The strangest tech to come out of Utah in February: On stolen package revenge, post-vasectomy lab startups, and swipe-free dating apps.

• Author: Stone, Zara

HAPPY latter-day loving, y'all. It's that time of year again, and Cricut-ers everywhere are busy churning out variations of the "Bee Mine" theme for all you lovebugs. The Valentine volume is up, thanks to Utah grabbing the number one spot in Bankrate's housing heat index. You can thank COVID for making people wake up and want to smell the wilderness. The influx of new folk isn't slowing anytime soon--Salt Lake City tops Realtor.com's most-growth metro list for 2022.

House prices rocketed up 28 percent, leaving many of those home-is-where-the-heart-is house hunters at a loss. Sellers can be as picky as they like and still get takers. Last summer, Scott Paul--the infamous maverick investor-promised purchasers a 10 percent discount off his Homie-listed house if they paid in Dogecoin. He got two offers but rejected both as too low.

Paul's admitted marketing stunt heralds the dawning of high-tech home sales in Utah; Bitcoin Real Estate has a bunch of luxury in-state listings, and Park City-based Quest Crypto is all-in on merging the blockchain with real estate.

In response, a surprising resource has emerged; #realtorsoftiktok. Dominique DeFelice from eXp Realty in Salt Lake City amassed 129,000 likes for her day-in-the-life-of-a-realtor TikTok videos. Sabrina Rose dishes the dirt on investment properties, and Jessica Lee of Signature Real Estate Utah makes realtor work look like a catwalk. Gotta share the love, mmkay?

PORCH PIRATE PAYBACK

Utah's hyped-up housing market has taken an unexpected turn in the form of love letters. Seriously, wannabe buyers are penning and posting cloying letters to sellers where they beg them for the privilege of overpaying for their property. "Desperation has ... caused [these letters] to become so prevalent," according to Salt Lake's Board of Realtors. Major ick.

Even if people's cringe-tastic letters prevail, trouble is brewing. Say hello to the sinister spate of opportunistic porch pirates that are gleefully pilfering people's Amazon packages (try saying that last part fast, for fun).

While plunder by porch pirates during the holidays isn't just a Utah problem, it's a bigger deal than people realize. Salt Lake City ranked third in the nation for porch pirates in 2021. One Orem family was so p****d off by their numerous purloined packages that they took matters into their own hands. Contractor Justin Bankhead offered a $500 reward to anyone who could nab the box-nappers--and his son, 14-year-old Cody Bankhead...