is what happens. I am going to read the rest. Zillow’s accuracy has a median error or 5%. Okay. Meaning, hey, it is plus or minus 5%. Okay, that means half of the home values in the area are closer, let me move on here. It gets confusing for people only because if you are not reading it. But they are plus or minus 5% accurate is what they say. Here is what they did. They produced their accuracy table and they said this is how accurate on a scale of 1 to 5 we are in every state in the United States. Okay? Zillow Zestimate Accuracy Table. One star means we were not very accurate at all. Five stars means we were crushing it.
Jesse: So I am going to go ahead and put that in the comments on Facebook Live. The link.
Jeremy: I even have an image. You can put it in there.
Jesse: Some people can –
Jeremy: Check this out. Here we go. Let me tell you where they are doing a nice job. In Maryland, they are at 4 stars. This is their self-rating. They are at 4 stars. In Arizona, they are 4 stars. Doing pretty well down there. They are running 4 stars in Nevada. Not surprising. And in Virginia. Well, this is interesting. Zillow’s self-accuracy rating for the state of Utah was 1 of 5 stars.
Andy: Ouch. That is not good. Would you watch a movie if it was rated 1 out of 5?
Jeremy: No.
Andy: I would not either.
Jeremy: Come on. Would you buy something on Amazon? Geez, if it is not 4.5, you do not buy it.
Andy: Right.
Jeremy: By the way, you should look at our reviews on Zillow. Speaking of Zillow. It is so funny, so it says this rating is tied to the median error and here is the rating as follows. Excuse me, not five stars. I misspoke. It is four stars. I do not know why I thought it was five.
Jesse: You said four.
Jeremy: Okay. Four stars. Best Zestimate. Three stars, a good Zestimate. Two stars, a fair Zestimate. One star, tax assessor’s value or unable to compute Zestimate accuracy. Come on.
Jesse: That does make sense though because they cannot, they do not get the data for Utah unless somebody gives it to them.
Jeremy: And I think the cool thing is it is an accurate, at least they are sharing it. People would not even know how to find that. By the way, 99% of the agents in the county have never seen it. We have never seen it until recently. That accuracy table, that is new to me. Right? Dave, I will take Jeremy’s estimate a million times over. You are awesome. Value from an actual local realtor. They know this town. Thank you, sir. And Peyton, good morning. Peyton is one of our friends and competitors. That is what I like about him. We call it co-opetition. He has seen them 20% off.
Jesse: It is true.
Jeremy: And by the way, we did not mean 20% off as in like get 20% off sale. He means 20% inaccurate.
Andy: You think about a $300,000 house, that is missing the mark by 60 grand.
Jeremy: Yeah, that is a good way to put it into perspective.
Andy: Holy cow.
Jeremy: And a $300,000 is the average value really in Washington County.
Andy: That is a swing and a miss.
Jesse: 350 is the average value in Washington County.
Jeremy: And well by the way, that is again why averages suck. Because it is really not —
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: Does that make sense? You have to look at what are people really buying. 300. Right?
Jesse: Yep.
Jeremy: Isn’t that true? So isn’t it funny?
Jesse: Well, between three and four is a really pretty good solid market.
Jeremy: Yeah, because it comes up at 350. And what can people really afford? 250.
Jesse: 250. Yeah. That is even lower.
Jeremy: Not that what you are saying is not correct. I am simply saying that is why these statistics –
Jesse: I know. It is okay. You always have to (indiscernible)
Jeremy: The statistics like, so the average, again, we averaged it up. So what does this tell us? Here is the challenge with that. Now we have decided that because the average sales price is 350, that is about what people can afford. That is what we think.
Jesse: Right. And there are so many people that cannot.
Jeremy: 90%. Right?
Andy: Yeah.
Jeremy: 90% of consumers are not going to be able to buy in Washington County a $350,000 —
Jesse: No.
Jeremy: I think that is real. Now, here is the crazy part about it. You could argue and say well, how is that possible because all of the houses are selling for that much. Well, you are not taking into account how many of the people do not live here that are buying the houses.
Jesse: Yeah, we are not necessarily a normal market. Most of our buyers are either coming in from California or Salt Lake or somebody wanting to retire here or buy a second home because we are really a resort market.
Jeremy: Yeah, we are. And we get a little passionate. So maybe 90% is probably extreme. So a lot of folks cannot afford –
Jesse: There is a lot.
Jeremy: And certainly on a single household income that is the case.
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: So Zillow’s accuracy table that they produced, so they are saying well, we are one of four stars in Utah. We are not doing great. Well, they are not doing well at all. Let me tell you where else they stink. This one shocks me. Texas.
Jesse: Texas. Well, no it does not. It is also a non-disclosure state.
Jeremy: Oh that is why. Jesse, help our listeners understand what that means.
Jesse: In the state of Utah, a seller that sells their home does not have to tell the state of Utah or anybody else what they sold for. Now that data is available through the MLS or the Multiple Listing Service, but when we fill out the form that says we are a new resident, we do not have to tell the state what we paid for that home. So therefore,
Jeremy: Non-disclosure.
Jesse: It is not public record.
Jeremy: So when you look at the public record it says the home was sold for $10 or other good and valuable consideration.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: It is a static. That is all they put on the bead.
Jesse: So that is kind of confusing because in the Multiple Listing Service, if it was sold there, that data is there. But it is not shared with the state, or the tax assessors.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Jesse: Is that pretty accurate?
Andy: So what you are really saying is Zestimate is just relying on what is given to them instead of going out and getting it? They are not working very hard to chase it down.
Jeremy: They are not.
Jesse: They cannot work very hard.
Jeremy: It is just a computerized model. It is a computerized model. Let’s break this into real terms then. All right. So if you are considering buying or selling a home right now, and if you own a home and you have owned it more than a year, let’s say you have owned it two years, and you thought I do not know if I want to live here. I have an investment property. I do not know if I want to sit on it. This would be that time. If you are thinking of selling because you want to sell because you have a reason to sell, then that is what you do. How often do we get the question is this a good time to sell? It is like well, what do you want to do? Well, we want to move. It is a great time. That is a personal decision. But if you are sitting on a property where it is like an investment property and you have been hanging around and you are wondering I wonder if I should sell this, you probably should because what we are able to do is take the data, the actual history. The crazy part about real estate is we can look in the rearview mirror quite nicely.
Jesse: Right.
Jeremy: Right. We can definitely see what happened behind us. And we can take what happened behind us and make our very best guesstimate rather than Zestimate about what will happen in front of us. And what we know is that the market is at a seven-year, actually at a 10-year peak, but we have been on a seven-year run, and I refer to this as the biblical account of 7 years of famine and 7 years of plenty. And we had 7 years, if you look back –
Jesse: We did.
Jeremy: — it is about right. And it is 5-7 years of famine. 5-7 years of plenty is what we see in real estate. So every bit of data that we have in front of us tells us that the market peaked in July of 2018. Peaked, past tense. Right? And you are going out there and you are like well I want to get this information. We used Zillow today as our poster child, but any online, heavens, we send people to our Dixie Home Value dot com which is an estimated home value. It is just doing the same thing.
Jesse: And sometimes it is accurate and sometimes it is not.
Jeremy: And we always tell folks, they get an email from us after. Hey how did it look? Did it seem accurate because we cannot even control what that automated –
Jesse: Right. That is true.
Jeremy: — model does.
Jesse: And it cannot, even if you tell it, it cannot know exactly what you have in your home. Do you have tile? Do you have granite? An algorithm –
Jeremy: 2×6, 2×4.
Jesse: An algorithm can never take what you are typing in there and spit out a true –
Jeremy: It is funny because a home is a commodity and it is also not. Meaning it is a thing made up of commodities but then they are always unique in every neighborhood, and every neighborhood is unique.
Jesse: Right. I want to go back to something you said earlier because you talked about the guy from California sending you that text. The online easy button, going online and getting this done is kind of a trap. So we have actually sold a home another vacation rental home for that same gentleman before. And had it sold pretty quickly for good money. But the easy thing to do would be just to reach out and say hey, do you think or the last time he hired a property manager who, a home like that needs somebody that is selling a lot of homes. Not renting them.
Jeremy: A full market presentation. Right?
Jesse: But it was easy to do. It is easy to go on Zillow or somewhere to find your home value. But is it going to be the best value? Is it going to be the best strategy?
Jeremy: Let’s talk about, as we wrap up this show today. If you are thinking about buying or selling, I just strongly recommend you either call us at the Larkin Group or you call your friend who you trust as a real estate agent. You call a professional. You can visit us at Sold in St. George dot com, and you say look, by the way, look at Zillow. For sure, everyone is going to look at Zillow. We do not have any problem with that. When I go into an appointment with a seller, I have already looked at it every time because I need to know, but what Jesse is talking about, look we are in this process of understanding what the consumer wants, and the consumer wants options. So if you want to sell your home, when we meet we are going to give you a couple of options. And one is our Instant Offer Program, which is where one of our investment groups can make you an instant offer on your property, cash, close 7-14 days, 30 days whatever you want. You do not have to clean it up. You have to move your stuff out. No staging. No repairs. Subject to an inspection. Right? They can make an offer. And that is what we call maximum convenience. You do not have to go through any of the heck and hell of bringing strangers in your home and all that. But most people, as in 95%, will not do that. 95% will opt to get a full market valuation. Say Jeremy, Jesse, show me how to get the most money out of my home. And that is what we call maximum value. So maximum convenience is an instant offer. Maximum value is we help you get the home staged, prepared, prepped. We market the property. We show it to lots of buyers, lots of agents. We bring people through. We negotiate a contract. We send you on your way. So let us do that. And this is really fun. And realtors are like how can you possibly do that? Hey realtors that are listening right now, is this fun? You can do that, too. My competitors who are listening, you can do this. Why can’t you do the same thing? We have buyers lined up. Investors. Now, the investors, because it is maximum convenience, they are going to pay less. Right?
Jesse: They are.
Jeremy: But everyone’s situation is unique. Guys, avoid the Zillow dot com trap, buying and selling. Make sure you call a pro. Thanks, guys.
Andy: Thanks for listening. St. George Real Estate Morning Drive. Jeremy Larkin. Jesse here, too. I am Andy Griffin. It is time for news.

How long will it take to sell my home? 🤷‍♂️And will I have to negotiate a whole bunch? 🏦 Jeremy Larkin and Jesse Poll take OPINION out of the equation and use real life data to answer these questions home sellers have! Also, the 40th annual St. George Arts Festival is upon us! Hope to see you on Town Square!

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: What is up? It is time for the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive. Standing by is Jeremy Larkin with his sidekick. He would be the Robin to his Batman. It is Jesse.
Jeremy: Oh, I like that. I like that a lot.
Jesse: I heard a story about that once. Batman and Robin for one of my sales.
Jeremy: I like that. This is true. This is true.Jesse: It was fun. It was a great story.
Jeremy: The old press release.
Jesse: Bam, boom, bam.
Jeremy: Oh my gosh, you guys, good morning. Jeremy Larkin here. Host of the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive. So happy to have Andy in here with us this morning. Jesse Poll here. Robin. Batman.
Jesse: Good morning.
Jeremy: I do not know who we are, but we are what we are. Hey guys, my heavens, there is a lot going on. This is getting into like epic activity levels here in Washington County. We have the St. George Arts Festival. Does anyone know when the arts festival, I know, but does anyone else know when the St. George Arts Festival started? Does anyone want to venture a guess?
Andy: If they have been listening to my show this morning, they would know that.
Jeremy: Have you been talking about it?
Andy: Yes, we have.
Jeremy: I guess I was not listening. Of course, I was managing children this morning.
Andy: I was in high school when it started.
Jeremy: Really?
Andy: Yes.
Jeremy: 1980. Freshman year.
Jesse: Wow.
Jeremy: Yeah, 1980 they started with this thing. And the history, it originally started on Ancestor’s Square because that was like this little arts village, and Ancestor’s Square has become more of a restaurant zone at this point. But 1980, so we have been cranking it out for a long time. Almost 40 years. That is crazy.
Andy: What year were you born, Jeremy?
Jeremy: 1975.
Andy: So you were 5.
Jeremy: I was 5 years old, and I used to go downtown and I remember it was the old library, which the old library sits exactly where the town square tower is. This splash pad and the tower, that exact, that is what was removed to build town square.
Jesse: That is pretty cool.
Jeremy: And I just remember that so well.

Read more…

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.

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.

Today, Jeremy Larkin brings guests Ty and Pam Isham of My2ndHomeVacay.com to talk about the Vacation Rental boom in Southern Utah! The Ishams manage dozens of nightly/weekly rentals, interface with the owners and of course, would-be buyers of these properties. Tons of amazing info on the market, enjoy!

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: 8:35 on News Radio 94.9, 890 KDXU. Every Thursday we get a little taste of St. George Real Estate. It is the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive with Jeremy Larkin. Jeremy, take it away.
Jeremy: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and germs. Ladies and germs, right, Tai? Tai is in the background. He can yell. Hey, I have got some fun guests here today by the way. I like to go with the lady’s name first, which is Pam.
Pam: Hi, good morning.
Jeremy: Yeah, and Tai Eisham. And on the Facebook Live you are going to like this because we always put a title. And I said this morning, let me pull it up, guys. If you are not watching Facebook Live, you had better be. So you can listen to this show 94.9 FM, 890 AM, Facebook Live, YouTube Live, shoot, man, I think we might even have just the government downloading it straight into your brain. When we figure that out. I said Pam –
Jesse: If you pay them enough money, they might.
Jeremy: Yeah, I said how cool is that and a glass of milk?
Pam: And a glass of milk.
Jeremy: Yeah, like how cool is that? So we are going to have Pam on momentarily after we listen to ourselves talk. Right, Jesse?
Jesse: You love to listen to yourself talk, that is for sure.
Jeremy: That is why I started a radio show. Let me go ahead and do something. Guys, I am going to do something live on the air. I am going to encourage you to do the same. I am going over to, I am letting my fingers do the walking. Who remembers that? Who remembers what company that was? It was one of the phone companies, but which one was it?
Jesse: I cannot remember.
Jeremy: Let your fingers do the walking?
Pam: AT&T?
Jeremy: Was it?
Pam: Was it?
Jesse: I cannot remember.
Jeremy: Okay. Let your fingers, Yellow Pages. It is just Yellow Pages. Let your fingers do the walking.
Jesse: I was going to say that but then you said phone company, and I am like phone company, they are not a phone company.
Jeremy: Yeah, yeah. Hey, Jess, kick that door because we have got guys, I think, they are having a drunken party down at Devin Dixon’s office on the ESPN radio right now, which is really early for those guys to start drinking. Right? 8:37. Thank you. Guys, visit Sold in St. George dot com. Jesse, will you tell them what you are doing by the way?
Jesse: This is so exciting.
Jeremy: I am going to cast my own vote for myself right now, for us.
Jesse: We are going to do that. So we actually have been nominated for the Best of Southern Utah, the Larkin Group. Actually twofold, Jeremy and the Larkin Group.
Jeremy: Best Realtor and Best Real Estate Team.
Jesse: So we would love your help in that. Jeremy posted that thing the other day that said the last time I won anything was in high school.
Jeremy: It was the Class of 1993 yearbook, and I hope, I hope some of the people that I care about are watching right now. It was when I won Biggest Comedian for the Preference, ’93 Preference. Okay? No, Andy, it is real. Go to Facebook, man.
Jesse: He did. In all seriousness, if you know who the Larkin Group is and you know who we are, we are all about trying to do the right thing and be the best that we can be. So if you have done business with us or if you love what we deliver and the value that we give, we would love the opportunity to win that contest.
Jeremy: Thank you, man, for that description. So you just visit Sold in St. George dot com and the way that we rigged out website, it is so fun. It pops right in front of you and says vote here. And here is the cool part. Two clicks. You click it opens. You click, you voted. There is no email. No phone. No nothing. It is one of the most killer platforms. I did not build it. Another media company in town did, a competitor. So please vote for us over at Sold in St. George, Sold in St. George dot com. You can actually vote every day until March 15th. I know we will not count on that for most of our listeners, will we now? Will we now? Thank you, Robert for posting that. Morning to our listeners, viewers, watchers. I have always wanted to start a watch party. Can we try that sometime? Let’s start a watch party.
Jesse: A watch party?
Jeremy: I do not know.
Jesse: Is that on Facebook?
Jeremy: It is on Facebook. Guys, momentarily, we are going to have Pam Eisham on, and Pam and Tai, they manage short-term weekly rentals. Some of you might have heard on Tuesday I landed here with Andy in the, whew he is giving me the thumbs up, I landed very last minute on the Open Mic Show and we talked about vacation rentals and short-term rentals. I wanted to give you a teaser, okay? Because yesterday she asked so responsibly what questions, and here are the questions I asked her that we are going to talk about today. Thirty seconds, what do you do? In one minute or less, how did you get into the business? How many units, vacation rentals do you manage? Who are your clients? Who are the people who buy vacation rentals and need them managed? What kind of income do they bring? How much money can they make? What are the biggest concerns owners of vacation rentals have? What does it cost to have it managed? What is the biggest challenge you face managing short-term rentals? How does someone contact you? And what is your general opinion of the short-term market? This is like, and I have said this on the air, this is the news at 10:01. They go hey, stay tuned for the most important story, which will be on at 10:29PM at the very end of the broadcast. But we will not go that long. So momentarily we will have Pam on, but I am Jeremy Larkin, host of the St. George Real Estate Morning Drive. I have got Jesse Poll here, who has really become, he has become my co-host.
Jesse: That is right.
Jeremy: Andy Griffin, we took his microphone and headset away as part of a punishment. He is in a timeout this morning. He has got his headset. We just took his microphone away. And if you will please cast your vote over at Sold in St. George dot com for the Best of Southern Utah. And I would be curious, see, I am trying to track, do you know what I did. I created a Google document yesterday with all of my favorites companies that I am voting for, and I am actually voting for daily. Literally. I have my own list.
Jesse: So where do you go to find the whole list of all the companies in the different categories?
Jeremy: So, this is perfect. So if you want to go over to Best of Southern Utah dot com. Best of Southern Utah dot com.
Jesse: Okay.
Jeremy: And you can vote. My gosh, you can vote for just about anything. I think there were 900 companies nominated in I do not know how many categories.
Jesse: (Indiscernible)
Jeremy: I do not know.
Jesse: I am going to go look at that.
Jeremy: Yeah. Let’s talk about short-term rentals.
Pam: Talk about short-term rentals.
Jeremy: Let’s do it. So I have got Pam here. She is lovely. I have Tai just lurking in the shadows, probably like he has done most of their marriage. I do not know. Is this a metaphor? Is this a metaphor? He is back there. He is sckulking around. I love it. I love that he is in the studio. I have Pam Eishman. And Pam and Tia are actually past clients of ours –
Pam: Yeah.
Jeremy: — that we have worked with in the real estate world. So thank you for, I always say, helping us feed our families because literally you did and you do and you guys have referred us business, and we are working on referring you business now.
Pam: Yep.
Jeremy: Which is going to be awesome. So, give us a 30-second synopsis like we talked about earlier. What is your company and what do you guys do?
Pam: Yeah, essentially what is our company? So we are vacation rental management company. But then I thought hard about what do we do, right? So what we do is we provide great experiences for our owners and our guests. It is our ultimate goal that people build memories when they are with us. Right?
Jeremy: Absolutely.
Pam: People come to our area for many things, and what we want them to do is be able to come and put their feet up when they come into one of our units and feel like they have just come home. It is their second home. It is a place to kick back and have all those comforts.
Jeremy: It really is. When I was on Tuesday, I actually relistened to the show. Andy, it was funny. Yesterday, I (indiscernible) doing something else, and I was even giving, getting a kick out of myself. I said I am user. Dot, dot, dot.
Pam: I heard that.
Jeremy: So that is why I do it.
Pam: Right.
Jeremy: I saw the funniest story the other day. It was a Facebook story. A guy, I do not know how it got in the news, but KSL had it on their Facebook feed, and the guy is looking at long-term retirement housing. Like when Mom and Dad get too old and they put them in, not a care facility, but more like –
Pam: Assisted living.
Jeremy: — like assisted living. And he was talking about the cost, and this guy had written blog about it. A blog or a Facebook post, and he said here is the deal. It is X number of dollars per day to stay at one of those things. He said I am actually going to go to the local Hilton, whatever it was, and his city was $59 a day, and it had free breakfast and they have a pool and everything. And he literally had said that is where I am going to retire to. And it is comical because there is no reason he cannot do that. But what it brought up is for me a hotel is not like a condo, a home, a vacation rental.
Pam: No, not at all.
Jeremy: It just feels like a hotel.
Pam: Right.
Jeremy: Like they are going to come in and change the sheets in the morning. I guess that is fine. I hope they change them. There are a lot of horror stories about that. Isn’t there, Jesse? So home away from home.
Pam: Home away from home. And I have actually had older people talk to me about that very thing. Like maybe they want to travel. They want to give up their home, so they just vacation home hop. A month here, a month there.
Jeremy: Yeah, have you guys ever, and I mentioned it yesterday, Jesse. Would you raise your hand? No. Have you ever checked out at all what we talked about Tuesday which is the home swapping?
Pam: Yes.
Jeremy: Yeah, that is kind of cool.
Pam: Yeah, I actually have had a couple of owners talk to me about that. If somebody is interested, hey, I would swap.
Jeremy: I want to do it. I want to do it. I really am going to do it.
Pam: Yeah.
Jeremy: So how did you get in this business?
Pam: Actually, I started in hospitality way back when I was in college. Having that need to have a little extra money, so I actually worked at the local Town & Country in Cedar City as a housekeeper, and then when we moved here, Tai was actually in the car business selling cars for one of the local dealerships here. And kind of half stay-at-home mom at the time, an opportunity came up just around the corner at Timeshare. So I said why not? So I started there, kind of lower in the ranks.
Jeremy: Where were you at? Like Worldmark or something?
Pam: Yep. Worked my way up through the company and worked in Housekeeping, became the Assistant Resort Manager and then into the General Manager position.
Jeremy: So it is in your blood.
Pam: It is in my blood. I was raised in the restaurant business.
Jeremy: Here is the thing. She is good on radio, isn’t she?
Jesse: Yep.
Jeremy: She was nervous about it. I just want to tell you that.
Pam: Yeah, I was.
Jeremy: She is very comfortable. Very comfortable. But what I love about this is you actually do have experience in this realm. Right?
Pam: Right. It is a big difference because of what a guest expects when they stay at a place, even though it is not a hotel, they a lot of times expect the same type of treatment that they would get at a hotel, so having that hospitality background is something that we bring to that so that we can create those great experiences for people.
Jesse: That is really interesting because how many of other property management companies treat it like a long-term rental and it is just not.
Jeremy: It is not.
Pam: It is not at all.
Jeremy: How many? I do not know, but I guess what you are asking. Right?
Jesse: Right. That is interesting because that is a lot different message than I have heard before.
Jeremy: Yeah. Have you done a vacation rental? Have you stayed in one?
Jesse: No. But just talking to different people. We do not, I was going to say you want to make some really good money? How to package for people that want room service to come in.
Pam: Yeah.
Jesse: The reason we do not typically stay at a nightly rental is because my wife wants them to come make the bed. And I do not want to do it.
Jeremy: When you said room service, I thought you meant you wanted the $18 cheesecake.
Jesse: Well, that too.
Pam: That is what I thought he wanted, too.
Jeremy: You mean changing the linens. Okay.
Jesse: Yeah.
Pam: We actually offer that. For a price, people can actually schedule that in advance. We will actually even go get their groceries for them.
Jesse: There you go. So there you go.
Pam: Have them set up.
Jeremy: There is so much.
Jesse: I did not know that. I was not a read-in.
Pam; Yeah, we can do that.
Jeremy: Yeah, why don’t you stop being such a, what is the word here?
Jesse: ESP?
Jeremy: Man, isn’t it funny that my brain just fried out.
Jesse: Once in a lifetime.
Jeremy: Why don’t you actually practice what we are talking about and actually go stay in a vacation rental? You are such a hypocrite. That is the word.
Jesse: I stayed in one in Boston.
Jeremy: Did you really?
Jesse: Yeah.
Jeremy: That is cool.
Jesse: I have stayed in them.
Jeremy: Okay. You did.
Jesse: And then we come home, and my wife says man, the bed is not made.
Jeremy: I know. I know. She is like this just feels like home.
Jesse: Yeah.
Pam: It is awesome.
Jeremy: So, Pam, kind of segueing along here, your company name is?
Pam: My Second Home.
Jeremy: My Second Home. Bingo. So you guys now manage, I said 30 on the Facebook feed. I do not know. What is it?
Pam: Yeah, we are at 26 right now and quickly growing because we are involved in a couple projects here in town. So everybody kind of knows that new area out there in Ivins where you have got Arcadia and Paradise. Well, we are actually one of the management companies managing for Ocotillo Springs, just behind those.
Jeremy: I know exactly.
Pam: We have got units selling and opening up so there will be a lot of those to manage here soon.
Jeremy: So here is what I want folks to do here this morning. By the way, I was just looking at our Facebook feed. If you have got questions or comments and you are watching this Facebook Live, please do ask.
Pam: Yeah, absolutely.
Jeremy: We would love it and that would be remarkable. So you have got 26 units and what does, if I am an owner and I want to have a vacation rental, but I wanted it managed because I do not want to fiddle with it, what does someone pay? Like what is general standard?
Pam: Yeah, standard is pretty much in our area is 30%, but it is pretty much across the board. If you look around the United States, when I have looked at other areas, it is 30%.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Pam: Some are a little bit higher than that, but I feel that that is fair.
Jeremy: Yeah, and that is what I have heard. I have heard 25-35 across the (indiscernible) –
Pam: And that is off of net nightly.
Jeremy: Yeah, net nightly. If I have, okay, in a year, what is a typical owner that you have here bringing in annually? I am going to narrow it down momentarily.
Pam: Yeah, annually, it could be, it just depends upon where the unit is, too, and what the nightly rate is for it.
Jeremy: Okay, let’s talk about somebody that has got a Las Palmas unit.
Pam: Okay. So Las Palmas unit, they could be bringing in anywhere from $15-25,000 in a year.
Jeremy: Annually. Okay. What is the most expensive property that you manage?
Pam: Most expensive property that we manage currently is at Estancia.
Jeremy: Okay, so what would they bring in in a year?
Pam: Actually, close to the same.
Jeremy: Isn’t that funny?
Pam: Because here is the thing. Because here is what people want. They want bang for their buck. Right?
Jeremy: Yeah.
Pam: So, when you tend to have a property that is higher-priced, sometimes maybe it does not get quite the occupancy that one does that is more fairly priced.
Jeremy: So Estancia, really quick. Describe the Estancia unit compared to the Las Palmas unit for the listener.
Pam: Okay, so basically the Estancia unit, the most expensive one that we have would be considered like a Presidential suite. So it is like a four-bedroom, four-bath unit, top floor unit, over looks the pools. Right? And one of the neat things about this property compared to some others that we do is we do rent it as a three, a four or a one, which is like a hotel room. We have a lockout on it. So we can actually divide the unit up. Our biggest units over at like Las Palmas, they are actually equally as nice. We have second and third floor units that are three bedrooms, three baths. Beautiful units with lots of square footage. What would you say, Tai? About 1500-2000 in one of those? Yeah.
Jeremy: Yeah, that sounds right.
Pam: Yeah.
Jeremy: Marlene asked a question. What is a normal occupancy rate for Arcadia, Paradise, and Ocotillo? Like for annually?
Pam: For annually, I am going to say it is going to be between, because they are still fairly new properties, you are probably talking between 30 and 50% occupancy in those.
Jeremy: I heard, and you guys know Kendall, and I was commenting about Kendall on Tuesday because he was texting me while we were on the air. So Kendall has done a lot of vacation rentals, and we are in this conversation, by the way, of creation versus competition. So, hey we are talking about their competitor. But he is a great guy. These are great people. He was commenting that at some of those places that you are seeing about 60% kind of max. But you have not seen anyone with more than probably 50-60%.
Pam: No, absolutely not. Not with as many rentals as we have in the area right now.
Jeremy: Yeah. There are so many. Are there, and you get to be opinionated here –
Pam: Okay.
Jeremy: — and well remember the reason I say that is because I think people are afraid –
Pam: Right.
Jeremy: — and I have gotten quite opinionated on this radio show.
Pam: You have.
Jeremy: It is fun. It is fun. I am not quite Rush Limbaugh, but do you think there are too many units being built, vacation rentals being built and zoned?
Pam: I think the zoning is a great thing. I think that we probably have too many being built right now because the problem is with the amount that are being built, they are still a very costly piece of property compared to what an average home is. Right?
Jeremy: Yeah, that is what you said, Jesse, when you commented.
Pam: Except for what that ends up doing is driving down the nightly rate because we all compete. Every single company here is going to tell you that they do like market analysis, right, and we are watching what the prices are. Well, you have got to compete with your competitors and where people want to stay. So that drives down the price, the nightly price.
Jeremy: Yeah, and I have been, strongly think that we are building too many, and I am, remember the litmus test is the notice, did you notice test, and did you notice when you drive around town that everywhere you look there is another billboard or 8×8 sign in the ground that says we are building new units that are nightly, weekly zone.
Pam: I heard you say that the other day, and I see them too. We drive around to see them.
Jeremy: What is going on here?
Jesse: The opposing opinion about that would be is that the City just trying to offset all of the private owners trying to do the nightly rental in places that are not zoned. They either open it up to the City or keep it where they can control it.
Jeremy: Right.
Jesse: They are going to be here either way.
Pam: Correct.
Jeremy: Correct. We have 1000 new hotel rooms right now. So 500 just this last year and another 500 coming online. That is a lot of hotel rooms.
Jesse: That is.
Jeremy: This becomes challenging. One of the strongest opinions that I have is I do not really advise for most locals that they are purchasing a vacation rental in St. George. If I were purchasing a vacation rental, I would be purchasing it in Park City, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. In a place that I want to go. Right? And I want to spend some time in, and then allow these tenants to offset my costs at 30-50% per year.
Pam: Okay.
Jeremy: That is just me.
Pam: So here is –
Jeremy: I do not know.
Pam: — here are two little tidbits for you.
Jeremy: Yeah, go.
Pam: So first one is even though we have that many hotels already, and I know we are building so we may reach that cap to where all of a sudden, we have got too many vacation rentals, too many hotels. But even right now, President’s Day weekend, and you can talk to other managers and they will tell you the same thing because we call each other to help each other. Our phones are ringing off the hook. There is no place to stay.
Jeremy: There is no room at the inn.
Pam: There is no room at the inn because we have got sporting events going on. We have got Parade of Homes going on, and –
Jesse: That is true.
Pam: — we are just packed to the gills. You heard people on the radio complain about the traffic issues and stuff.
Jeremy: Oh, it is, yeah.
Pam: And then the other end of it is as far as locals owning, now I have had several people come to me and I have actually had people that have purchased, and you can talk to other realtors about this as well that are kind of into selling the vacation rentals, but what is really, really interesting is that there are locals that want them. Why do they want them? This is a retirement community.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Pam: So now all of a sudden I find myself in a really small home. Our home is not very big, and we do not want to get bigger because our kids are grown. Now, all of a sudden, the families are growing. I have got three children, five grandchildren, ten children, everybody comes for Thanksgiving –
Jeremy: Oh, I see this. And you want to invite them in.
Pam: Where do I put them? So they buy one to make a little money, but they also can put the family up there when they have got big holidays or summer or whatever it is.
Jeremy: I do not hate that, and I like this alternative opinion. So here is a question. At 30-50% occupancy, let’s call it 50% occupancy because remember, all of our listeners out here, we have got Pam Eisham with My Second Home and they manage second home vacation rentals, basically, right, short-term rentals. Remember that the rate that you are paying per night is high compared to like a long-term, meaning a long-term lease on a Las Palmas unit is $1400 a month. But per night, it is $150 a night.
Pam: Right.
Jeremy: So could someone cash flow and even make, not just break even, but be profitable at 50% occupancy in their unit here locally?
Pam: Locally, I think if they buy right. They have got to buy in the right place for the right person.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Pam: For example, one of the units in Las Palmas, three bedrooms, three baths sold for like 260-something.
Jeremy: Yeah, it is getting expensive. Paradise Village we talked about. I used Paradise Village for the event posting on Facebook. That stuff is expensive. Pam, who are your owners? Who is an owner? Not by name, but who would be an owner? How much time, Andy? Three minutes. Perfect. Thank you.
Pam: So who would be an owner? So, like you said, a lot of owners are from out of the area. And interestingly enough, a lot of the owners actually are maybe snowbirds themselves, so maybe they want to come for a month or two down here. So they are from Idaho, from Washington, from all over, Oregon, whatever. Right? Northern Utah. We have several from Northern Utah. But, an owner is someone that maybe they want a place to stay themselves or be able to put their kids up, their brothers, their sisters. I have people that do that all the time. Share it with the family, but they want to make a little money on the side, too. Maybe they want to cover their HOA fees or all of their power bills and stuff. They may not always cover their mortgage –
Jeremy: So all of your owners independently wealthy people who just have $500,000 to buy a unit?
Pam: Absolutely not.
Jeremy: Say it with a grin.
Pam: They are people just like us.
Jeremy: The coolest thing about rental properties as we start to wrap this show up, and the coolest part is that, so Jesse, if you have a Roth IRA or a 401K, your employer, if you had a good employer, might match it, but the issue with your Roth IRA is who funds it? Who puts the money in every month?
Jesse: I do.
Jeremy: You do. Right? The cool thing about investment properties is that somebody else pays for it every month.
Pam: Correct.
Jeremy: That is the zinger. By the way, you might, a listener out there might be somebody a dual-income family and he runs a Jiffy Lube and she is a teacher at Heritage Elementary, those folks would be incredible investors.
Pam: Right.
Jeremy: And you know what is funny? Those people –
Pam: And there are a lot of them out there.
Jeremy: And a lot of them, there are, and yet a lot of them do not think of themselves as investors.
Pam: Right.
Jeremy: It is like whoa, go get a property. Pam Eisham, thank you. So how do people reach you? Tell us how they contact you.
Pam: You can reach us at My Second Home Vacay dot com.
Jeremy: My Second Home Vacay dot com.
Pam: Vacay dot com. And you can also reach us at 435-313-5143. Glad to answer any questions.
Jeremy: Okay. I am going to give it again. 435-313
Pam: 313-5143.
Jeremy: Yep, 313-5143. Guys, thank you so much for listening. Thank you for being on the air.
Pam: Absolutely.
Jesse: Thank you.
Jeremy: You are amazing.
Pam: Thanks for having me.
Jeremy: We are going to have to have you back, and of course, listeners, thank you. If you have got questions about your own real estate situation, buying a rental, selling a rental, or you want to give us a vote for Best of Southern Utah, visit us at Sold in St. George dot com. Sold in St. George dot com. Over and out.

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. 

Jeremy:  … good day to everybody.  It is kind of nice out there.  What do you think about the little bit of rain, Mike?

Mike:  I am loving it.  It is all right by me.

Jeremy:  You are not offended?

Mike:  No, not at all.

Jeremy: Do you remember 2013?  Do you remember about this week in 2013?

Mike: It got a little white around here, didn’t it?

Jeremy:  It did, didn’t it?

Mike:  Yes, it did.

Jeremy:  Can you believe that?Read more…