435 Podcast: Southern Utah
Explore the heartbeat of Southern Utah with the 435 Podcast, your go-to source for all things local in Washington County. Stay ahead of the curve with our in-depth coverage, expert analysis, and captivating interviews. Whether you're a resident or visitor, our podcast is your key to unlocking the latest happenings and trends in St. George and the surrounding areas. Tune in now to stay informed and connected with our thriving community!
435 Podcast: Southern Utah
Navigating Housing Trends and Economic Impacts in Washington County
Join me as I sit down with Jeff Watkins, a 2004 state champion and a Davis High School Hall of Famer, to explore the dynamic real estate market of Southern Utah. Ever wondered if we're heading toward a real estate bubble in Washington County? We explore this question while sharing a lighthearted conversation about childhood dreams and our mutual love for hot dogs. Jeff and I even dive into the local sports scene, reminiscing about the football season and the buzz surrounding Utah Tech's first year in the Western Athletic Conference.
Our discussion turns to the latest market trends, where sellers seem to have the upper hand. With an average sold price increase of 6% and the median price up by 3%, we dissect what's at play. From bustling developments in Zone Six to the potential impacts of the PGA Championship, there's a lot reshaping Southern Utah's landscape. We also touch on mortgage intricacies, such as why bond markets matter more than the Federal Reserve's moves, and explore innovative ideas like listing homes with potential monthly payments.
Lastly, we tackle the challenges homebuyers face with rising costs and limited inventory. With fewer homes available than in previous years, we discuss the implications of increasing construction costs and the impact of remote workers with higher incomes moving into the area. As we explore new developments like the expansion of St. George Airport and the proposed Northern Corridor project, we consider the balance between development and conservation, reflecting on the unique environmental and political challenges that lie ahead.
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[00:00:00] Intro.
[00:08:21] Real Estate Market Trends and Events.
[00:16:49] Real Estate Market Pricing and Trends.
[00:28:23] Vacation Rental Market Shift.
[00:40:40] Southern Utah Real Estate Market Analysis.
[00:53:06] City Development and Airport Expansion.
[01:01:13] Northern Corridor Development Dilemma.
all of 21,. It was over 100%. It was 100% or more, which, historically, I don't think has ever happened in Washington County, which is crazy and that's where you'll hear people talk about. Oh, are we in a real estate bubble? Blah, blah, blah. Well, I don't know. I honestly couldn't tell you, because supply and demand is what dictates price and right now we still continue to have demand and supply is still anemic. From the Blue Form Media Studios.
Speaker 1:This is the 435 Podcast the pulse of Southern Utah. Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to another episode of the 435 Podcast. I'm your host, robert McFarland. We're talking real estate today and in the studio with me we have 2004 state champion Davis High School Hall of Famer, jeff Watkins. Everybody, yes, yes, thanks for joining me today. Hall of Fame, hall of Fame. That's got to feel good. We talked about real estate today. Guys, we hope you get some value out of this conversation. We talk statistics we don't do that for very long but we also talk about the different commercial developments that are going on in town that I think are going to be the most impactful. We talked about zone six in the Northern corridor and the developments that have happened about that over the last couple of weeks, so lots of packed information for you in this episode. Join us in the comments, reach out to us realestate435.com. We want to get to know you and build this community larger. We'll see you out there, guys. Jeff, what did you want to be when you wanted to, when you grew up?
Speaker 2:A hotdog salesman.
Speaker 1:You're a liar that that came out way too fast.
Speaker 2:Let me call my mom. I'll put her on the phone and show. I would say hey, mom, do you remember what I wanted to be when I was a kid? And she would say, yeah, you wanted to be a hot dog salesman. I wanted to own my own cart and sell hot dogs. Oh, the cart. Eight, 10, maybe probably more like eight, you didn't.
Speaker 1:you didn't catch a Brad Plotho's uh speech at rise, did you? I, did you, I did. It was very good he. He talked about being a hot dog settlement I love hot dogs, dude you love hot dogs. Are you excited for jay dogs river crossing or do you not like jay dogs?
Speaker 2:I like jay dogs um, you just can't replace. You just can't replace like a home grilled nathan's yeah, you can't.
Speaker 1:What's you? What's your favorite toppings on a hot dog? It's probably just ketchup and mustard. Huh.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, yeah, you got to get the line of ketchup on the one side, Then you got to get the line of mustard on the other. Yeah, then you chop up some onions. Okay, bro, you sprinkle the onions on the top of the dog Like raw onions, or you like them grilled, like the raw Grilled Grilled. I find, with the grill, that it lowers the flavor of the onion. Now, the thing about the onions, the thing about onions you got to prepare your significant other for the Aftermath Hours and hours of just wafting. You know what I mean. From your breath, mm-hmm, from your breath.
Speaker 1:However, even if you know, Does Amy like onions, uh-huh, so you just onion it up together. Yeah, we could.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it kind of cancels itself out. But yeah, you know, two negatives equal a positive. You got to you just, you just onion it up together. Yeah, we could. Yeah, it kind of cancels itself out. But yeah, you know, two negatives equal positive you got a sacrifice, some things you just got to sacrifice for a good dog, dude what about jay dogs, though I like jay I like jay dogs a lot. I think their sauces are good yeah so.
Speaker 1:So this is one of my favorites. You take fritos, the chili cheese fritos you. You crush them up like it's like a bunch of crumbles. You grill the hot dog toast, the bun. Barbecue sauce on the dog, chili cheese crushed up fritos on top. It's legendary barbecue sauce, though there's lots of different options. What's your go-to barbecue?
Speaker 2:sauce? I don't know, I like a good sauce. I'm not brand specific on the BBQ sauce. Okay, but now that you bring up the chili dog, dude Dude, I had a chili omelet the other day, an omelet with cheese. You made it. No, we went to Peggy Sue's down in Mesquite Chili cheese omelet Delicious.
Speaker 1:Nailed it. Well, you were in Mesquite because of football. You're waist deep in the football season right now. Waist deep, yes, waist deep Halfway through now. Waste deep, yes, waste deep.
Speaker 2:Halfway through, probably three quarters of the way through how the boys doing. We got a good. Both are good. Yeah Well, all three are good. I got a freshman, I got two, two in a little league and one in freshman ball.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so hopefully they're doing better than Utah Tech, utah Tech's having a rough season.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's their first season in the WAC, though, so I mean it's going to take years to catch up to the recruiting battle. Yeah, but that's the benefit of jumping up a conference, is it helps recruiting?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so just going to take some time, just going to take time, and we're still a small town, still a small town. Yeah, it's like our shoes are big, like too big, but we're growing into them.
Speaker 2:They want to add more.
Speaker 1:Mom, my shoes are too big.
Speaker 2:They want to add onto the stadium again, which is interesting.
Speaker 1:They do.
Speaker 2:They do. They want to add some more seats.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I feel like we're so eager to grow that like there's certain things that we forecast out like way far out, and then other things we're like it's okay, we'll grow into it yeah, maybe. Maybe it's because they just finished a bunch of student housing yeah, they did, they needed that oh yeah I mean if their enrollment was stuck because of housing, I'm certain, which is a great segue, by the way if you not, if you look on facebook and the people that are still complaining about the name change.
Speaker 2:Anyway, we don't need to go down that road. It's Dixie.
Speaker 1:Campus. We have Dixie Spirit here everybody. I get it, I get it and Dixie's going to live on in Southern Utah forever.
Speaker 2:I get it. You're not going to change the name back? Let it go, please. There's Facebook group pages that are dedicated to changing the name back.
Speaker 1:I know it's funny that we get stuck on things that yeah.
Speaker 2:I shouldn't get worked up about it, but it's like if people and I know it's social media, so you know it doesn't take that much time to just you know type something out, but like if you just put your energy into something worthwhile, right.
Speaker 1:To them, it matters. To them it matters. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess you're right, but you're not going to get, you're not going to get the name change back. You're just not going to do it anyway.
Speaker 1:Well, I think something interesting with this. Uh, did you ever watch training day, denzel Washington? What a great movie, dude. I mean it is definitely viewer discretion advised. However, there's a line in that movie. He says it with profanity, but he says the shit's chess, not checkers. And I can't help but think of all the times we're playing checkers with some of these issues that aren't really issues, but they kind of dominate the conversation. It happens all, from the national, the state down to the local. It happens everywhere, but I think people forget that it's chess, it's not checkers. There's a lot of moving parts, a lot of moving parts. What do you think of? Let's jump into real estate. I know people listening in were so excited when a new quarter episode of real estate was coming out on the 435 podcast. They were. I've talked to many people who just they can't wait, can't wait. They're like I want more data.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you can't get the data anywhere else other than here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not the 2000 other real estate agents in town that send out emails and the lenders and the and the Zillows and the realtorcoms telling everybody about the data. I don't think if I listened to five of them stacked up they'd have the same numbers.
Speaker 2:No, and they're not going to have anywhere near the succinct analysis either.
Speaker 1:Is that your phone blowing up? Dude, you're popular Real estate agents man. Your phone never stops. Dude, you're popular Real estate agents man. Your phone never stops. Put it on the floor Never stops. I had a whole rant on just getting bombarded with spam calls and I have to answer them. It's very frustrating as a real estate agent.
Speaker 2:Especially when they know your area code. So they call you from a scam number with the same area code. Yeah, so you answer it all pumped up like hey.
Speaker 1:Nope, and then you hear the bloop, bloop, yeah, the little sound from the call center bloop, bloop. The data in Washington County for real estate is interesting. There's a couple of big stories, so we're going to cover a couple of things. Today we're going to cover uh fast facts, just the most important numbers that I think everybody should keep top of mind, whether a buyer's market, seller's market. We're going to cover some of the commercial developments that have uh been progressing over this last year and are slated coming up for this next year. Uh, we're going to cover uh information about zone six and the Northern corridor. We're going to give a quick update on that because it impacts.
Speaker 2:Zone six is my backyard, it's your backyard, Bloomington.
Speaker 1:So we're going to cover that today. So we hope you guys enjoy some of this information that we're going to give out to you today. Only one mind blowing statistic that we've been tracking, which is the vacation rental market. That one you're definitely going to want to wait for. But we're going to jump into the fast facts and the pure data right out of the gate.
Speaker 1:Year to date average sold price average $645,739 and 82 cents Just kidding, not 82 cents. But we're up 6% year to date from last year, so 2023, it was 605. We're at 645. We're up 6% year to date, Up 4% month over month. Interesting, Keep the real estate prices. They just keep climbing, which is really interesting.
Speaker 1:Median sold price the median. So the middle number some people always forget Mean is the average. Median is the. If you just line them all up, it's pretty flat. It's pretty flat 3% increase over last year. $520,000 is the median sold price home in Southern Utah. And this is all Washington County. So I cut out all the data of anything outside of Washington County. If it's not in Washington County, it's not included in the statistics. Um, but month over month, basically no change up 0.95 percent um absorption rate we're at 3.98 percent. So that's how fast homes are selling. So how fast do they get absorbed into the market? This is really the number that we look at as real estate agents to see is there upward or downward pressure on pricing? Up to 4% or, I'm sorry, up to four months of inventory is basically a seller's market. We've got a balanced market between four and 6% or I keep saying percent between four and six months of inventory is a balance.
Speaker 2:That number is months.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's months of inventory. So how many months would it take if nobody else put their house on the market? How many months would it take to absorb the current inventory? So inventory has come back from its historic lows just a couple of years ago. However, the absorption rate is still low, which is why we're seeing upward pressure on pricing. So that change is the same as 2023. So we haven't really changed much. So we're continuing to grow demand and supplier increasing or decreasing. It is at a similar rate to where upward pressure on pricing is continuing.
Speaker 1:Those, those are like the big two numbers that I look at. It's like what's the sole price? Is Mark going up or down? And then how fast the absorption rate? Now, the absorption rate is calculated on a rolling 12 months. So what they do is they take the last 12 months of data and then they divide it by the number of homes that are selling. So that's how they. It's a rolling number, so it doesn't always change dramatically, but it's a. It's a good, solid, stable absorption rate. If you look at just the month, september, we're at 4.35 months of inventory. Uh, so we can see that there might be some shift, but that tends to happen in october, so the end of quarter three. We're halfway through october. What's today, the 15th? 15th, yeah, 15th, right in the middle, uh, we had tons of stuff going on in southern utah, tons of events. Um man, the pga championship what you think about that? Like it just taking a step back as a as a resident? That doesn't really. You don't have a lot of interest in golf. What do you think about really?
Speaker 2:I, so I drove by a couple of times. I wanted to see what the traffic was like on snow canyon just because, honestly, if I didn't know the pga was here, I didn't tell a lot of difference. I saw some guys like in and out of farmstead wearing some golf stuff, you know, but I think it was a. It was a big event. I think a lot of people came here. But a lot of people came to black desert, watched it, um, probably drove around a little bit, but to me that's indicative of the growth of the area. Or, in other words, it wasn't just like a concentrated thing. I think it kind of spread out. I think a lot of people went and saw a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1:I think it's interesting too that you pay for the event by the day, and so some people came on Thursday and maybe Friday. I don't think very many people stayed for the entire tournament.
Speaker 2:I think you could get a like a weekend pass or like a three day pass. But I think you're right. I I mean, I think St George's it's getting big enough where you know a hundred thousand extra people or 150,000 extra people come into the area and it's like not that crazy.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, and then the World Senior Games is going on smack dab in the middle of it and I felt like traffic and like getting into restaurants and just general. My general quality of life is about the same today as it was, you know, last year in October without the PGA, so I didn't really see an impact. But the fear on social media was, you know, last year in october without the pga, so I didn't really see an impact, but the fear on social media was oh my gosh, the traffic is gonna just yeah our neighborhood's going going to hell in a handbasket, as they say.
Speaker 1:I know, but it wasn't really that big of a deal. But this is the time of year, though. With all the activities going, uh, real estate starts to cool off this. This is when real estate starts to wind down. Sellers decide you know, if we're going to make a change, we're going to look to the first of the year.
Speaker 2:Everybody's getting ready for the holidays Wait till the spring.
Speaker 1:Wait till the spring. That's when inventory starts dropping again or jumping again. So we've seen inventory drop. Uh. Absorption rate has gone up because less homes are hitting the market. Uh, buyers typically stay stable. The total number of demand in the market is pretty consistent. There's not big, huge swings.
Speaker 2:But supply definitely changes whether a buyer decides to pick that house or not yeah, a few weeks ago there were 2600 ish total listings on the mls and today there was, like 2000, 2100 ish yeah, and that's on the mls.
Speaker 1:There's gonna be a collection of non-area listings on there, like Salt Lake and San Diego.
Speaker 1:That's just an MLS, and I got some of that data too on previous slides. Let's go to the quick facts. Mal Jeff told me, just click next. Oh, I'm in control, that's right. That's right, I have control. Okay, boom, ah, jeff. Jeff told me it's too much. My retinas, if you're listening in, and this graphic is too much, please jump in the comments. There's a lot of blue. There's a lot of blue. There's a little bit of yellow. I was trying for contrast.
Speaker 2:Maybe I missed the mark. It reminds me of that. You remember that picture that went viral, the dress that was like some people saw blue and gold and some people saw white and black. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I feel like I should be seeing white and black, but it's blue and yellow you know, it's blue and yellow. It's like a rods and rods and cones thing, that's what I hear.
Speaker 1:Women women have more cones. That's what I hear. They have better, better way of uh seeing colors. Is that true?
Speaker 2:no, one cares uh, probably you are a woman, probably. I think it's stuff you should know. I have nothing to compare.
Speaker 1:I listen, I listen to a stuff you should know, episode podcast, and it talked about how there's actually some people out there that the sky is pink, not blue so what color is it when the sun is setting?
Speaker 2:and it's actually pink, I don't know. Is it blue?
Speaker 1:it's like the, the way they perceive the sky isn't blue, it's pink. Weird, because they have an extra cone stuff. You should know stuff you should know. That's like their intro, a little jingle. You should check out stuff you should know. If you don't know, okay, uh, fast facts. How long does it take to sell my house? Jeff, I want to list my house. How fast is it going to sell? It's going to take a couple months, 62 days cumulative.
Speaker 2:That means the total days on the market Based on what, though, or in other words, my thought would be okay 62 days, if it's priced like a normal retail price.
Speaker 1:It goes from active to pending, so that's how they calculate it Active to pending, the clock stops. If it goes back active, the clock starts again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, or in other words, what I'm hearing is, if you're a seller and you're in a rush, you have an emergency, you've got a job opportunity, you need to jump on and you want to sell your house quick, you're going to have to list it pretty aggressively from a pricing standpoint. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it definitely uh price is going to impact time right. So there's, there's the three, three parts of it.
Speaker 1:Terms time to trade off and sometimes, sometimes you actually don't make less money that way. But if you're in a rush and you want to know exactly what the market value of your house is that month, if you price it aggressively, you're you're likely going to get multiple offers. Even it's still a seller's market. There's still more buyers than there are sellers out there. So here to see it. So 62 days, no, no real change. Uh, year over year. 30 year fixed mortgage rate. If I go to the lender jeff, what's my interest rate going to be? Our interest rates up or down? The fed dropped the rate. Is that? Is that helpful for mortgage rates? I literally heard this like two weeks ago from a very well educated person and I was like I didn't realize not everybody knows that, yeah, so so the fed dropped the prime rate and it doesn't mean that mortgage rates follow.
Speaker 1:It does not. It doesn't. Sorry, buddy. If you go to the lender, though you're probably going to be paying your you're probably going to be paying your interest rate is probably going to be around 6.5%. Yeah, with decent credit and decent income, yeah. So this is an index. This number is pulled by we're not quoting rates.
Speaker 2:We're not quoting rates.
Speaker 1:No, no, I'm just. I am quoting rates but this is a survey of all the rates. So, mortgagenewsdailycom, if you want to go watch rates on a day-to-day basis, they break it down there. Mortgage news dailycom rates are up a half percent or 50 basis points, as brandon would say. Uh, since the fed dropped the prime rate, so we've actually jumped a half percent. We were down in low sixes fed rate.
Speaker 1:Fed drops the short-term interest rate, so the day-by-day rate from bank to bank and the residual impact is mortgage rates actually go up, unfortunately everybody. Mortgage rates go up, so it's a long term. So if you, if you're, if you're wanting to follow that, obviously mortgage news daily, you could just follow that directly. But the bond market is gonna be more correlated to the mortgage rate. Um, the 10-year t-bill, uh is is something that you'd want to watch, go up or down. That's going going to be more, uh, yeah, more correlated to the mortgage rates.
Speaker 1:But mortgage new dailycom it's where I go. And because every single person that wants to buy a house, their mortgage rate is going to be different because of their credit, because of their debt to income ratio. Then depends on if you get to get the seller to buy down a rate. If the seller can contribute to closing costs, it can help your rate to help monthly. If you're mortgage sensitive right, if your monthly payment is really important, which most people are, I was thinking we should just list homes with how much it would cost for them monthly, instead of like the total price. It's like let's just cut to the quick and just say how much is this going to cost me every month. But it's just so different for everybody.
Speaker 1:Absolutely genius. I know, it's just so different for every single person.
Speaker 1:You're about to revolutionize the real estate industry. Yeah, I wish we could do it. I wish it made sense. It doesn't really make sense. But yeah, the mortgage rates, they're up right now. I've heard a lot of people ask me about refis because they were or 8%. Maybe there was a small window of time there where 8% were the rates. So if you were an 8%, if you got a six on it, that's probably better. But definitely everybody's situation is different. That cost of doing a refinance if there's costs included in it, which I know a lot of lenders are doing a no cost refinance, which is probably to their benefit if it's going to save them on their month to month bills as inflation continues to run.
Speaker 2:I was chatting with somebody maybe a month ago who was in a similar boat. She and her husband bought and their interest rate was like 7.8 or 7.9 or something crazy like that, and they refied down to like low sixes. Yeah, when rates came down, saved them $1,000 a month. Whoa, that was big. Yeah, she said it was like $8.97 a month. It was huge, wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's definitely people out there that could benefit from refinancing, even with a six number on it. I would definitely. From my perspective, if this was just me, I would love a 5%, 5.9, right, I would love that. I don't know if we're going to get there anytime soon. I think it's going to be a while, but if you're waiting, the difference between low sixes and a 5.9 isn't that much, isn't that much? Isn't that much? So if you can get it in the low sixes, I think, and you have 7%, it's definitely a good time to check in on the refinance deals. It's the holiday refinance deal, yeah, right, okay, is it a buyer's market or is it a seller's market, jeff?
Speaker 2:Depends on the price point, depends on the property, depends on the price point, depends on the property, depends on the price point, depends on the property. Um, I mean, are we talking? Are we talking um, uh, home in the low 300s? That's 300 or 1300 square feet in a decent little neighborhood that's been renovated, that's going to sell in a day. Or are we talking a $2.3 million home in Entrada?
Speaker 1:True, those are two different numbers. For sure, If you look at the whole as a market, we're at 3.98 months of inventory. I covered this already. That's just a slight seller's market, but that's why you see the continued growth in the pricing, Even if you go down. The interesting fact and I got it on a future slide homes under 325,000, just homes under 325,000 in Washington County, the absorption rate is still like 3.8. That's interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's very interesting. I would add a caveat to that. I would say homes under 325 without an HOA and homes under 325 with an HOA is probably two separate markets. Yeah, I think so too, so I wonder what those stats would look like as well. But historically, a four to a six month absorption is still considered a seller's market. Yeah, over six months is more like a buyer's market.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it really is. It just depends on the house, right. Going back to the type of property. If it's a vacation rental, which we're going to cover here in a minute, that's completely different. So it just depends on what real estate, what it is that you're wanting to buy, right, what sellers want versus what they get the sale to original list price ratio.
Speaker 1:So, when I put my house on the market, I want 700,000,. I'm likely going to get less on average from the original. Now, if I drop the price as I, as as you drop the price and it goes under contract from there, it's a smaller ratio. It's probably about 98%. So you're going to get like a two. You're going to have to give like a 2% discount Uh, but percent discount, uh. But right now, as the market goes, we're at 96, which is a pretty big, pretty big jump. It's not historically this big of a ratio. Uh, there's definitely been times, especially last year, 2022 we were down to like 40 or 94 percent yeah, 94 to 95 percent of the original list price to actually what it sells for.
Speaker 2:So uh, covid, it was like 101 or 102.
Speaker 1:I know, during COVID, yeah, oh my gosh, all, all of 21,. It was over a hundred percent. It was a hundred percent or more, which historically I don't think has ever happened in Washington County, which is crazy. And that's that's where you'll hear, hear people talk about oh, are we in a real estate bubble? Blah, blah, blah. Well, I don't know. I honestly couldn't tell you because supply and demand is what dictates price and right now we still continue to have demand and supply is still anemic. There's not a lot of supply continuing to hit the market. This is an interesting stat. I know a lot of people like to apply price per square foot to their house and I like to show the difference between the two. So a single level property, just one story, no basement, no upstairs. Price per square foot in the County, there's just the whole swath of it. It's about $308 a square foot. Two story is 263 a square foot. Interesting the single level price per square foot has gone down $2 from quarter two and the two-story price has gone up $4 since quarter two.
Speaker 2:So if you want a deal on a house per square foot, get a two-story house.
Speaker 1:And if you're trying to compare the value of your house to your neighbor's house the two-story you can't apply the same. The math doesn't math. Sometimes you get lucky, but the math typically doesn't math. Well in price per square foot. Sometimes you get lucky, but the math typically doesn't math.
Speaker 2:Right, and price per square foot doesn't. I typically tell people it's a good foundation, maybe to start with, depending on what you're looking for. But price per square foot doesn't take into account anything else Quality, location, location, yep, amenities, other amenities, things like that.
Speaker 1:So it is just a. It's a entertainment value. But I know a lot of people ask the question. It's entertainment, it's entertainment value. A lot of people ask the question. So I I like to kind of keep keep top of mind on on what those are. Let's uh transition, uh, residential. So this is just a graph over time, so it's going back to 2019. This is home values, average sale and the median sale and how it's gone up and how it's kind of come down. So if we look at the, the tippy top is right there around february of 22 uh, I guess it would probably be march of 22 is is specifically where it's at. We've come down on the median pretty stably. It's come down like 10%. I think we've stabilized from the very peak. Hey, mallory, will you see if stably is a word Stably, I like that word Stably.
Speaker 2:Stably Sounds like a Jack Black word.
Speaker 1:We can make words up in 2024, people.
Speaker 2:I'll look it up, I'll check and we do.
Speaker 1:Stably. So it has consistently settled and stabilized like stably, better stably, you can see it. It's interesting, these like weird peaks, like these weird jumps, where our average jumps like significantly, and because we have so many massive properties that are residential side, there's like just five million, five million dollar properties that are properties, that when you look at the, the median right, or if you look at the, even the average in the 600s like it's such a significant jump right.
Speaker 1:So it's kind of the story that haves and have nots, um, but the, the sold average, uh, there in September is six, 38, which doesn't match my other numbers up there. But there's a couple other things that they're they're not taking into account on this on, on this graph specifically. But this is just the trend, but it's crazy trend if you go back to 2019, it's crazy to look at that. It's such a huge jump. Second, uh. Second one is the days on market. A lot of people really want to know the days on market and how it's changed over time. But we're, we're basically this is kind of normal, this is that we're back to a kind of normal housing market pace. Yeah, so look at like what?
Speaker 2:June, august of 2020, and then April, june of 2023, you just subtract out that COVID blip, and it's the same.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it definitely. And then, even if you go back a little bit further, if you go back 2014 through 2017, I think it goes up to about 70 days is pretty stable. Is is the cumulative days on market. Um, but yeah, this it's. It's just an interesting to see it over time and that that COVID blump bump and then if you, if you look at that compared to the price trend, you can see why prices went up. Right, you had days on market shrunk, inventory changed that's when that big pop went, but nothing that everybody didn't already know.
Speaker 1:Number of listings so this is talking about that inventory and how we've come back up. So, active listings in residential in Washington County only 1,400 as of September. Like I think it's like September 30, 30th or something like that. Uh, they pick a weird day, um, but we were at 1400. Homes. Inventory is at the peak of what we've seen 2022 and in May June of 2022 is really when we were back at this inventory level. Um, new listings is the pink line. Uh, that's jumping all over the board, but we typically have a very seasonal pace to listings, right?
Speaker 2:Going back to what I said at the beginning, look at all the Decembers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all the Decembers are the lows.
Speaker 2:Nobody lists their house in December. Every low is December, right, so you could make the argument then maybe you should list your house in December based on historical data, so that more people see your house.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because the demand trend doesn't really follow. It follows, but I think it follows it because inventory follows it. I guess there is a little bit of a similar line there, but that COVID just chaos there just changes the whole chart when we look back. So sometimes it's difficult to look back to history and try to remember what it was like before, but we're actually pretty similar as to number of listings and units sold. We are lower than we were in 2019. But there's a lot of factors that are coming in play on this, and interest rate is going to be the main one, right, because sellers can't move up. Right? There's not a lot of move up seller to buyer within the county happening right now where it was in 2019. Most people are staying put because that interest rate right. They're still holding on to it.
Speaker 1:Months of inventory. If you look back historically, though, this is interesting. So we have months of inventory for up to September. So this data and that last data doesn't jive exactly because this is a month to month change. This is just the single month of September. The inventory was 5.47 months of inventory, so above that 4.9, or whatever we were at on the previous slide. Anyway, what you could see, though, is that absorption is going up, especially historically. Our absorption rate was down below one month of inventory there at the just the craziness in March of 21. And so, when we look at this, we're definitely going to start seeing a shift in price, no doubt. Let me go back one Price trends so you can see the price trends. You can see the price trends. You can see the days on market Price trending up. Oh, it's delay in my computer. Now I'm gone too far. Everybody, hang with me, everyone. Vacation rental. This is the craziness. Have you ever seen the movie the Northman?
Speaker 2:The Northman- no, what's that? I'm surprised you haven't seen it with your heritage, your Viking heritage, it's about the Vikings, I'm. Scottish. Oh, that's true. So the Northman, if you haven't seen it, highly recommend it. Okay, my wife hated it. It was awesome. It was a great movie. It's about the Vikings, uh, the the. It's about the vikings, uh-huh. I'll kind of leave it at that, but okay, it reminds me of the vacation rental market.
Speaker 1:It's just getting pillaged and and the funny thing is the pricing. The prices haven't been pillaged yet, but if you look, if we look at these numbers, okay, so if, if you're just tuning in, it's in the process of getting pillaged. The number of listings has essentially, just over the course of the last 12 months, doubled. Is the number of active listings right? And the new inventory, the new market is has been really increasing every single month all of this year. So of 2024, um, the active inventory versus what's sold, is that biggest difference, right? Those two numbers are going to be, you know that absorption rate and we're seeing the biggest separation of these two numbers since going back to 2020.
Speaker 1:And that 2020 separation happened for a fraction of a second because right before the bubble popped, so you could see the vacation rental market was shifting before COVID, so 2019, if you're looking at the data, it was the vacation rental market was getting downward pressure on pricing back then, but then COVID ignited a frenzy of people wanting to get vacation rentals because of the tourism and all the stuff that was happening. And now we've we've basically caught almost back up, like, if you look at that, um, the difference of, if you were to just keep the trajectory kind of going. It kind of it's kind of right there as number of active inventory and then demand is just so low, it's so so low. Um, we're, I think we're only selling like 20 vacation rentals a month at this point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um yeah. I wonder what the absorption rate is, just for vacation rentals. Yeah, it's probably 12 months.
Speaker 1:It's 12. You can see it on the chart right there 12.13 months of inventory. If you go back to the absorption rate in 2020, that same timeframe when it was separating, we were up to 16 months of inventory. Yeah, that's significant downward pressure.
Speaker 1:That was just a guess, by the way, that was pretty good. That was yeah, you nailed it. You weren't even. It was right in front of you. The answer was right there. Story of my life so this, so this absorption rate. You can see these big, this big jump. So just in the last four months we've gone from three months of inventory up to 12 months of inventory.
Speaker 2:So if you're looking for a vacation rental this is a little bit of an assumption, but if you're looking for a vacation rental, whether it's well. There's two in my mind. There's two types of folks that are looking for vacation rental. Both of them probably have good income right, and they're either looking for a diversification of their portfolio or they're looking for like hey, we love St George, we want to buy something in St George and if we can kind of supplement the vacation spot that can make it we want to use it, but we'll we also.
Speaker 2:We also want to put it into the rental pool. Um, for those two types of folks, I mean, there's no reason to have any sort of sense of urgency, you know, as far as um, until you find what you want.
Speaker 1:But yeah, there's 97. There's 97 active and I will say this there's some of this inventory that's left out. Is there stuff that's vacation rental, that's available through development, like new construction, that might not be listed on the MLS? Yep, so the minimum number of active listings right now are 97 short-term rentals, and this was in September, but it continues to go up, right.
Speaker 2:But the better, maybe the simplification of it. I'm a simple man. I like things simply put, that's why I love you bro. Simply put put, if you are in the market for a vacation rental, it's only going to get better as a buyer right yet for sure right whereas maybe, like as a first time home buyer, it's not getting any better yeah right, exactly those two that you know the tale of different markets.
Speaker 1:So I also would say this is a, this is a leading indicator to sellers that if you've been on the fence, you got to get off the fence, you got to get off and you got to be aggressive on pricing too. Yeah, because the ball's rolling downhill, but if you go-.
Speaker 2:Here's one of the other things If you were to pull up some MLS listings, a lot of the MLS listings I'm seeing right now that are for sale on the vacation rental market are priced lower than what they were purchased for just a few years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, so there's a 34% price correction.
Speaker 2:So if we go back to the slide from January 19, this is from January 19 to September 24. So if you paid, just for reference, if you paid a million dollars for a vacation rental at the peak of the market, you could probably sell it for $760, $750, $760. Right now, exactly that's wild.
Speaker 1:So if I'm in a tight spot and I can't cover it, I have to sell it and you're going to take that hit, but if you can hold on, people are still renting and people are still coming here for Pga tour and world senior games and all these other events. So it's interesting to see how the median sale price has dropped 34. But if you, if you look at what's continuing to come, is this this drop right from december of 22? If you look at, uh, the inventory shift, is that december of 20th? I'm sorry, did I say December of 22? Yeah, december of 22 was the peak right and then we saw we saw it fall.
Speaker 1:Where we can start seeing the separation between active inventory and sold right, the, the absorption rate, like what, what is actually getting listed versus what's actually selling. Is that that separation really started in December of 22. So we had a big, big price drop, but we haven't reached the max yet. We still haven't even gone through the next six months, which might be the biggest indicator as to whether this thing keeps rolling this way. So the ball is rolling downhill. We've seen a 34% correction, but that's not the worst of it, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah I think you're right. But I think you made a good point though long term um you know, if you're, if you're gonna hold for 10 years or 12 years or 15 years, um still probably enough even a five year, like when I look at vacation rentals as an investment.
Speaker 1:My advice is always you got to look at a long-term time horizon, five at a minimum, but five to 10 years is probably what you're really wanting to do. So if you were, if you bought in 22 in December of 22, you might have to run that whole five year run or 10 year run to be able, cause it's got to go down and then it's got to go back up. So then that that pressure on bringing the inventory back up to the value that you bought it at, it's going to take some time. It's just going to take a couple of sales cycles, um, so yeah, uh, and then I, I, I kind of in the the graphic below it's more downward pressure on pricing incoming right, cause that big separation between sold and active inventory uh is what's causing this price correction and that's that's the biggest I think that was the biggest story of the real estate market.
Speaker 1:Uh, so far this year is vacation rentals are getting hammered, hammered, hammered. They're still building them, but it's getting hammered, uh, shifting, shifting to, uh, affordable housing. So this, this is what we kind of teased a little bit. Um, the data currently says of 2022, the median income household, the median income of a household in Washington County, is $74,000 a year and that's up 21% from 2021. So we see a big jump in month I'm sorry year to date change of the income of the median household here in Washington County At $74,000'm sorry year to date change of the income of the median household here in Washington County at $74,000 a year. You're probably going to afford if you have a 20% down payment. You're probably going to qualify for around 300 to 325. So your price point might be and that that's taking into account your comfortability with how much money is going to your house. So this is like, at a 38% debt to income ratio, it'd be like $300,000. So that's where I came up with.
Speaker 1:Let's look at houses. If I got a down payment 25 grand and then I can get a loan for 300 grand, what could I buy? And if you look, if you look at this chart, this is insane. We had active inventory in October of 2017 was over 500 homes In September. Of 24, we have 113 homes active on the market under 325. Just simple, that's just the number. I didn't put any other criteria. It's residential housing under 325. There's only 113 active inventory and even less like it's probably only 20 to 30 of those are selling every single month, where back in October 2017, over 200 were selling every single month, which is such a big drop. So my, my takeaway on this is that the supply is what's impacting the demand. There's just no options out there, so they're just not buying.
Speaker 2:What do you think? I think that it's simple economics. If there were more homes and less demand, prices would go down and housing would be more affordable. Now, obviously, there's laser markets right, st George is a little bit unique, but you know, you just hear, especially going back to social media, you just hear all of these thoughts about growth and how horrible it is and where are we going to get the water, which is legit. But from a housing affordability standpoint, my mind it's simple economics. If builders, whether it's um, you know, outside incentives, um, which is a whole other conversation um, or just the ability to build, um cheaper homes for people to buy, yeah, there a.
Speaker 1:there's a bunch going on here, but the reality is is that I think the the days of homes under three, 25, this is like the flat line before it just disappears, I think they are long gone.
Speaker 2:Once costs go up, they generally don't come down. I know, like, know, like you know, getting into the weeds a little bit like um, like an eight foot stud. You know, pre-covid was like three bucks a stud and then when we had some supply issues they went up to like 12 bucks a stud. Now they're back down, lumber's back down a little bit, but like wiring, um, like 100 foot roll of r Romex was like 50 bucks Hardware. Yeah, dude, that stuff has not come down and that stuff adds up it really does. Concrete's insane.
Speaker 1:Yeah, concrete's so big. So then that goes into that next image with the new dwellings. So, southern Utah Title the Good News Housing Report. I got this information from Shout out to Southern Utah Title Shout out. I got this information from shout out to Southern Utah title Shout out Um, this is, this is a month by month percentage of the sold uh dwellings right Roofs with door right. Just uh dwellings. Month to month, how many homes have sold? And then they, they overlay that with the new construction dwellings that were finished. Permitted certificate of occupancy.
Speaker 2:It's pretty flat.
Speaker 1:So dwellings that were finished permitted certificate of occupancy. It's pretty flat. So it's pretty flat. But we're looking at 33 of the inventory is new construction. So if you overlay that, 33 of the inventory is going to be a new construction home and they can't get the prices down below low enough to where the median income of a household here in washington county can afford it. It seems to me the only pressure is that we're just going to see wages come up, because wages have to come up. They have to. Employers are going to have to start paying them more and even I was actually really shocked at the 21.8% jump in income in one year, and that was only 2022. I think it probably went double digits again. I bet you it's probably around 86.
Speaker 2:You think? Do you think that has, do you think the the fact that and this might be a little bit anecdotal, but it feels like a lot of people that are remote workers or a lot of jobs went remote and then people moved here. Or in other words, people that are that were making good money, um, moved here. Or in other words, people that are that were making good money, um, but living in you know wherever, montana, um, and then they're like oh, I gotta get out of the cold weather, I'm gonna move my job just went fully remote. They're making 150 grand a year and then they move here. Do you think that has anything to do with that, I think? I think that might have have something to do with that?
Speaker 2:or is that just reportable wages in washington county like?
Speaker 1:I'm not exactly sure how they get the data. I'm not sure how they calculate the data or where they get their data set from.
Speaker 2:This is from the Fed, Like if home base is San Francisco but I live in St George and I'm a remote worker.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think they do it based off income taxes, so it's annually based. So until everybody's filed their taxes for that previous year, I think they're getting it from the tax records. So if your residence is in Washington County and your income stated is this, that's where they're getting it. So, that being said, I think it's gone up. But the point that I think I'm trying to make is new construction is going to dominate.
Speaker 1:We need to build supply because, if you look, demand maintained its strength until the supply dropped out and then, all of a sudden, demand followed with it. So supply and demand, you know there's a causal effect to it, but the supply just dropped so fast and for so long that demand could do nothing but follow it because there just wasn't any inventory for it. New dwellings, new construction still 33%. I mean if you average it out over the course of the entire year, it's about 30% total, which is still higher because I think historically it's been around 20 to 25% of the market has been new construction. So our new construction versus resale somebody who had a house and they want to sell it. Now it's again goes back to people don't want to move out of their house and if they can't go somewhere else for better. Uh, those days have kind of slowed down. There aren't a whole lot of places that are better than st george.
Speaker 1:So I mean, there's not I mean there's a couple neighborhoods within st george that you could go to for sure yeah, so that's that kind of wraps up the uh, the, the stats portion.
Speaker 1:Um, obviously, if you want to know more information, every single real estate transaction is unique. So definitely meet with a lender, meet with a real estate agent. We'd love to help you. We can put you in the right direction. Let us know how your house stacks up or what you're looking for and how we can help you get there. If you're looking for a home under $325,000, you're definitely going to need a real estate agent swirling the hustle to get it, because they're hard to find. It's a little bit of a diamond in the rough.
Speaker 1:The Housing Action Coalition is a coalition of businesses, leaders and members of our community that are working on housing affordability in Southern Utah. On October 30th at 8.30 at Black Desert Resort the link will be in the description below we're going to have a forum. It's our annual forum. I'm going to be hosting a panel interviewing two of our mayors and two developers on this exact problem, and it should be a full morning of breakout sessions and panels talking about the idea. So if you have an opinion on it or if you want to learn more about what Southern Utah is doing to solve and to push the rock forward in affordable housing for us. Make sure you show up there October 30th. It's in the morning, 830 to about one. The links will be below Enjoy this episode, guys. We'll see you out there. Southern Utah News. So I wanted to cover the biggest commercial developments that have happened this year. What jumps out to you? What's the biggest commercial development in your mind that's rolling right now?
Speaker 2:The biggest or the most important to me personally, most impactful.
Speaker 1:Most impactful Smith's Smith's Market.
Speaker 2:Center Smith's by Sun River.
Speaker 1:Sun River, st George, life-changing. They're going to have a bunch of development over there too. They're getting in and out over there.
Speaker 2:Del Taco. Del Taco Hotel. There's a Hilton going in over there.
Speaker 1:There's a Hilton going in over there. I think there's a Marriott going in as well. That was just announced. Maybe it's the Marriott.
Speaker 2:There's a hotel. Yeah, maybe there's cause you got the Hampton. Yeah, maybe it is Marriott.
Speaker 1:Maybe, yeah, okay that we're thinking about the same one, but a bunch of developments going off of sun, river, desert, color man. They've had. What was it? Yeah, a dozen, I think this is number two. Yeah, a dozen new businesses all popped out of the ground, almost all at the same time, like Pizza Hut, chipotle, all kinds of stuff, lots of food.
Speaker 1:Hospital going in over there, hospital going in over there. They got the Megaplex Theater, which I think is huge for Southern Utah. We've had, you know, we have a couple of okay theaters, uh, out in hurricane. They got a really nice theater out there, uh, but a new. They call it luxury megaplex, luxury entertainment center. Uh, that's going in out over there off desert color next to big shots. Yeah, they also announced grocery store.
Speaker 2:I don't think we know which one yet, but it's supposed to be like a whole foods or something like that yeah, harman's, where's sprouts going?
Speaker 1:again. Sprouts going, uh over river crossing, uh, I can't remember, isn't it going?
Speaker 2:over by the um on bluff next to rei. Is that where it?
Speaker 1:is oh yeah, that, yeah, that is right, that's right what's that?
Speaker 2:what's that called?
Speaker 1:I think they call it the St George place. Hey, McCray, what's that called?
Speaker 2:I think it's the.
Speaker 1:St George place. Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah, mccray thing. Shout out to McCray Hepler man. Actually, a lot of the information I got was from following him on what's happening in St George. You got to watch that YouTube channel. I do post it on our channel as well. Title not to be confused with southern utah title eagle gate title they, they helped us get this information. Um, so yeah, I think desert color is a big one. River crossing that's a big one. Dude, yep, that doesn't really impact you because you're over on the west side.
Speaker 2:Well, eventually it kind of will, because if they can get that road approved from the convention center across the river over to connect over to popeyes, huge shortcut. For me, that's, that's a huge shortcut unless it's raining, torrential rain I, I'm worried you might get washed away.
Speaker 1:I I uh, yeah I think about, like some of these, you know construction projects and stuff like that, and then after the hurricane in north carolina I was like man bridge, yeah, I mean even the river road bridge.
Speaker 2:I think it's approved but not funded, or something like that.
Speaker 1:I mean that would be a good shortcut. That'd be a good shortcut, Cause there's a lot of stuff over there. That river crossing I think is huge for all of the Washington fields area little Valley.
Speaker 2:Well, and just the traffic too, on Riverside and river road right there that intersection what a disaster, I know.
Speaker 1:Got rear ended right there. Dang it, I know I. Yeah, I wish target wasn't right there. I wish target was like closer to the freeway and off a different exit, ideally because I think it would.
Speaker 1:It would lower that traffic congestion on river road. Just target, because it's the only one in town everybody's going to target, man, freaking target. Um, another one winco foods. Did you hear about that? Winco foods coming in? That's going to be huge for that. Exit 12. So the new exit on washington, in washington city, right off main street. That's going to be really helpful to traffic. Truthfully, it's going to be massive, massive missive because it's going to pull traffic off tele telegraph. Hopefully that green springs exit as well. So having commercial development over there that draws people away from that, um, that's, you know, center of town. Green springs exit, uh, it's gonna be huge. So winco foods is going in. Exit 12 the new by the boilers park I go play pickleball boilers park, which is awesome, uh, but yeah, that'll be a huge anchor. The paseo have you heard about the Paseo? No, the Paseo is West I'm sorry, east of Lynn's market, down there on a mall drive and 3000 over by the temple.
Speaker 2:We need more outdoor places to go hang out?
Speaker 1:Yeah, there aren't a lot, supposedly supposedly that's the spot they redo in the mall. I think they the mall helped, yep, the mall helped. Yeah, go get some sushi and eat it outside. Were you telling me, it's like the thing now where kids are hanging out at the mall again, were you?
Speaker 2:telling me that it's coming full circle. Man my oldest went to the mall for like three hours on Saturday like hanging out with his friends and I'm like, is this Like it went away for so long?
Speaker 1:Did it or did our kids like your kids just weren't there. And then, if you're listening and you had teenagers five years ago, what is it?
Speaker 2:Ten years ago I think. It went away even from like a commercial, like leasing standpoint.
Speaker 1:But that was like the shoppers, so that was like the adults. But have the kids always hung out at the mall?
Speaker 1:Maybe I don't know, I don't know they need like a free place to go roam that has air conditioning and it's not by mom and dad. Maybe maybe the mall has always been a refuge for the high school and teenagers? Yeah, maybe. Well, I mean, as soon as I got a, as soon as I got a car, I stopped going to mall, which I think is so funny, at least in my, in my past. I don't know if that was true with you I don't know, layton layton hills mall.
Speaker 1:Man, that was the spot that was the spot uh, south town mall.
Speaker 1:I was in sandy, yeah, south town mall, um, so I think, uh, paseo, it's supposed to be a big commercial development, outdoor dining and shopping. Um, the jury's still out on exactly what's going to go in there, but it's another commercial spot right there at 3000, which, uh, going back to traffic and congestion, you know that mall drive road, holy cow if it's, if it in there. But it's another commercial spot right there at 3000, which, going back to traffic and congestion, you know that mall drive road, holy cow If it's, if it's rush hour, if it's four o'clock, it's a parking lot. Man, it's a parking lot. And it's because we're just so we we've isolated all the residential into a couple of areas and they did it to themselves.
Speaker 1:We've done it to ourselves, we have done it to ourselves, we have done it to ourselves. Yeah, I think this is another big one, huge one. I think it gets talked about. It's been talked about. Mcrae definitely covered it, st George News covered it. But the St Georgia Airport expansion, la.
Speaker 2:Direct to LA.
Speaker 1:They got a direct flight to LA. They're changing the I think it's ramp is what they called it in the article I was reading but the they've expanded, made the terminal ramp bigger so they can get bigger planes out of there and I can't think of all those houses that the is right along the approach. I'm like you get a bigger plane, it's louder, more flights.
Speaker 2:Yeah, imagine buying. Some people won't like that, I know. Imagine buying a million dollar plus house and then five years later you got fricking jet liners.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then five years later, you got freaking jetliners. Yeah, the bigger and bigger. Right, because the expansion, the assumption is it's going to continue to expand. They got a uh traffic control tower there. Now. It used to be, it used to be done out of santa ana, so all of our air traffic control was out of california, and now we have our own tower, so it's like we're poised to like take that next jump in in airports. Yeah, and I don't know if I like that. Well, it is what it is it is what it is.
Speaker 1:Do you like it? Do you care? Vegas is so close.
Speaker 2:I just drive down the vegas right, so so when I can get, when I can get a whatever a 150 ticket to orlando from George, I'll be pretty pumped. But, until then, I'll probably keep going to Vegas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right and it's just that next step in the evolution of the town in the area, yeah, but yeah, that expansion plus they're going to have. It's called ARA I think there's a couple of different names for it that I've seen but this is the Southwest logistics industrial park, so like big, huge, uh, warehouse space. It's supposed to be like an inland port. Um, I think that's going to be actually really good, cause I don't like that. I can't get prime like next day delivery in St George. That really is actually my, my sister telling me, she same my sister in California.
Speaker 1:She tells me she gets same day delivery.
Speaker 2:They get it in like Orem and Salt Lake. I know it's crazy you could order something at 8 am. I am kind of jealous.
Speaker 1:I am kind of jealous about that. That's pretty amazing. This thing that would kind, this is gonna kind of help, I think. Uh, two 200,000 square foot buildings, two of them huge, that's a massive jump in, uh yeah, industrial space that we have not had, and it's 276 acres out there. It's a lot of space for a lot of buildings, a lot of jobs, which is good. Going back to the wages we need higher paying jobs. Maybe it'll just all be robots.
Speaker 2:Potentially Amazon's got them.
Speaker 1:I know, I know, I know I can't imagine why a human would do it if a robot could do it. Elon musk has them now too. I know, dude, it's kind of freaky, it kind of freaked me out a little bit. It's like one thing to think about it in the abstract but then to like see him moving around and then you can't help but think of the freaking movie I robot, isaac asimov's like, based off his like he's suing elon musk too?
Speaker 2:by the way, is he suing you for copying his design?
Speaker 1:that's like he can't do that. Yeah, he would sue, I guess, a head two arms, two legs and a torso.
Speaker 2:Like you can't copy that you just copied the human.
Speaker 1:Okay, then leonardo da vinci's got a case too, because he like the human anatomy. That's so silly. Yeah, no chance, it's stupid. Um, I guess he probably just gets sued all the time, like when you're the richest man on the on the planet, all the time I was trying to get get their payout.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, the the robot thing freaked me out a little bit. I it could be cool and then also terrifying all at the same time. I don't know how I feel about it. Uh, lots of events in october that brought a ton of people out. We had the pga tour. We talked about that world senior games. Talk about that red bull rampage, did you? I always highlights miss. I. I want to go every time, every year, and I always catch like the next week. I'm like I missed it, dang it.
Speaker 2:You have to know somebody, who knows somebody, to get tickets. Now it's a. It's hard to get tickets they got like. If you, um, if you go to the website when they sell them, they sell out in seconds. Oh wow. People are waiting for them and they buy the tickets.
Speaker 1:It just seems like in that location in Virgin that you could fit so many more people out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they probably limit it for some reason.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they like to keep it expensive.
Speaker 2:Those guys are messed up, man.
Speaker 1:Dude, there's some crazy stuff that they do. I was watching videos too, if you. If you don't know about Red Bull Rampage in Virginia, utah. It is pretty insane. I missed it because it was the same weekend as PGA and like 17 other things. I also did an open house, so I did miss Red Bull Rampage, but I heard it was awesome. Uh, trail Hero Music Festival. I don't know how that turned out, but I I heard it was going to be huge. They were anticipating like 25,000 people coming to that. I don't know what the actual numbers were, which we could talk about in another one, field of Screams Staley Family Farm, the zombie shoot. Are you going to go to do this? We should go do the zombie shoot in the cornfield. Did you know? They came up with that idea and then they syndicated it to like 50 different farms across the country.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 1:It's just a big old bus with uh paintballs mounted to the windows and you drive through a cornfield and there's zombies, volunteers, I don't know, paid, paid volunteers roam around, roam around the cornfield to get shot by paintballs. Oh yeah, exactly, it's crazy. It's such a cool idea. We should go do that. One. Staley farm family farms, uh, october, um, those but all those events, man, we got tons of people. Exactly, it's crazy. It's such a cool idea. We should go do that one. Staley Farm Family Farms, october, those but all those events, man, we got tons of people. Okay, I'm transitioning. Northern Corridor. The Northern Corridor saga continues. So we've had two episodes on this podcast about it. We talked to Eric Clark County County attorney and the director of Southwest clark county uh county attorney and the director of southwest conserve, southwest utah um holly snow, canada, and we had some new developments the sitla, or the trust lands, utah trust lands. They did a proposal for the what the development of zone six is going to be. Did you see the proposal? Have you seen this?
Speaker 2:yeah, they sent me a letter to my house who sent me a letter um trust lands or the uh? That's a good question. I think it was conserved.
Speaker 1:Southwest utah senate interesting yeah, fact, check me on that. So if you're looking at the map, uh, jeff not to say specifically where jeff, but he lives right over here if you're're looking at the map, right in Bloomington, so this buds up right to Jeff's backyard, I'm pretty sure, right, jeff?
Speaker 2:Sure does.
Speaker 1:So this goes right back to his backyard. The interesting thing this map is actually really complex. Actually, there's a lot of information on it, but it highlights the development, the housing developments that they would put in the zone. So the zone backs straight up to the city limits right, and it's in the city boundaries but it backs up to the existing developments that are already there. So as the main entrance point, being right here, right in Jeff's backyard, as the main entrance point.
Speaker 1:When I see this, I can't help but think people are talking about how it's, they're trying to leverage to get the corridor and they wouldn't do this. Maybe they would do this, but I don't see any reason why they couldn't do this and I don't like this. I don't like it. So they got houses up here. The houses a two and a half acre and five acre parcels is what they've put out here. So these are the two and a half acre and five acre parcels is what they've put out here. So these are the two and a half acre parcels here that have insane views, and then the two acre parcel or the five acre parcels are this pink color here and these would be amazing houses. They truthfully would, and I could see why sitla presented, presented this. I thought and I keep saying SITLA, but the School and Institutional Trust Lands Association Administration is what it used to be called. Then they rebranded it to just Trust Lands Administration, so the Utah Trust Lands Administration. So they presented this.
Speaker 1:I think it's funny. I don't think it's funny. I think it's interesting that they highlighted all the trails and all of the climbing spots to say this is what it's going to destroy if they go forward with this project and this plan. I actually don't think that this is what they would do. I think this is just a preliminary one to put pressure on the environmental groups. 100%. You think so too. It's to scare some folks. It's just to scare people. But I don't think that's what's happening. They're getting fired up about it. It's like firing them up more and I couldn't help but think why? Why do we keep? It's like an escalation, it's like saber rattling, it's it's it's politics and it shouldn't be politics.
Speaker 2:It shouldn't be politics but the.
Speaker 1:So how does the northern corridor fit into this whole thing? So, if you don't know anything about this, the northern corridor is on the north side of town. That goes from exit 13, curves around past green springs and then connects to red hills parkway. It's like a northern loop around washington, st george, to get to the west side, my side, as efficiently as possible. Well, sitla has a map and I would pull it up as well. But SITLA has all the land around exit 13. So for them, as the Trustlands administration, they want to maximize the amount of money they want to get for each one of their parcels. So every parcel that they have is basically calculated as to a value, basically calculated as to a value.
Speaker 1:Zone six was supposed to be traded as, uh, as a ticket to be able to pass the northern corridor. So that was what was. That was the concession that the trust lands gave to the tortoises, right? So if you look at this map, all that red zone right there, that's where the tortoises would go, and then to replant or not re, rehome them, rehome them or also just preserve the, the, this territory that before wasn't. All 11 of the tortoises that live there, all 11 there's, there's a lot, there's a lot of tortoises out out there, actually, and I I actually think there's an argument to be made that they're not endangered, but there's there's somebody out there that that's going to claim differently, but however, they're endangered in our area.
Speaker 1:They're not even from here. They are from here I I had to fact check myself on here. They are from here and the the the genealogy of the tortoise that's here is actually unique and that they have the longest lifespan of any of the mojave desert tortoises. There could be a reasoning because the Mojave Desert ends basically around you know Vegas mesquite area, and then we start transitioning out of the desert. So we're in this like. We're in this like sweet zone of climate.
Speaker 2:There must have been some tortoises that made their way up here, so there's for sure, tortoises have been here a long time.
Speaker 1:And then their genealogy they live to be really long, and so one of the arguments which I don't disagree with I they live to be really long, and so one of the arguments which I don't disagree with I think this is a key piece is like well, we want to preserve the best turtles that are there and not sacrifice, you know, the the future of the tortoise by killing off or taking away the habitat of the genetically most robust tortoise out there. This whole thing is crazy because the road cuts through another densely populated tortoise area, but there's a bunch of concessions that the county's made to say we will make this the most tortoise friendly road on the planet, right, and then conserve. Southwest Utah stated even on the podcast that they're concerned about fires and the Native American artifacts and stuff that are there that are going to be destroyed. I don't think they're going to actually destroy an artifact, but it's going to destroy the environment to where these artifacts are made. Um, and then I think of jerusalem and how there's like layer upon layer upon layer of artifacts. They just keep building on top of them. Yeah, it's like I get, we want to preserve the history and also there's there's politics involved in this and sit low wants to get the value of their land on the northern part of the county on exit 13, and they're saying, if we can't get the value out of that by this road not getting approved, we're going to get the value from zone six and that's the. That's the ticket. And a lot of people don't like hearing it or they're trying to take them as separate things.
Speaker 1:Zone six is separate from the corridor, but it's not any longer. It's not any longer. It was separate, but the trust lands can do whatever they want with their land. They have a state mandate. The only person that could stop this your legislatures can't stop it. The County commissioners can't stop it. City, count the city. It's the governor, isn't it? It's the governor. He it's the governor, isn't it? It's the governor. He's the only one. And the only way he can do it is by giving the word to the board of the trust lands administration with whom he appoints. It's the only way that this could change. And, governor cox, as uh the episode, I I uh recorded the episode. I'm gonna have that episode come in after this one, but I should have asked him while I was here about this. Next time he comes on the podcast I for sure want to, but he's the ear.
Speaker 1:If you're an advocate to protecting Zone 6 and not wanting the Northern Corridor, the governor is going to be the only guy that can get that done. But I know from a very reliable source within the county and city governments that have said to protect Zone 6 and have this plan not go through. Northern Corridor has got to go through. This plan, not go through northern corridors, gotta go. It has to go through. It has to go through. And I don't and it's interesting the the money that's fighting that isn't even in washington county, the money that's finding it isn't in washington county. Those people with the money they don't. I don't think that they're actually listening to the community members. They're just saying we're going to push through on this and then a small group of individuals are keeping this going.
Speaker 1:I really believe that with a simple conversation of saying we will let, we'll drop the lawsuit on the Northern Corridor to protect zone six, I think that's a fair trade. I think it's a fair trade and it's not the best trade. It's not everything everybody wants, but it's something. It's something and this area, to me, is way more valuable than that Northern Corridor, because even all around the Northern Corridor there's no development. That can. It's not possible. Citla doesn't own any land around the road. It owns the land at the end of the road. It owns that land at the exit and that exit will not grow.
Speaker 1:Thinking of winco being off the exit of of uh 12. They're not going to be able to get the commercial you know um tenants and commercial owners in that land if they don't have the road. It's just that simple. That's simple. Grapevine crossing if you're Grapevine Crossing off 13, that's all Trustlands property and it's just sat there. There's a lone Chipotle and I guess there's the Five Brothers burger joint there now. But there's only a couple of things that developed over on that side of the highway and it's because the road doesn't go all the way through and all the way around. That's one of the key in uh. Key factors that commercial developers are looking at is is road access and if they can't get the value out of that, that portion of the county, they're going to get this one up and I don't want to see this one go because this one's awesome you definitely don't want it.
Speaker 1:Look at all the trails and bouldering that would go away I know, and then they even added like additional trails, like future trails, I think they put possible trail heads, like all the different uh trail heads that they could add into it uh that possible trail head is the.
Speaker 2:Is that monozuma trail trail head that exists right now?
Speaker 1:well, so you got, you got this one over on the the far southwest side and then you got one up there on the north side. So you got a couple, you know definitely a couple other trailheads. But when, when we think of trailheads like actual parking, like it's one thing to I think you're the navajo drive parking, isn't that thing full almost every weekend. Yeah, and they spill into the neighborhood, right, not too much not generally.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of parking up there, but the the traffic on navajo took over to bear claw poppy Trailhead. Yeah it's pretty heavy. It's worth putting some speed bumps on Navajo For sure, yeah.
Speaker 1:You should write to the city. You need to go to the city council meeting and you need to talk about it. It's in process, sir. Yeah, that's what I like to hear. You got to make your voice heard, man. You got to make your voice heard Well. The Northern Corridor voice heard well. The the northern corridor, I think, is another big development, uh issue that's going on, but that kind of wraps up the news in the housing market and what's going on in southern utah with real estate yeah um, what else you want to talk about in aviate, I got, you got your in aviate shirt on local heroes represent I I'd never heard of them.
Speaker 2:Excellent, they're excellent excellent emo shout out to Dixie High shout out.
Speaker 1:To Dixie High School shout out. Thanks for listening to the episode. Guys, I hope you stuck with us through the whole thing. Other than that, we'll see you out there. Stay tuned for the. The governor, spencer J Cox, comes on the show. You'll want to catch that one next week.
Speaker 2:There's not another local podcast that has the ability to get the governor on the podcast. It took a.
Speaker 1:Just one phone call. It took one text message and he just came right in. Hey, governor, I've been waiting for you to ask me. I'm so glad you asked.
Speaker 2:I'll be here for the PGA Tour Pins and needles I've been sitting on is what he said he, he really did say that.
Speaker 1:That's in the episode. He said that I've been sitting on pins and he didn't say that. He didn't say that. Thanks for tuning in, guys. We'll see you out there. Thanks for listening in. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe. Make sure you're following us on all the social media websites. We love your support. We love the dialogue. We want to continue that going find us at realestate435.com.
Speaker 2:We'd love to help you find a house here in town or help you get wherever you're going.