Real Estate Information Archive

Many friends and clients have asked me about getting a “hot deal” at bank foreclosure auctions, as well as what these auctions are “all about.” I guess showing is better than telling so I shot this short video for you….or them…..or maybe YOU are THEM? Either way, I think you’ll enjoy it.

When we talk about bank foreclosure auctions we are essentially talking about 2 different types:

1. Trustee’s Sales – These are the ones you see or hear about on the “Courthouse Steps.” They literally occur there…on the steps of the County Courthouse. To actively bid you really only have to:

A – Show up

B – Bring a $5000.00 cashier’s check along with you. If you are the winning bidder, you have to be ready to close in 24 hours.  You better dang well have cash in hand or funding available immediately.

2. Bank Auctions – Here in St. George these take place either at the actual property or in some other location such as the Convention Center or a Hotel meeting space.  You have seen signs around town for these – Williams & Williams, Hudson & Marshall, etc.  The video above was taken at a recent Williams & Williams auction.

To bid on these properties you don’t haveto do much more than above, but the closing timelines are less stringent:

A – Register prior online OR onsite the day of. If you want to bid online you must register typically 24 hours prior.

B – Show up and confirm registration.

C  - Bring a $2000 - $2500.00 check. The difference here is that if you are the winning bidder, you often have up to 30 days to close. So YES, you can use a loan at this type of auction.

Do your Homework:

In either case, remember that you are entering in a binding contract when you go to an auction. This means you’ve GOT TO:

• Research physical condition of property, title issues, etc
• Have financing lined up. Planning to visit with a Lender for the first time AFTER the auction could cost you a few grand.
• If you can, hire a Realtor. On the bank Auctions discussed in #2 above, the Seller pays the Agent’s commission so you are NOT paying more to have an agent, but you get the benefit of a professional who knows the neighborhoods, contracts, property values and carries liability insurance in the event of a (heaven forbid) legal dilemma.
• Set a limit or "lid" on what you're willing to bid. If you say $100k, don't get swept up in the excitement and pay $105k.

These auctions are exciting - REALLY exciting, just make sure you are prepared in advance. Feel free to call or email me direct with questions about the auction process: 435-862-8467 or larkin@gostgeorge.com

Video of my day at Ironman (if you can't see it, try clicking HERE).

Wow, WHAT A WEEKEND!!!! It's amazing to see our community buzzing like never before. I have talkd to person after person who were literally moved by the event. The St. George marathon has always had that effect on St. George, but never quite like this.

Volunteers and "Dixie Spirit" were the glue

My theory on the raging success of they day is this: Volunteers + "Dixie Spirit" = indescribable community synergy.

Alot of (negative) people want to brush off "Dixie Spirit" as something of the past and often focus on the connotations of the "Dixie" of the deep South. We're talking about the "South" of Utah - St. George, which got the nickname hundreds of years ago when Pioneer Settlers left the Salt Lake Valley to head far south and begin harvesting cotton.

The St. George energy and spirit is palpable and quite frankly, indescribable. It just...."is" and very few communities enjoy something like it. It's what causes thousands of people to show up in town for a vacation, marathon or golf trip and say, "we better move there!"

The Ironman St. George event required nearly 4000 volunteers and their the Ironman volunteer recruitment effort was different than anything we've ever seen before.

What they did was recruited sector "Captains" for each area, aid station and segment of the race. For example, I was over the "wetsuite peeling" crew at transition #1, someone else was over the men's change tent, someone the womens, etc. 

Those individual Captains were in charge of recruiting their needed # of volunteers - 20, 60, 40, whatever the #. So, when race day came, volunteer director Colby "Bags" Neilson (who was incredible by the way), was able to actually smile and enjoy the event because instead of worrying if 4000 volunteers were showing up, he simply had to ensure that is Captains showed up, who ensured that the others showed up.

The other benefit of this system was extreme loyalty. A good percentage of the Ironman volunteers knew their Captain personally and thus took greater ownership in showing up and doing a good job. It's brilliant!

Regarding the Ironman St. George volunteers, Paul Huddle, former professional Triathlete and Event Director told me in an email after, "We need to clone all the volunteers here and take them on the road."

They told us off the record that they had NEVER seen such a great volunteer effort. That speaks volumes about Utah's Dixie and the people of our great community.

I rec'd this message from a buddy after the race when I asked him how his volunteering effort went: "I will never forget that day, from life guarding on the finish dock and seeing every swimming come through and do everything you can you encourage them to the finish and then to top it off helping them at the end.  I didn’t want it to end, to be able to share that time with them right after what they had gone through was truly amazing.  To see how thankful each finisher was of all the help through out the race was great and how they couldn’t have done it with out all the support."

Who really won?

The winners of the race were Michael Weiss of Austria in 08:40:08, and Heather Wurtele of Canada in 09:35:25 That is FAST. SICK fast. I had the chance to talk with Weiss on two occasions and he is a class act. When my kids wanted a picture with him after the victory he threw my 5-year old right on his knee!

From what I read and hear about Heather Wurtele, she seems just as classy he. Congratulations to the two of them for their amazing victories.

But the REAL winners of the innaugural Ironman St. George are the volunteers, directors, city officials and staff who all combined efforts, manpower and brain power to put together a world class event that wil have people talking about our area for generations to come.

Congratulations Ironmen, local race and volunteer directors Jeff Gardner and Colby Neilson, and all of Washington County for an incredible event. I can't wait for next year either!

*For more Ironman, Real Estate and other St. George area videos, visit us at: http://www.youtube.com/larkingroup

Some of you may remember my post “Your Agent was trying to help you when they said Short Sales Suck!” from May 2008.

Nearly 2 years have passed from that day and in many ways, Short Sales still DO suck, but their time of “sucky-ness” (don’t look that up, NOT a word) may be soon coming to an end.

As we are all so very aware, the Federal Government has decided to stick their fingers in just about everything we do with the exception of which sugar cereal we feed to our children. (that’s probably coming…)

In a rare flash of brilliance, some of their new legislation could actually be the best thing to hit Buyers, Sellers and Real Estate in General in a long time.

The problem with short sales has always been summed up in a few major points:

• Short Sales take too long (as in 3 to as many as 10 months!)
• The eventual outcome of the Buyer’s original offer is always unknown (The chances of actually getting the home you offered on was a literal craps shoot)
• They were a miserable ton of work for every single person involved in the transaction

See, the bank that the Seller is no longer making a mortgage payment to (in most cases) typically hasn’t APPROVED the sale of the home at the list price. So Buyers come along looking at a home listed for $150k that the bank may only let go for $170k. That’s just not right, totally confusing and emotionally painful.

New legislation proposed by the US Treasury would make the following changes to the Short Sale process:

1)      Banks would be FORCED to respond in 10 days or less! (Vs. 30-90 in a typical case)

2)      Sellers – yes, the SELLERS who couldn’t pay their mortgages could possibly get up to $1500 for relocation costs

3)      1^st Mortgage Holders could get $1000 per closed short sale

4)      2^nd Mortgage Holders (the stickiest short-sale killers in the business) could get $3000 per closed sale

Will this come to pass? I don’t know. You can bet they will be taking money from mine and your pockets to fund the plan though, which is one of the negative side-effects of the plan. Does the “disease merit the treatment?”

Shoot me some feedback.

BUYERS – have you been involved in trying to secure a short sale? What kind of experience was it?

SELLERS – are you in that same position? Honestly, is it a HUGE pain in the neck or what?

One of my FAVORITE (not) situations as a Real Estate Professional is the Buyer who wants a "bargain" on a "bargain." We show them a KILLER deal and they immediately say, "so what do you think we could get it for?"

I like to refer to this guy as "Lowball Larry." Have you met him? Is wearing your pants right now?

In today's report we talk about the fact that home sales nationwide are up 9.4% month over month - a 2 year HIGH,! And the fact that many, many properties in the St. George area are selling for FULL PRICE or HIGHER in literally just a few days.

Buyers beware - the deals are right in front of you and may never get any better.  CHECK OUT THE VIDEO:

Am I the only one who is just SICK AND TIRED of the summer heat? What a pleasure it was to journey up to the Veyo Pool, one of our long cherished family traditions. It is just so quaint, the grill is OFF THE CHARTS and the kids worship the whole experience. HERE IS A SHORT VIDEO of the day including crawdad fishing!

 As a lifetime resident of the St. George area I have always maintained that there are 4 stages people go through each summer. It looks like this:

Stage 1 (Late may through June): "Finally I can go swimming! I just love this dry heat!"

Stage 2 (July 1 to July 31): "MAN it is hot! Well, I guess it's around 4th of July time so what else can we expect? Summer won't last forever."

Stage 3 (Aug 1st to Aug 31): "Ok, that is ENOUGH! I can't stand another day of it. My back is dripping and I can't even go outside!"

Stage 4 (Sept 1 to verifiable cooldown): "I thought summer was over?!?! I can't believe this 'Indian Summer' BS....it may be time to move to Alaska!)

And by mid October of course we are into what my brother and I refer to as "Chamber of Commerce weather" which makes St. George an easy sale for delusional marathon runners and rich World Senior Games attendees.

At the end of the day I still see this as the greatest place on earth. Clean air, light traffic, cooler than Phoenix or Vegas but not cold enough for any real snow, close to National Parks, and more.

Now does someone have a phone # to the chamber of commerce for a weather report?.......

It is September 1st at the writing of this piece. You can only put this off so long you know, and if you are considering purchasing your "first"* home and taking advantage of FREE money in the form of an $8000.00 tax credit, your time is short!

A quick definition of "first time buyer." You either: A - have never owned a home before, or B - have not owned a primary residence in the past 3 years.

What could you do with $8000.00?!?!? Many buyers are borrowing that amount from friends or family, then paying them back after closing. Others are putting it into the home for repairs and upgrades, and still others are just keeping it for a rainy day.

Logic Behind "Time Running Out"

To receive the $8000.00 tax credit you must have closed on your home purchase by no later than November 30th, 2009. Assuming that it takes 30-45 days to process and fund a home mortgage these days, (and it does), that puts you at October 30th at the LATEST to put a firm contract together on a place. October 15th is more like it.

Find a great real estate agent who understands this process in depth, and an even better mortgage person and get on it. NOW!

A FEW SHORT VIDEOS TO WATCH ABOUT THE TAX CREDIT - GREAT STUFF:

JEREMY LARKIN Discusses Tax Credit from St. George Blvd: HERE

Detailed view of the tax credit, who qualifies, how to get it:  HERE

There has been alot of talk about Washington County, Utah foreclosure rates - we're currently boasting the highest rate in the state! So I guess we now have the weather, national parks and foreclosures.....but I digress.

I spent an entire afternoon recently with Paul Foy, an Associated Press (AP) writer who came to town looking for the "foreclosure scoop." You can read the full KSL.com version of the story HERE.

I think he was surprised at several things: 1 - just how many distressed properties there are around here, 2 - how "nice" many of the homes are, and 3 - that the community is still vibrant.

Of course it is, it's St. George! All sugar-coating aside, we have a terrible foreclosure problem that has affected nearly every person in the county, but has also brought with it INCREDIBLE buying opportunities....time to go shopping!

In this week's episode, I join forces with Bank of America's Blake Bench upon the StGeorgeForeclosureTour.com shuttle to talk foreclosures, our upcoming foreclosure tour, and take a brief outside look at a HOT foreclosure that sold in 6 days. We even made a pit stop at In N' Out Burger!

Join us as we kick off the fall 2009 Foreclosure Tour season on September 5th. It is fun, short, FREE and should be enlightening! Details and registration at www.StGeorgeForeclosureTour.com OR www.SoUtahForeclosureTour.com.

A really classic way to spend a St. George summer evening is at one of the City of St. George-sponsored "Concerts in the Park." First of all they are FREE, second Vernon Worthen Park is a classic downtown city park with tons of shade & grass, and last but not least, the artists they bring in are typically really great.

In this episode we catch up with Kirby Heyborne, a fantastic singer/songwriter and most well known for his LDS film exploits in everything from the MAJORLY satiristic (and painfully funny) "Singles Ward', "The RM" and Sons of Provo, to some pretty critically acclaimed performances in the more serious "Saints and Soldiers" and the "The Best Two Years." 

This is a GREAT GUY....he was bombarded afterward for literally hours by fans, mostly younger kids and he was surprisingly gracious with his time, funny & sincere. All the best to Kirby in future ventures.

That said, there is still 1 more show left this year, "Stillhouse Road", a Bluegrass Group. http://www.sgcity.org/arts/concert/index.php for more info!

Did you get your property tax notice this week? Many have and most are wondering why their tax bill is STILL so high after property values have dropped.

Patrice St. Germain with the Daily Spectrum wrote a great piece about it HERE.

Today we discuss "why" that is happening and how we can help you appeal your tax notice - IF APPLICABLE. I like to think of it as my annual "pro-bono" real estate work!

Enjoy and be sure to visit www.DixieHomeValue.com after watching the video if you feel that the assessed value (not tax rate) of your home is still too high. If you do send me a request for free value analysis PLEASE state "property tax appeal" in the comments!

I love good news, don't you? I ran across a very positive article on Reuters today that is giving me warm and fuzzy feelings about the future of local and national real estate markets.

In the article, they pointed out that US housing inventory data is pointing toward stabilization...yeah! The data focused on Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas, all of which have seen huge decreases in inventory over the past year. Anyone who know's St. George understands that whether it's the latest fashion trends or real estate, we always trail these areas by 6-12 mos.

In the St. George area specifically we have also seen stabilization with monthly sales around 250 for the past 4 mos, up from only 107 in January! Affordability & government incentives are driving this trend.

Watch the Video below, then click on the link below that or a VERY COOL mid-year market report for the St. George area!

WATCH FIRST, THEN click this link: (you're gonna love this...)

Market Discussion (click it!)