Free home decor apps for the amateur and home owners

With an abundance of information on our palms, we need not go looking for anything. This is the age of DIY (Do it yourself). Nearly everything can be done and recreated at home, including your home itself. There are millions of design ideas readily available on the internet. We explore the best free home decor apps helping you virtually construct your living space before actually investing on it. Here’s a list of our favorite free apps because the best things in life are free.

• Pinterest

Free
Available on iOS and Android

Pinterest is perhaps the most popular app today to browse through any kind of design idea. You can choose from millions of boards and pins of professionals and amateurs alike. Beautifully addictive this app is perfect for the ones seeking inspiration for your next home improvement plan, however big or small your budget may be.

• Houzz

Free
Available on iOS and Android

Houzz is one of the best free interiors, home decor and home solutions app today. Apart from having a great collection of ideas and photo library, this app covers interiors and home decor in its length and breadth. You can not only choose ideas, but products, DIY and consult experts. This is a great free app to have on your smart-phones to get a range of home improvement ideas.

• iHandy Level

Free
Available on iOS and Android

As the name suggest this app is an extremely handy level checker for your wall art, furniture, shelves and anything you can think of. This is a must have home solutions app.

• Snapshop Showroom

Free
Available on iOS

Snapshop Showroom is a great app that helps you visualize how your furniture looks in your set up using augmented reality. Just snap a picture of the space you wish to redecorate and choose from a wide range of furniture and upholstery options. You can place it , rotate etc. and see if it deems fit. It also offers an option to buy your furniture from popular brands like IKEA.

• Photo Measures Lite

Free
Available on iOS and Android

This has happened to all of us at some point of time, when we head to a store and forget the measurements and angles. Consider using Photo Measures Lite. Just snap a picture of the space and mark the desired measurements and angles. Easy and extremely helpful!


This is a guest post by Sulabha who is passionate in writing blogs and articles on Home décor, mobiles and Real Estate. Sulabha has written several blogs on home design, latest trends in industry of real estate market, latest demands on apartments in Hyderabad, commercial properties, land or plots.

What makes residential property rates go up & down???

Author: Sachin Gupta | Find me on Twitter Follow @sach_gupta

Recently one of my best pal visited one of the zillions property agent/dealer in Delhi NCR region, inquiring about the residential properties in Gurgaon and Greater Noida. He was looking to buy the residential property from an investment perspective. Now, just like any common man with black or white money (none of my business) in his pocket, he threw a plethora of questions on the poor property dealer. What is the current price in this region, that region, and that region?...what was the price last year? Is the property rights true or not?...what do you think of residential property appreciation?....what makes residential property go up & down?...and many such simple but make no mistake important questions.

Now, let me explain you why i called the property dealer "poor" because most of them are in the business not by choice but by 'no choice'. There is a saying these days "In India, whoever is out of job is either a Neta or a property dealer". However, they seem to be good at facilitating things and in the process makes a good commission if deal comes through. Now, asking these simple yet important questions to these property dealers is not going to satisfy many of the common people just like my friend.

So, what makes residential property prices go up & down? Lets Break It Down (L BID) to smaller elements. We all would agree that Demand and Supply are the two smaller elements of movement in property prices.

Now, what affects Demand? L BID again and we get 5 core smaller elements:

• Economic base (Nature of employment in the region under consideration)
• Income assessment of the people living in that region
• Population Growth
• Interest rate trends
• Property tax rates

Just to illustrate, one would have noticed that certain regions are dominated by particular industry (IT in Bangalore) and income levels of people in IT industry are higher compared to say manufacturing industry. What do we understand from this?? I guess, you guessed it right, if population growth and interest rate trends are favorable then residential property rates would appreciate much faster in IT dominated region than in manufacturing region.

Now, what affects Supply? L BID again and we get 3 core smaller elements:

• Land availability
• Factors of production such as labor, capital(money), materials
• Environmental restrictions, building codes, other regulations

Just to illustrate, one would have noticed that in certain regions huge amount of land is available such as outskirts of major metro cities (Gurgaon, Noida, Faridabad around Delhi). Since there is shortage of usable land in Delhi, the property prices tends to move up because for a limited amount of land thousands of people are running and each one has the money to outclass the other. In-fact, within a city say Delhi, in certain areas such as GK, because of shortage of usable land and other appealing facilities such as retail, educational, recreational, etc. the prices tend to move up compared to other areas within Delhi.

Finally, having understood the Demand & Supply elements, the current market equilibrium is done in order to understand the current property rates and why they are moving up or down.

So folks, whenever in doubt regarding the property prices or related things, L BID the issue and don't throw these questions on poor chap (property dealer).

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