Here are some things to consider when buying a home in the Denver Metro area:

* New construction usually costs more per square foot than existing homes.

* New construction usually features built-in appliances, larger closets, low-maintenance siding, and more energy efficiency.

* Resale homes are usually located in established neighborhoods so they may offer a greater sense of community.

* Fixer-uppers allow you to make an overall change for a more personalized property. If the neighborhood will support the cost of fixing up the house, it may even allow a good return on your investment.

No matter what kind of home you buy in Denver, you’re going to need a great Colorado real estate agent to get you the best buy for your money.

Visit Kristen Slaughter at LoriCorken.com for the Colorado home of your dreams.

Since organizational skills are imperative in my household, I’ll opt for the neat nick room and decorate around that style. The most important pieces come first.

• Bed
• Desk
• Dresser
• Chair
• Shelves

Once those are in place, consider the arrangement as “areas of the room” and organize each area for optimal space and use of the space available. Dressing area would be closet and dresser. You’ll need to add a mirror and any specific dressing aids the child will need to this space.  If the closet is large enough, confining all clothing storage to inside the closet is a boost to the use of space in the room, because that expands wall space for other details of the child’s room.

Forming an L in a corner with the desk and shelves makes the best use of both time and space for studying.  Not only is  your space efficient to use, but it’s efficient when you’re studying too. All your books and supplies are readily available within an arms reach of your chair. Can’t beat that! It works well and it’s a great looking area when people come by to see you.

So, now we’re ready for the bed.

Put the bed on the largest wall, out from the wall for ease of making the bed. I always suggest the head of the bed in the center of the wall and adjust around that, when I can’t see the room. Otherwise, I’ve found that offsetting the bed just enough to make allowances for other furniture is a good option.

Baskets, buckets, tins and other organizers work particularly well to either grow with the child or be used elsewhere in the home as children outgrow the need for clutter-storage. Effective storage usually comes in a variety of styles and colors for children, though I’ve found the best appearances come from a uniform/same color look.

While small children relate to multi-colored baskets, older children prefer something less “pre-school” for their organization.

ACE Writers offers a wide selection of articles for your marketing site, including ready to publish marketing pieces that review specific items. For more information, visit http://acewriters.com and receive your specially selected info packet.

In the back roads around Denver, she found a home that fit my family and suited my needs that was still in my budget. That meant more than you could imagine. Then I realized the most important part of the value… The home was move in ready.

How can you stage your home for better sale value for the buyer?

Create a move in ready home presentation for your realtor —

• Take time to freshen up the paint on the interior and exterior of your home.  Color is important to buyers and in this day, their money is precious – they want updated colors and clean fresh lines. Cut the white glow and add “coffee shop cozy” colors to your home for the ultimate showcase home.
• Carpet, in a word… “NO!” Your buyers want hard wood floors, natural slate tile and ceramic or granite floors. Upgrade to wood for a faster sale and get rid of that awful, allergic response carpet.
• Counters must be granite. Seriously, if you’ve left the counters formica – change them. Granite is awesome! Everyone here in Denver loves granite and stone kitchen counters.
• Bathroom cabinets and counters are important. Select high end design, even if you are cutting corners, be choosy enough to create the best design possible, for your budget.
• Ceilings should have some style and design, even if it’s simply painted on texture. Layered texture with molding can give the look of a tray ceiling even if it’s flat as a board.
• Heighten awareness of any architectural features with moldings and trim designs. Painted a vibrant, bright white, molding can emphasize the architectural value of your home and highlight the best parts.
• Entry and exits should reveal extra high impact colors and values for making the best impressions.

Tip: always place a mirror just inside exterior doors for new home buyers. They’ll be able to literally SEE themselves in their new home.

Denver area realtors offer high benefit selling points for home owners. Use their expertise when preparing your home for sale. Better yet, call a Home Stager for spectacular Sale Value and a memorable presentation of your home.

Contact one of our home stagers for a complete review of  your home’s selling points at 303.968.6863.

Warm Up a Color Scheme with Hot Yellow Brights

There was a reason for the yellow daffodils in the garden. The hot yellow bright color warmed up winter white in one bold stroke of genius planted at least one season before the need arose. Way back when people thought ahead for more than a year, perennial flowers grew in the same garden year after year, for the same family. Purple crocus and yellow daffodils were an instant wakeup from winter’s sleep hibernation.

Inside, rooms come to life painted the color of a bold yellow green leaf, or sunshine yellow, or even crocus purple.

Conservative Neutrals Anchor the Space Providing Restful Allure

Dress accents, woodwork, and heavy furniture in neutrals to give the eye a restful place to linger when the colors might get too bold. Floors and ceilings in pale beige, crepe paper tan, or rice paper gray offer a hint of conservative drama to the brilliant colors of springtime. Keep the colors lively, by providing a crisp outline of neutralization.

Accent with Delicious Fruit Colors and Risky Bursts of Over Bright Surprise

• Linear metal frame tables painted watermelon red, lamp bases painted jolting orange, or curtain panels in a jolting shade of sunshine yellow make a statement in a bold green room softened by neutrals.
• Sky blue lampshades and grassy green voile curtain panels blowing in spring breezes bring light to a richly purple room, while a brilliant yellow throw turns up the heat.
• Crisp green lines on accent tables covered in bold floral print fabric dress up the sunshine yellow play room just enough to let checkered blues and reds dance to the rhythm of family living.

Looking for a cure for the winter blues and can’t find the way out of enclosing white walls, beige floors and boring vertical blinds that blend into the furniture, add a jolt of color and see if the solution doesn’t appear. Quickly interview family members and gather their favorite colors into a color scheme that works with neutrals as the foundation.

By using one color as the high intensity foundation on walls and grounding the scheme with neutrals in a bold wheat color, other colors create a jolting sensation of personality and pleasure as they dance through a room filled with family heirlooms, priceless memories and daily activities. Provide storage containers for each family member in their favorite color and toss any belongings that get left behind in their container. When it’s full, they have to empty the container.

Living Well with Color

Trendy decorating colors blended with gentle neutrals make living with color easy. Significant amounts of black and beach colored sandy colors in a room can meld even the most radical color scheme into a simply adorable color palette. The old rules of color schemes haven’t totally disappeared, but migrating away from the set standard allows family living to be the basis of the design.

The best part about increasing trendy use of color in living spaces is that family color preferences blend together in a loving family home. That makes living more fun!

1 – Home Stagers offer Innovative Views

A fresh look at your home can give you a better idea of what might sell, or what might not. Consider having a fresh new view of your home to determine the real value to a new buyer – the buyer will see their view. You’ve lived there for a while and what has become comfortable to you may not even grab the second notice from a new buyer. A home staging professional can take one look at your home and share the most effective presentation, encourage you to sparkle and shine the areas that need attention and give your buyer the very best overview of your home. Innovative views will keep the cost to a minimum, shrinking the overhead of marketing your home in a market where  you can’t afford to waste money.

2 – FSBO Marketing Specialists

If you’re selling your home yourself, there are a few things about marketing you should know. We can’t give you realtor advice, but we’ll get detailed about how to market your home, where to present the pictures and how to make the most of your home’s curb appeal and interior design to get it sold for the buck.

Often for-sale-by-owner means the signs will fall down and you’ll replace the roof twice before the buyers catch on, but it doesn’t have to be. You COULD call a stager and hit the ground running with buyers who can’t resist the cutest home on the block. Open your OPEN HOUSE with cozy nooks, welcoming entries and picturesque views of the home your buyers are dreaming of – using the same furniture you’ve been sitting on for  years. Staging your home doesn’t have to break the bank or the budget. Call US!

3 – Helping Buyers locate Your Home

Attracting buyers when you choose not to use a realtor means bringing them to the key function of your home. Do you have a great key component of living in your house? Maybe it’s the best show stopping house on the block? Great views? Tell your buyer before they arrive what they can expect.

A high-quality home stager can give you the best suggestions for selling your home, presenting the pictures and descriptions for buyers and even tell you WHERE to market your home for sale in the Denver area (or whatever area you live in).

Call a Home Stager in Denver to make your home sparkle and shine before the first buyer stops by. We do Consultations by appointment – in your home. Call 303.779.0241 for a quick quote and 15 minute discussion.

Lifestyle in Denver trumps design on most days, but in the end, great color, style and function win in every home staging project. Can you imagine settling into the home of your dream only to realize there’s no functional sense to your home?

“We wanted to stage our home for sale, but we knew the design had to be functional, because we had to live there at least for a few weeks,” explained Dianne Carter, new staging client for a Denver metro real estate office. “Staging for function meant our dream would be a living showcase.”

What Dianne Carter understood that many home stagers misunderstand is the value of making the staged home functional. Sharing 5 steps of color and style that will allow a home owner to live in the staged design means functional living becomes part of the design.

1 – Wrap up Lifestyle and Color with Functional Design

White fills up much of the seasonal color changes, either white hot summer skies or white ice and snow of winter, the color white makes Denver memorably, but most home owners want to capture a different part of the Denver weather scheme. A favorite among home owners included autumn colors with crisp winter whites, but not everyone loves Aspen leaves.

Consider stepping into a home in cool mountain colors, dressed in soft blue grays, warm watery greens and sparked with sappy russets and gold. Would color bring the mountain lifestyle home? Capture the sky blue of a spring sky, lush forest green of the pines and the magnificent purple of a columbine in a fantasy style modern designed home. No matter how rugged and chiseled the lifestyle, if the colors capture a memory and bring the home owner back to their favorite moment, style fits.

2 – Wide Open Spaces Collide with Décor Style

Leave plenty of wall space to allow for stashing supplies and equipment when sportsters come in from a long weekend. Arrange furniture away from the wall with a few corners and hiding spaces for weekend staples. Plenty of seating allows for company on Bronco weekends. Add extra tables for food and fun when entertaining guests. Use trunks and box tables to store equipment and hide away any supplies for the long term.

Fold away dining tables that leave hardwood dancing surfaces let the party come indoors when the clouds roll in.

3 – Include Lifestyle in Decorating Style

A bike may be wall décor, or a ski-board the only picture in the dining room. Creating décor around the basic lifestyle lived in the area may mean optional decorator items. Useful decorator items that don’t include sporting equipment may include paintings or photography taken by the home owner, sculpture created in the mountains, or nature art collected on hikes and other adventures. Wildlife aficionados may opt to bring home trophy antlers and heads, or a bear skin rug. These lifestyle art types have a whole different outlook on decorating a home.

Capture the Lifestyle to Decorate a Home

Before a new home owner can grasp the concept of decorating their home, they must first find the lifestyle they want to live. Decorating around a mountain lifestyle means adding in part of the mountains, more than color, include the style and design of mountain living. Bringing in the sports and interests a person shares, along with applying lessons learned and inviting friends to join the family means incorporating a lot of action into decorating style.

Installing a new welcome mat, lighting up the rooms and washing down the exterior of a home bring in new buyers. The key to selling a home may be a bit more dramatic.

Staging a home for sale means updating the overall home presentation and giving new buyers a fresh perspective of residential living. Buyers realize that cob webs, dust, and clutter are realities of living in any home, but they seek new, fresh spaces for their personal belongings. In order to sell a home, they must view the space as fresh and new.

There are probably as many ideas about freshening up and staging a house as there are houses, but these five steps will quickly recondition and stage your home for quick sale.

1 – Clear the Clutter Inside and Out

Start at the street and remove any clutter that blocks the front door, windows, or views. If it obstructs a view, get rid of it. If it creates a view, enhance it.

Inside, be sure your door opens wide, clean the floors until they sparkle and make sure your entry is crisp and welcoming. Let the space flow. Clear out excess furniture and toys, clutter and games can go to storage. Clean the closets and empty out all the extra dishes and cookware. The objective is to create a welcoming SPACE that gives the impression the home offer space for new residents.

2 – Enhance the Entry and Curb Appeal

Clip the grass, edge the lawn, and arrange planters of fresh blooming flowers around the front entry – viewable from the curb. This is the time to dress up that mail box with a fresh coat of paint and a pot of geraniums. Updating outside colors if the paint is cracked and chipped is a good idea. Consider painting even if it’s just faded.

Paint the front door a fresh new color. Warm up the entry hall with a warm neutral color and add some fresh white daisies to make the most of bright lights and open windows. Make the most of color by impacting the space with a jolt of accent color in a conspicuous place.

3 – Furnish for Showcasing and Conversation

Move furniture away from the walls, open up wall space, open the windows and arrange furniture for communication. Conversational seating groups include 4 or five seats and a place to set a drink. By pulling furniture away from the walls and accentuating the space in the room, wall color stands out, makes a statement and acknowledges the simple value of living well.

Minimize furniture in a room by removing excess pieces, trimming cords and taking away the personalizing clutter (family photos gotta go). Clear table tops and polish. Clean lamps or add new shades and turn them on.

4 – Accessorize for Definition

Add in high-color, high-impact art with simple color and geometric shapes framed with neutral color frames. Toss on a few throw pillows and a warm wrap for cozy evenings. Be sure wood shines and glass sparkles. Add flowers and candles for warm glow and life. Don’t forget the curtains. Curtains and window coverings should be rich and luxurious, color and style are important – more importantly, they must coordinate with the rest of the room design.

Here’s where details count – tie on a tassel, wrap a ribbon or showcase a favorite sculpture. Step back and look for that one last detail that will finish off the room for the best advantage.

5 – Before the Open House

Put out fresh woodsy aromatics, light some candles and make sure the curtains are open for great views of the outdoors. Check the back yard and put away all the toys, freshen up the backyard living spaces and mow the lawn.

Hang wind chimes and turn on soft classical music.

Create a Spectacular Open House

Once the home is staged, bake some cookies, put on a pot of coffee and leave the show to a competent realtor. Leave your home owner’s manual with details of home upkeep and dates of new installation on the counter. Go have a great afternoon.

Are you ready to sell your home? Looking for a home stager in Denver Metro area? I’m here for the duration… email dorine.verhoeff@gmail.com for more information.

]]> http://designhome4sale.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=31 5 http://designhome4sale.com/blog/?p=26 http://designhome4sale.com/blog/?p=26#comments Fri, 01 Jan 2010 17:58:09 +0000 admin http://designhome4sale.com/blog/?p=26

Apartment dwellers often spend the majority of their time away from home, simply because their lifestyle demands it. But, on those days when you just want to curl up and live the moment, enjoy your own company and hide away from the world, here are a few tips for decorating your home for a better experience.

Color Balance

Even if you’re stuck in a womb of white walls, white carpet and white window coverings, you can add color to your space. A vibrant throw rug in the middle of the room will add color and save your rental deposit from those nasty stains of white carpeting doom. Select the darkest color and buy a sofa in that color – or cover your current sofa with a dark throw. Toss on a selection of brightly colored sofa pillows and a light throw for a cozy evening cover-up. Add in a couple of colorful chairs and you’ve got a magnificent conversation pit, don’t forget to invite friends over.

Lighting Your World

Ceiling light fixtures are mostly a thing of the past, and present. Apartment dwellers have found for years, that many apartment complexes offer little if any fixed lighting. Solve the problem with a variety of lamps.

Floor lamps and table lamps come in a wide variety of styles and colors. Go complimentary to your furniture selection and don’t skimp. You really will find a place for the extra lamp, and it will come in handy. If you prefer soft lighting, use smaller wattage bulbs. For bright light, raise the wattage.

For brighter task lighting, inexpensive utilitarian lights can be clamped to most any surface and work well to focus light on a specific project. These clamp on lights come in handy for most any purpose. In fact, one gentleman used them in place of lamps for the longest time in his apartment. They made a decorative statement with lower watt bulbs.

Personality Picks

Minimalist societies often skimp on the personality picks, but you can be assured, personality will spice up your home and make it more livable. Just add a bit of you and see how much more cozy your space feels.

Bookcases hold your favorite tombs, accessories, and a few requirements. For those who are studying for a better education, a bookcase protects your school books and improves your organization skills. Videos and photo albums always look more attractive when shelved for easy access.

An entertainment center can display or hide your attraction to mass media. Select one that allows easy viewing and plenty of storage for your equipment.

Arrangement

Be certain your arrangement allows for easy movement around the apartment, even when you have a crowd. Traffic flow is important because nobody wants to feel claustrophobic. Give yourself some elbow room. Most importantly, use the space to your advantage.

A bicycle could be wall art, if you hang it properly, easily accessible for use later. Consider those baskets you need to carry laundry and other equipment as decorating elements to be used for other purposes when they don’t provide carry-all duty. A breakfast tray or T.V. Tray can be an end table you can either set up or take down as needed. An unsightly pair of file cabinets in your dining room office may do double duty as a buffet for a party with a covering of something pretty.

Use your imagination to create a home you will love, even if your home is an apartment.

For more information about places where housing costs are still diving, ClickHere.

During these times of global financial uncertainty, some investment strategies that had been out of favor during the boom years are now making a re-appearance. One investment opportunity that has been around for years, but are now becoming highly profitable investments are government tax liens.

Simply, a tax lien is a claim against a house for unpaid local property taxes. The governing authority that is seeking payment of outstanding taxes places a lien on the property. This lien remains until the owner of the property pays their tax obligation. The lien ensures that the property cannot be transferred to anyone else unless the outstanding taxes are paid.

Tax Lien Certificates are sold by the governing authority at tax property auctions. This is where you, the investor, can make a great return. If you purchase one of these Liens the property owner must pay you the tax debt. They cannot sell the property and are in debt to you. If after a certain period of time (depending on the municipality of the property) the property owner has not paid you back, then the property passes to you.

Investing in a property that is under government lien tax foreclosure is profitable, because you can get it cheap and sell it later at a good price and make a good profit from it. This kind of investment is often seen as safe as the homeowner may pay up the value of the tax lien or lose the title to the property to the investor holding the lien papers. The downside is that it is possible that other creditors are owed money by the property owner, and if they declare bankruptcy, these creditors may have a prior claim to yours.

If you would like to invest in a government tax lien certificate, it is important that you have the correct information to understand what your investment is. With a bit of focused work on your part, you could make excellent returns on your investment. If the property associated with the lien certificate has good underlying value and is in good condition then it will be worthwhile investing in it.

You have to be confident that this tax foreclosure property is currently in a excellent state of repair to retain it’s value. It’s a positive outcome and a simple investment if the property owner pays his outstanding taxes to you as the owner of the lien. If the property owner cannot pay his outstanding taxes to you and you find that the property requires significant repairs, you could lose money. To avoid this outcome, you must see the property and be confident that it is a good investment before purchasing a lien certificate.

Tax foreclosure sales are cash only transactions at tax property auctions, so if you want to be successful and fast moving, you’ll need to have liquid cash funds available to you. If you have other ways of producing the cash, you only have 1 – 3 days to settle the deal.

Be aware of the risk that the property owner may file for Bankruptcy. If your end game was to secure the title of the house then this may be jeopardized as the judge may only compensate you with the value of the government tax lien certificate only.

The upside of county tax lien investments is the significant return that can be made. Tax liens are reasonably scarce so if you pick up a good one it can be considered a very valuable investment. You need to be able to demonstrate a good profit in the first place before taking the plunge into properties that are under tax foreclosure.

Make sure that you have all of the information you require and a carefully considered investment blueprint that will allow you to succeed in a government lien tax business. Remember that with any investment comes risk, and the larger the potential profits, the larger the potential losses if the strategy has not been considered fully.

Good luck with your future investing.

If you need to know more about county tax liens or government tax foreclosures, we’d love to see you at http://taxforeclosures.lifeandmoneyonline.com where we share our investment knowledge and insight on foreclosure tax sales. Check out our recommended resources and current information that will give you the investing edge you’re looking for.

Nicole M Brooks

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nicole_M_Brooks
http://EzineArticles.com/?Profit-Through-Tax-Property-Auctions-and-County-Tax-Lien-Property-Investments&id=1825455