"TopHat John Windle Talks About his 17 years in North Texas Real Estate

Valentine's Spending Comes Up Roses: 24 Stats and Facts

Americans shelled out nearly $19 billion in 2015. "TraditionalValentine's Day gifts are always the lead for widespread retail sales this time of year," stated Brent Shelton, FatWallet online shopping expert. "More recently though, we're seeing a big marketing push for smart tech as Valentine's gifts, especially wearables, which should increase spending in excess of $20 billion in 2016."

24 Fun Facts for Valentine's Day Spending (see full infographic):

1. Half of Americans will buy candy to the tune of $1.7 million
2. More than 36 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate are sold
3. 48% of women expect to receive chocolates as a Valentine's gift
4. Valentine's Day ranks #1 for fresh flower purchases in the US
5. 20% of all flower transactions happen during Valentine's
6. 1 in 4 Valentine's shoppers will buy flowers, half are bought for spouses
7. 250 million roses get produced for Valentine's Day
8. 40% of Valentine's flower purchases are red roses
9. Half buy greeting cards to the tune of more than 180 million
10. Valentine's ranks a far second to Christmas card sales (1.5 billion)
11. 85% of Valentine's cards are purchased by women
12. About 1/3 will do a Valentine's dinner and/or a movie
13. About 1 in 5 buy jewelry as Valentine's gifts
14. Almost 9% of all diamond jewelry is sold as Valentine's gifts
15. 2 to 1, men outspend women for Valentine's
16. More than 1/4 will shop online for Valentine's gifts, 1/3 of those from tablets
17. Valentine's shoppers spend an average of 30% more online
18. About 1 in 5 will buy for their pets
19. Almost half of marriage proposals happen on Valentine's Day
20. Almost 1/3 of Valentine's shoppers procrastinate
21. 40% of procrastinators believe it's too late to find a deal after Feb. 13
22. 38% want smartphones as a Valentine's gift
23. 1/2 of women that don't receive a gift would end their relationship
24. Tucson, AZ spending increases 68% during Feb. Valentine's Day sales

Data was aggregated from published surveys and reports by FatWallet.com. Data resources include: statisticbrain.com, aboutflowers.com, AMEX, EdahnGolan, Greeting Cards Association, Hallmark, Cardlytics, momentology.com, Ebates, Inc., Georgetown Institute for Consumer Research and National Retail Federation.

Homes Near Trader Joe's, Whole Foods Stores Appreciate Faster

Your local grocery market has a lot to do with what happens in your local housing market, according to a new analysis by Zillow featured in the paperback edition of Zillow Talk: Rewriting the Rules of Real Estate (Grand Central Publishing, Jan. 26).

Specifically, Zillow found that homes grow more rapidly in value if they are closer to a Trader Joe's or Whole Foodsi. Between 1997 and 2014, homes near the two grocery chains were consistently worth more than the median U.S. home. By the end of 2014, homes within a mile of either store were worth more than twice as much as the median home in the rest of the country.

"Like Starbucks, the stores have become an amenity in their own right – a signal to the home-buying public that the neighborhood they're located in is desirable, perhaps up-and-coming, and definitely improving," said Zillow Group Chief Economist Stan Humphries. "Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, the stores may actually drive home prices. Even if they open in neighborhoods where home prices have lagged those in the wider city, they start to outperform the city overall once the stores arrive."

The first book by Humphries and Zillow Group CEO Spencer Rascoff became a New York Times best seller after its hardcover release in January 2015. The book – out this week in paperback with a bonus chapter about the grocery store phenomenon – draws on Zillow's 10-year history collecting and analyzing real estate data, busting common myths and turning conventional wisdom on its head.

"The grocery store phenomenon is about more than groceries," said Rascoff. "It says something about the way people want to live – in the type of neighborhood favored by the generations buying homes now. Today's homebuyers seek things in neighborhoods that weren't even in real estate agents' vocabularies a generation ago: walkability, community, new urbanism – and maybe we should add words like sustainable seafood and organic pears."

Zillow analyzed the values of millions of homes near dozens of Trader Joe's and Whole Foods to conclude that grocery stores and home values are definitely related.

• According to the Zillow analysisii, the median home within a mile of a future Whole Foods store appreciates more slowly than other homes in the same city before the store opens. In the months before the stores open, the trend reverses and flips, so that after the stores' opening dates, homes near Whole Foods appreciate more quickly than other area homes.
• Homes near future Trader Joe's locations were appreciating at close to the same rate as other homes in the same city before the stores opened. After the opening date, however, Zillow found a clear boost in home appreciation rates. Two years after a Trader Joe's opened, the median home within a mile of the store had appreciated 10 percentage points more than homes in the city as a whole over the previous year.
• The analysis clearly shows that homes near the stores appreciate more quickly than homes in the city as a whole. That means the two brands are very good at choosing locations that will appreciate faster in the future, or are actually spurring home appreciation growth – or some combination of the two.

Credit Worries Standing Between You and Home ownership? Let's Get You Over that Roadblock

Our Realtors Can Help You Find A New Place to Hang Your Hat

Dallas - Fort Worth Housing Market Stats for December

Think buying a home is like nailing Jello to a wall?

We take the mess out of the home buying process!

Think you can't buy a home? Think again!

The Windle Group Provides A New Way to Buy and Sell a Home

List your home now, and let me save you some money!

Today, Zillow® announced its predictions for the ten hottest housing markets in 2016. Topping the list is Denver, followed by Seattle and Dallas-Fort Worth, all of which are major tech towns – ideal for job growth. Other places that made the list are Utah markets Ogden and Salt Lake City, along with Omaha, Neb. and Boise, Idaho.

To determine which markets would be hot, Zillow looked at home value appreciation, low unemployment rates, and strong income growth. Omaha has the lowest unemployment rate of the ten hottest markets, at just 2.9 percent. Denver saw home values rise 16 percent in 2015, and Zillow is forecasting them to rise another 5 percent in 2016, along with Portland.

A strong and diverse economy is the driving force behind Richmond's high income growth, with government, finance, education, and manufacturing jobs robust in the area and expected to continue  in 2016. Boise, Ogden, Salt Lake City and Sacramento all have high forecasted home value appreciation; homes are expected to appreciate an average of about five percent over the next year.

Zillow's Top 10 Housing Markets for 2016:

1. Denver, Colo.
2. Seattle, Wash.
3. Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas
4. Richmond, Va.
5. Boise, Idaho
6. Ogden, Utah
7. Salt Lake City, Utah
8. Omaha, Neb.
9. Sacramento, Calif.
10. Portland, Ore.

"Trendy tech centers like San Francisco, Seattle and Denver hogged the spotlight in 2015. But this year, the markets that shine brightest will be those that manage to strike a good balance between strong income growth, low unemployment and solid home value appreciation," said Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Svenja Gudell. "As the job market continues to hum and opportunity becomes more widespread, the best housing markets are no longer limited to the coasts or one-industry tech towns. This year's hottest markets have something for everyone, whether they're looking for somewhere to raise a family or start their career."

Three variables influenced Zillow's hot market predictions: Zillow's Home Value Forecasti, which forecasts the change in the Zillow Home Value Index over the next 12 months, recent income growthii, and current unemployment ratesiii. Those three variables were then scaled and combined to form a 'hotness score,' producing the top ten list.

Metropolitan Area	Forecasted Home Value Appreciation	Income Growth	Unemployment Rate
Denver	5.0%	1.1%	3.1%
Seattle	5.4%	1.1%	4.5%
Dallas-Fort Worth	5.6%	1.1%	4.0%
Richmond	2.2%	1.2%	4.4%
Boise	4.7%	1.0%	3.3%
Ogden	4.9%	1.0%	3.4%
Salt Lake City	4.4%	1.0%	3.1%
Omaha	3.2%	1.1%	2.9%
Sacramento	5.1%	1.1%	5.5%
Portland	5.0%	1.0%	5.0%

Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Supports Evidence-Based 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines For Americans

he Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics commends the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture for creating 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans that are based on a thorough review of the strongest available scientific evidence to improve how and what Americans eat.

"The 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines provide crucial science-based information for health professionals to use in helping consumers make healthy choices for themselves and their families. They will provide a solid basis for federal nutrition policy, identify future research needs and equip health professionals and employers with the tools necessary to benefit the public," said registered dietitian nutritionist and Academy President Dr. Evelyn F. Crayton.

"The Dietary Guidelines for Americans represent the U.S. government's cornerstone for nutrition policy and education for the next five years. As such, they affect every Academy member, every registered dietitian nutritionist and every dietetic technician, registered," Crayton said.

"The Academy supported the committee's evidence-based systematic review of the scientific literature, which is vital to assessing the current and emerging state of the science in food and nutrition. We commend HHS and USDA for their commitment to the Nutrition Evidence Library and their ongoing efforts to strengthen the evidence-based approach for assessing the scientific literature for future dietary recommendations," Crayton said.

The Academy supports the key recommendations of the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines, which recommend that everyone "consume a healthy eating pattern that accounts for all foods and beverages within an appropriate calorie level." The overall pattern of food eaten is the most important focus of healthy eating and has been related to a decrease in prevalence of chronic disease.

"The Academy and our members look forward to helping all Americans by translating the nutrition science and government recommendations into practical information for consumers and communities alike," Crayton said.

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics is the world's largest organization of food and nutrition professionals. The Academy is committed to improving the nation's health and advancing the profession of dietetics through research, education and advocacy. Visit the Academy at www.eatright.org.

Coldwell Banker Real Estate Survey Finds Nearly Half of Americans Will Have Smart Home Technology by the End of 2016

The year 2020 has long been a benchmark for when the "smart home" will finally be mainstream, but according to the results of a survey released today by Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC, the original Silicon Valley real estate start-up founded in 1906, that time may come sooner than we thought.

The Coldwell Banker® Smart Home Marketplace Survey, which polled more than 4,000 Americans in advance of CES 2016, found that almost half (45 percent) of all Americans either own smart home technology or plan to invest in it in 2016. The survey also showed that it's not just the tech-savvy who are on board with the smart home. Of people who either have smart home technology or plan to buy it in 2016, more than one in three (36 percent) say they don't consider themselves early adopters of technology.

The Smart Home Marketplace Survey also found that more than half of homeowners (54 percent) would purchase or install smart home products if they were selling their home and knew that doing so would make it sell faster. Of that group, 65 percent would pay$1,500 or more.

"Close to five million existing homes were sold in the United States in 2014, which represents a huge white space for smart home manufacturers," said Sean Blankenship, chief marketing officer for Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. "We are aiming to be the conduit between these manufacturers and home buyers and sellers, and conducting this research was one of the first of many steps toward achieving this goal." 

Selling Smarter: Real Estate and The Smart Home Coldwell Banker Real Estate is co-sponsoring the Smart Home Marketplace at CES 2016 in Las Vegas from Jan. 6-9, 2016. This marks the first time that a real estate company is sponsoring the Marketplace, which has nearly doubled in size since 2015.

Coldwell Banker Real Estate is also hosting a CES conference, titled "Selling Smarter: Real Estate and The Smart Home," onWednesday, Jan. 6 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Pacific. The conference will feature representatives from the Coldwell Banker brand as well as Nest, Lutron and August, who will discuss how "smart" is the next big trend in real estate and what that means for smart home technology manufacturers.

Additional Smart Home Marketplace Survey Findings

Entertainment is the entry-way for smart home technology.

• The most popular type of smart home technology that people already own is smart entertainment, such as smart TVs and speaker systems (44 percent of people with smart home technology).
• The next most popular types of smart home technology that people currently have installed in their home include smart security (31 percent) and smart temperature (30 percent).

Most Americans think a home can be considered "smart" if it has smart security, temperature, lighting and safety.

• When asked about what needs to be in a home for it to be considered "smart," the top choices were security (e.g., locks and alarm systems - 63 percent), temperature (e.g., thermostats and fans - 63 percent), lighting (e.g., light bulbs and lighting systems - 58 percent) and safety (e.g., fire / carbon monoxide detectors and nightlights - 56 percent).
• More than three-quarters (76 percent) of Americans think that having just one category of smart technology in your home isn't enough for it to be considered smart.

Smart home technology is no longer just for the young and affluent.

• Older generations are adopting certain types of smart home technology faster than younger ones. For instance, 40 percent of those over 65 who own smart home products currently have smart temperature products, compared to only 25 percent of Millennials (ages 18 to 34).
• The percentages of Americans with a household income of between $50k and $75k and that of those with between $75k and $100k who have smart home technology are nearly identical: 25 percent versus 26 percent.

Buying smart home products is in one word - addicting.

• Seventy (70) percent of people with smart home technology said buying their first smart home product made them more likely to buy another one.

The full survey results can be found here.

Search for smart homes for sale at www.coldwellbanker.com/smarthome.