Winning the HGTV Dream Home

Winning the HGTV Dream Home is a dream for many people. While die-hard sweepers will often enter sweepstakes for items as small as a candy bar, The HGTV Dream Home is a sweepstakes that attracts people that don't ordinarily enter contests. This prize is worth over a million dollars! Not only will the 2011 Dream Home winner get a home in Stowe, Vermont, they will also get a brand-new GMC Denali and $500,000 cash!

In the sweeping community, people are very into this sweepstakes.  About the time when they announce the winner, typically in March, people get excited when they get an unexpected knock at the door.  It could be them!  The winner this year could be you... or it could be me.

While it would be exciting to win the dream home, there are some things that you should know about this contest. Read on to find out more.

The first thing that you should know about the HGTV Dream Home is that you won't win if you don't enter.  You can start entering the contest on January 1st, 2011.  You'll have until February 18th to enter.  You can enter once per day, and you don't have to buy anything.

If you happen to win the HGTV Dream Home, you'll probably want to sell the home.  Why?  The Dream Home will be very expensive to keep.  If you don't believe me, you might want to read the story of Don Cruz, the 2005 Dream Home winner.  He didn't exactly live happily ever after.  He decided to keep his HGTV Dream Home, along with his old home.

The maintenance on the Dream Home is pretty expensive, plus you'll have to pay income taxes and property taxes on your win.  I won a trip in 2008, and because my income was really low, it really didn't make a dent in my taxes.  If you win a million-dollar prize like this home, you'll automatically be in the highest tax bracket.

HGTV will offer to buy the house from you.  You might want to visit the beautiful home, have a sleepover, and then sell it back to HGTV.  With the millions that you'll get from them, you can build a less expensive dream home for yourself, with money left over.

If the only sweepstakes you're ever going to enter is the HGTV Dream Home, it might not make sense to buy a program like Roboform to make your sweeping time faster.  However, if you really like sweeping, you might want to buy this program.  You can enter sweepstakes in seconds with this program.

As long as you and your spouse have your own email addresses, you can both enter the HGTV Dream Home Sweepstakes. The rules state that each eligible person with their own email address can enter once per day, if they enter online. That means you and your spouse (if you're both over 18).

Sorry, if you're under 18, you can't enter. You also can't enter if you're not a person. If you work for HGTV or any of the sponsors, you can't enter either. If you're an axe murderer, child predator, or someone that HGTV thinks would reflect negatively on their company, you probably won't end up winning. They reserve the right to not give you the prize.

You can enter by mail as often as you like. See the rules for the address and the specific things you have to hand-write to enter this way.

Don't try to enter for your grandma, parents, aunts, uncles, or cousins. Especially if they're dead. At any rate, you don't have the authorization to enter for them.