Southern Utah: Washington and Iron counties: we'd like to give a special thank you to Russ Behrmann, president of the St. George area Chamber of Commerce, for moderating the discussion and the entrada for hosting the event.

Utah is in the midst of an economic crunch and Washington and Iron counties are no exception. Local business leaders share their plans to keep the area's economy moving. Our experts also discuss what Southern Utah has to look forward to, such as the new St. George Municipal Airport, enhanced educational offerings and tourism opportunities including the Ironman Marathon.

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Residential real estate has been at the heart of much of Southern Utah's economic troubles. Discuss how the industry is faring today.

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ENCE: Residential construction is not dead by any means, but it is very slow. If you look at how many permits have been pulled each week, there's not very many. Most builders are building about seven or eight homes a year. In past years, they've been building between 20 and 30. We're down probably 50 percent of what we normally do, so it's slow, but not dead. There are sales out there and they're good sales. The good thing is that the people who are coming to look at the model homes are looking for a home. And in many cases they have the ability to finance one. So it's not doom and gloom, but it's definitely tough to make a living.

STEPHENS: I agree. We're down between 50 and 65 percent. We service a little different buyer--our buyers are 55 and older and usually don't have as many financing problems as younger people seem to have. We've been fortunate to not have a lot of foreclosures at Sun River, again, probably because of our age group, which has been able to keep our prices more standard than areas that are having lots of short sales and foreclosures. We feel fortunate about that. And, we seemed to slow later than everyone else. It was about eight or 10 months before we really started feeling it.

THOMPSON: There are still a lot of foreclosures on the market and there's a lot more to come. Interest rates are good, but it's hard for people to get qualified. Everything is credit score driven--everything. It's good, though, because we're getting back to the basics of having to have a down payment and good credit. I still think it's a wonderful time to buy. There's such a good price range right now. And, St. George is absolutely a gorgeous place to live. I look outside and I know why I came down here.

Have the federal and state home buying incentives been effective?

ENCE: The first-time buyer programs have been great. The reality of it is we get more people looking for a home who wouldn't have been looking in the first place, whether they buy or not. If we don't get people out there actually seeing the product we're building, nothing is going to move. You might not sell to those who are looking, but you might sell to their friend or their neighbor who lives down the street. As far as we're concerned at Ence Homes, the first-time buyer programs have helped dramatically. Not just a little bit, but dramatically. So the tax incentives taken with the very low price, plus low interest rates, are really attracting people. In my market, I'm selling to retired people, I'm selling to first buyers and I'm selling to people wanting to move up. People are going out to look and then they're going to make a decision. Without the incentives, they wouldn't have looked in the first place.

In the St. George area, most of the buyers are coming from the Wasatch Front. California is a minor market now--it is not the major market it was five years ago. I think people in the Wasatch Front are able to move because they still can sell their house. I also think that Utahns who want to move down here will move down here no matter what. If you live in Utah, in most cases, you want to stay in Utah. Utahns getting ready to retire still want to retire in a warmer climate, so that's always been a big draw to St. George. Years ago, most of our sales came from the Wasatch Front. That changed during the boom because investors were coming from out of state to invest in the area. Now there aren't as many investors, but there are people wanting to buy a home. So, we've got more coming from the Wasatch Front again.

STEPHENS: The Wasatch Front is currently our biggest market, but we're also attracting buyers from other places. We do about 45 percent of our sales by referrals, so we're drawing people in from all over the United States. We have people moving in from virtually everywhere--Minnesota, New York and California. We probably have 10 families from Canada that live in Sun River. But we still get most from the Wasatch Front.

PETERSON: I always ask people why they're moving to St. George. I'll bet half of them are not from California--they're from back East or the Northwest. They all say that they came here on vacation and decided this is the place they want to live.

ENCE: A few weeks ago we had people from Iowa looking at our properties. They were here to see Zion and loved the area and decided to stay. We get a lot of people who come first for the recreation and then want to live here. We have Zion and the other national parks. We have the mountains. We have Snows Canyon. I think it's still a retirement destination any way you look at it.

WOOD: Although Cedar City might not be a retirement destination like St. George, we see a lot of people who are visiting Cedar City and then later decide to move into town. And the first reason they came was through tourism and they decided to stay.

Discuss...