Justin Hutchins on Utah Real Estate, Mentorship, and Creating Homeownership Legacy | RR-018

Justin Hutchins shares his journey from college volleyball coach to top Utah realtor. Learn about mentorship, buying your first home, equity, interest rates, and building wealth through real estate in Utah's market.

Justin Hutchins on Utah Real Estate, Mentorship, and Creating Homeownership Legacy | RR-018

Justin Hutchins shares his journey from college volleyball coach to top Utah realtor. Learn about mentorship, buying your first home, equity, interest rates, and building wealth through real estate in Utah's market.

From Coaching Volleyball to Building a Real Estate Legacy in Utah

Lessons from a career built on relationships.

From volleyball courts to closing tables.

What this episode teaches about buying smart in Utah.

The deeper currents beneath the transaction.

Words that land with weight.

Related Homeownership Stories

Suggested Photos for This Episode

Full Transcript

Ready to start your own homeownership journey?

How Justin Hutchins turned mentorship, family values, and a relentless work ethic into one of Utah's most trusted real estate careers — and why homeownership still matters in a shifting market.

Watch the full conversation above, or read the highlights, insights, and complete transcript below.

Justin Hutchins' journey into Utah real estate is a story rooted in family, service, and a deep commitment to helping people build stability through homeownership . As the broker owner of Legacy Group Real Estate, Justin brings a rare blend of coaching experience, economic awareness, and heartfelt dedication to every client he serves. His path — from college volleyball coach to award-winning Utah realtor — reveals how personal relationships, mentorship, and a desire to create long-term roots can shape a meaningful career in real estate.

In this episode, Justin opens up about the realities of the Utah housing market , the challenges first-time buyers face, and the importance of mortgage education in a shifting economy. He shares stories of families navigating rising interest rates, buyers overcoming financial obstacles , and clients who finally transitioned from decades of renting into the stability of owning a home. His insights offer hope and clarity for anyone trying to understand real estate, build equity, or create long-term financial growth in Utah's fast-changing market.

Justin's story matters because it reflects what so many Utah families are experiencing today — market uncertainty, rising costs, and the desire to build roots in a place they love. Through mentorship, data-driven decision-making, and a genuine passion for helping people, Justin shows how homeownership can still be achievable, sustainable, and life-changing .

Justin's insights bridge the gap between real estate strategy and human connection. These are the ideas that stuck with us long after the interview ended.

Justin's transition from college athletics to real estate was not a leap — it was a carefully considered choice to put family first.

Understand market shifts before you list or buy. Justin stresses that agents must price homes using current data, not outdated comps. In June 2022, home sales were the slowest in ten years for Utah — a critical signal that the market had shifted. Agents who recognized this early helped sellers avoid the price-reduction catch-up game.

Rising rates change math, but not the fundamentals. Justin bought his first townhome at 6.75% interest in 2006. Today, that same unit is worth far more, yet the monthly payment at 3% would be roughly the same due to price appreciation. The lesson: payment is a function of both price and rate. When one rises, the other often adjusts.

Utah homeowners hold massive equity. With roughly 63% average equity, many Utah sellers are in a strong position — even if they are trading a 3% mortgage for a 5-6% loan. That equity becomes buying power, debt reduction, or investment capital.

Quick Numbers

63%

Estimated average homeowner equity in Utah

8,500

Active MLS listings (vs. 1,900 at 4% rates)

45k

Units short of Utah's current housing need

For First-Time Buyers

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Ryan Harding: Alright everybody, welcome to the Work Hard Play Hard podcast. I'm your host Ryan Harding and today we have a special guest, Justin Hutchins. He is the broker owner of the Legacy Group. Daley Harold does the best of every year for different areas and stuff like that. Last year, 2021, he was the best agent. That is a big deal. And I think also top 250 as far as in the state.

Justin Hutchins: Yeah, the Utah Central Association did a release of the top 250 and within that group, and so yeah, I was honored to be a part of that.

Ryan: It's awesome, very cool. So obviously real estate's not something that he's just jumping into. This guy's been a part of it for a long time. Let's start Justin, I guess obviously just getting to know you. Who is Justin? Who are you as far as like a person?

Justin: Am I an existential question? That's right. I first and foremost am a husband and a dad, and those are my favorite things in the whole world. My wife and I have been married this August for 17 years. We've got four kiddos. Our only daughter's 13 and then we've got three boys that are ten, eight, and three.

Ryan: Nice, that's as good as life gets. You're at a sweet spot where they're all nobodies in diapers. We just finished productions, our three-year-old. Our teenager is not quite so teeny.

Ryan: Well so then tell us about real estate. You've been doing real estate for how long?

Justin: About eight years. It's been good because I actually was able to get in in kind of a normal market. Always had an interest. Maybe it's because I moved a ton growing up. My family moved all over the place. My dad had his career advance and stuff, we moved a lot. Mostly in California between southern and northern, but I was born in American Fork. So it came back to my roots. Came back up for college and played volleyball. That was my identity. I played volleyball in high school and club and then got to play in college as well. That's what brought me to Utah. I graduated from UVU. I've got a bachelor's degree in behavioral science. As my clients need psychology help, it's good. Buying a home is a big deal.

Ryan: Obviously you enjoy real estate, you've been doing it for a little while. How recently have you started your own company?

Justin: Like I said, I got started about eight years ago in real estate. Before that I was a college volleyball coach. I coached at UVU, BYU, did a stint in San Luis Obispo at Cal Poly, and then Fresno State was my last stop in the college coaching world. I'd had a friend that helped us actually buy a townhome in 2006. Best time ever to buy a house. We became really good friends with him. He was the agent that was in the model. Our families got really close. As I was going down that coaching path, just realizing with a young family, moving really often, grinding, I was gone all the time. In season, off season, recruiting, coaching clubs, summers doing camps all over the country. Super fun, but not ideal for family life.

Justin: He'd always told me from the day I met this agent, Dave Maltby is his name, he's now with Summit Sotheby's. He said, “Hey if you ever want to get in real estate, I think you'd do really well, and I'll mentor you.” So I called him when we were in California and said, “Hey if I moved back to Utah, and we still owned our townhome, would you still be interested in showing me the ropes?” And he was like, absolutely. So super cool. He was with a small independent brokerage out of Mapleton. The broker took a chance on me as well. In fact, he even said when I first met with them, “I think you're too nice. You're probably not going to be successful in this business.” I'd never met him before. Okay, I didn't get too offended. He's like — so Dave luckily took me under his wing and really showed me the ropes. I remember being on calls with him: “Hey the agent said this, what do I say?” All right, they said this back. It was great to have a mentor.

Justin: He really to his credit kind of helped me build that business and tap into being successful with people I already knew from volleyball. I was running a club or travel team and we had 200 kids cycling in and out of that every year, parents, things like that, and had a really successful program. So I just kind of called everybody I knew and said, “Hey the same passion, energy, expertise I put into coaching, I'm transferring to real estate now and I hope you'll consider me to help out when the time comes.” That's been awesome. It's really been cool to work with people I already know that they trust me. That trustworthiness transfers over.

Ryan: You know, the guy said you're too nice. Part of me is thinking that's actually a good trait, something that would stand out and say okay, that means I'm trustworthy.

Justin: You would hope. Maybe he thought I'm going to be too soft a negotiator. I guess you could make an argument. Really, I think just being a quality guy does add something. Those relationships mean a lot that they would trust me. I just closed on one this morning with a buddy from when I served as a missionary for my church 25 years ago. Those long-term things are huge. People would call me and think of me to help out.

Ryan: How many are on your team now?

Justin: I've got three total: Marcy Stevens, Kenton Goalie, and Ashley Carlson up in Davis County. They're awesome. I've been growing more organically because to me it's about that personality fit and culture. I'm more of a mentor resource. I want to teach them how to act within their own sphere and tap into those relationships they already have, like I've done. To be honest, I probably wouldn't be a good coach with cold calling or door knocking. I haven't done that. But I can help people tap in and show their value. That's the value I bring.

Ryan: Has your team been successful? What do you think is driving that?

Justin: We've been really blessed and successful, especially as of late. The agents are all relatively new, as in the last three years. It's fun to see them grow and get out of their comfort zone. Maybe that's the coaching in me. Like hey, this is the game plan, here's how we're going to help you succeed. Especially lately they've gotten a lot more in business and closings, especially from their own sphere. That is good, especially now with the market starting to — it's not as hot as it was. Things are a little bit harder. You got to work a little better.

Ryan: The skill set is crucial especially as the market shifts.

Justin: Yeah. I was just talking to another broker, which has been awesome. This industry is great with knowledge sharing. He even brought up the analogy that a lot of agents who've just gotten into it are like a college athletic team that have been competing against rec teams from the YMCA. And so this market's really going to go, okay, here's the other collegiate level team. Let's see where your chops really lie. I think the skill set is really going to set these agents apart in this market.

Ryan: I mean that's the benefit of a market like this. Now suddenly it takes a little work to sell a home. You've got to know how to market, you've got to know how to price, you've got to know how to drum up interest and buyers. And on the buyer side, be able to negotiate and see what you can get for your clients.

Ryan: What are you continuously learning in this industry?

Justin: I always want to make sure that I'm learning. I don't want to feel like I know everything. Having a growth mindset is crucial in any business. Also knowing that you don't know everything — what are you missing? I'm really diving deep into all kinds of different voices as far as the economy goes. Gardner Institute at the University of Utah is awesome about our local Utah economy. That's been fun to learn about just how diverse our state really is. Governor Cox came to a realtor event just last month and was talking about the incredible amount of diversity Utah has. I think that's why we've been put on the map as one of the top markets in the whole United States.

Justin: Also sharpening skills. I was on another webinar yesterday with how to price homes and tapping into the local appraisers and how they're valuing things. You really have this knowledge base. For the last couple of years, pricing a home was like, okay, the bidding starts at and ready set go. It almost didn't matter because it was the wild west. Now, especially as we're seeing a lot of price adjustments, if our agent doesn't have that skill set of really looking at the data and saying here's not only where we've been but here's where we're headed — that's the difference. Where you see price adjustments across the board is people trying to play catch-up rather than having the foresight.

Justin: For example, June which just came out last month, the data said that was the slowest June in 10 years. That's from the Salt Lake Board of Realtors as far as home sales go. There's a big withdrawal with interest rates going up and housing prices staying high. Even if you're looking at doing a market analysis, a house that sold two months ago or three months ago is better. A lot of appraisers will go back six months — it was a different market six months ago. Back in January, low inventory, about 1900 active listings, to a four percent rate. Now we're in a four percent interest rate. Now we're at mid-fives. And we've got 8,500 active listings on the MLS versus 1,900. It's different. Very different even 90 days ago.

Ryan: What are you forecasting?

Justin: I've talked to agents and brokers and lenders that have been in the business 20, 30 years plus. This is totally unique. We haven't seen this. To try and predict where we're going — all I can do is look at what the current state is. We've got a whole lot of listings right now, we've got higher interest rates, and it's all about perspective. We're used to seeing a two or three in front of that interest rate and so people freak out. I'm like, man, we got a deal in 2006 with a 6.75 percent interest rate. That was my townhome that we bought, 225. Our payment on that was roughly $1,600 a month for that $225 townhome at 6.75 percent.

Justin: The same townhome in Pleasant Grove is worth instead of 225, it's 350 or 375, might be more now. And with a three percent interest rate, guess what my monthly payment was? About $1,600 a month. So the price went up but the interest went down. Now we're seeing a bunch of price reductions. The interest rate's around five and a half, six percent. So you can still kind of — it might be a wash in some circumstances. The cost of living with everything has gone up. Financing anything, vehicle, anything like that's gone up. We're paying more for eggs and meat. But it's still a good time to buy.

Justin: I just had my buddy that I told you about from my mission just closed on his first home today. That's awesome. He's been paying rent for 25 years. 100 percent interest rate on rent. At least there's an asset that's there. I think a balanced market is better than either way. It's been a seller's market for a long time. We've been going 120 miles an hour to 60. Depending on how you look at it, maybe we're at 70 miles an hour. That's okay. It's still good, it's still fast. If you price it correctly, things are going.

Justin: If interest rates continue to rise and home prices now instead of 20 or 30 percent each year go up to a normal pace like four or five percent a year, then it's still going to grow. Most people in Utah have like 63% equity. That was from CoreLogic. A lot of money. If you do need to sell and it's right for your individual circumstance, you can still walk away with quite a bit. You won't have the same interest rate that you probably refinanced like everybody else did last year, but you've got more volume power with the prices.

Ryan: I think there is that shock right now with interest rates and home prices. Stocks are changing a little bit. We're re-adapting and people are like, okay I still want to buy a house, I just have to know that now my payment is three grand as opposed to two thousand.

Ryan: Do you like real estate as an investment?

Justin: I'm going to bring up a sore spot for a lot of people: crypto. If you're into that, great, probably moderation and diversification is good. But something that can just be — I just heard of another one that just went under, sorry you can't access your account, done. Where a true asset like a home is something that we hear all the time hedges against inflation, is a good way to protect your money.

Justin: In my own family, we're being more aggressive rather than taking money and investing in stocks and things like that, we're being more aggressive and paying down our mortgage, putting in more principal. That's where our money's going to be best used. Putting that into something that is our home that has the walls and the roof over our head. That's where I'll put money versus any other. I'm not a financial expert by any means, but that's what I'm seeing with my own personal perspective.

Ryan: Crypto is obviously the best example of instant millionaire and instant bankruptcy. A steady growth of four or five percent a year is better than any savings account. If you can get lucky enough to cash flow by buying investment properties, for so long we've just been looking for properties with clients that are breaking even. Essentially they have someone going to the bank and paying their mortgage for them every month. Maybe now with that you can buy a little bit lower and still rents are going up. Lehi, I think there's an article about that, how right around that area is like the highest rank in all of Utah and still rising.

Justin: My tag with real estate is: real estate is to get rich slowly. It does take place, but over time, which is more sustainable. The benefit of getting slowly is it doesn't just evaporate in the night. With the real estate market, it's rarely a bad thing if you're going to buy and hold. If you're going to have a long term, you can ride out almost anything.

Ryan: What about traditional rentals versus nightly rentals?

Justin: I think in southern Utah we've got a huge amount of nightly rentals. Governor Cox actually addressed that. He said at the time when he met with us, we were about 45,000 units short based on the current population of Utah and households. 45,000 homes short. 20,000 homes that were being built especially in southern Utah were Airbnbs, nightly rentals. He said effectively we're still shooting ourselves in the foot because we're building hotels. It's still not solving that problem of dwellings, places for families. It'd be interesting where that's going to lead. Based on that perspective from Governor Cox, we're still going to be in a shortage for quite a while.

Justin: As people were saying the market's going to shift, the market's got to turn, as we're going these 20 and 30 year-over-year increases — my thought was maybe it's correcting in the way that most of the country has been viewing Utah as 1980s Utah, mostly rural, not very diverse. The correction has been the values catching up to where they should have been. The accelerated demand is like, whoa, Utah is really awesome. We've got all these businesses, we've got diversity of culture, more diverse than ever before, diversity of outdoor activities and landscapes and different industries. It's not Geneva Steel running the valley. We have all these companies. What a cool place to be. I don't think that demand goes down anytime soon.

Justin: If the supply — it feels like a pause. That shock is like, whoa, we're used to this. But as soon as perspective readjusts and goes, yeah there's still that demand, there's still a shortage. Interest rates — we may see people kind of jumping. I don't want to buy a house. I still need a house. It's not a boat, it's not a luxury item. It's a house. I wanted this somewhere.

Ryan: What advice do you have for new agents entering the industry?

Justin: I think if you're coming into it with a career-minded perspective, you'll find success. There are a lot of agents that come in and the last statistic I heard was that only five percent renew after their first 18 months when they get their license. Not much at all. 95 quit after the first year and a half. There's a lot of reasons for that. One of the main reasons is they're not looking at it as a career. It's something to dabble in, a side hustle. Career-minded agents are going to have a little bit different perspective, like I did where I'm like, if I'm not successful, my family doesn't eat. So I better hustle, I better work, call everybody, educate myself.

Justin Hutchins on Utah Real Estate, Mentorship, and Creating Homeownership Legacy | RR-018