How to Make Your Home Work For You
Millions of home owners in the United Kingdom are struggling to maintain their mortgage payments.
Many more have negative equity, so they are unable to move home.
No one wants to have to face arrears, or worse still-have their home repossessed.
Some homeowners though have decided to make their homes pay for themselves.
How can this be done? Not all, if any, of these ways may be suitable for you.
But, possibly you might read something here which could help you through the hard times until the economy improves.
The first way is to consider taking in a lodger.
You can earn up to £4,250 a year without having to pay tax on your income.
That equals around £350 a month, tax free.
The Rent a Room scheme has benefited hundreds of thousands of home owners, and it is thought that right now around one million people are lodgers.
Register with websites, and if you live in a university city, get in touch with the accommodation office to find a student lodger.
Students are often looking for accommodation at reasonable rates.
How about having someone lodge with you for part of the week, say during weeknights only? More people are working away from home as jobs are harder to come by, and they can not sell their own homes to move to a place closer to their work.
If they come to stay with you Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday night that is just over half the week, and you can get some handy income from it.
Not as much as for a full-time lodger true, but, it can make a real difference to you financially.
As an extension to lodging, you could even do bed and breakfast.
Obviously you can charge more for this service, as you are providing cooked meals.
This could be done all year round, or, if you are in a holiday location, during certain times of the year only.
Car parking can be very difficult to get hold of in many areas.
Rent out a parking space if you have a garage or driveway that you don't use.
Ideally you should live, say, near main line stations; city centre areas where the driver would have to pay to use often expensive car parks; locations close to airports for holiday parking, or those close to sports stadia.
It sounds crazy, but you could even rent out your whole house.
This is a major step, but if you can move into smaller rented accommodation you could pay less than you receive from tenants in your old home.
You have to weigh up all the tax implications of this arrangement though.
As there is a waiting list for most council allotments could you rent out part of your garden? If you aren`t into gardening, this lets someone else look after it for you, and you could share any produce from your land, even if you don`t get hard cash for it.
Foreign students need accommodation whilst they are doing their courses.
Obviously you`ve got a better chance if you live in a university town.
These kind of lets tend to be mainly short periods.
Try the accommodation office of your local college or university to see if you can get any interest.
Your spare space could be ideal for someone who wants to store something, some furniture, for example.
Some big businesses do very well out of providing storage space for people, and you might be able to do the same on a small scale.
And finally, back to the garden.
If you have more than you need, could you sell part of it to your neighbours who may willingly pay for a bit more garden for themselves? If you have a decent amount of land (enough to build a house on), would you be able to sell that part of the land to a developer? These are just a few ideas which might help you to get by during difficult financial times.
Not all will work in your situation, but it only might take the one that means the difference between you going into arrears on your loans and mortgage, and living comfortably.
Many more have negative equity, so they are unable to move home.
No one wants to have to face arrears, or worse still-have their home repossessed.
Some homeowners though have decided to make their homes pay for themselves.
How can this be done? Not all, if any, of these ways may be suitable for you.
But, possibly you might read something here which could help you through the hard times until the economy improves.
The first way is to consider taking in a lodger.
You can earn up to £4,250 a year without having to pay tax on your income.
That equals around £350 a month, tax free.
The Rent a Room scheme has benefited hundreds of thousands of home owners, and it is thought that right now around one million people are lodgers.
Register with websites, and if you live in a university city, get in touch with the accommodation office to find a student lodger.
Students are often looking for accommodation at reasonable rates.
How about having someone lodge with you for part of the week, say during weeknights only? More people are working away from home as jobs are harder to come by, and they can not sell their own homes to move to a place closer to their work.
If they come to stay with you Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday night that is just over half the week, and you can get some handy income from it.
Not as much as for a full-time lodger true, but, it can make a real difference to you financially.
As an extension to lodging, you could even do bed and breakfast.
Obviously you can charge more for this service, as you are providing cooked meals.
This could be done all year round, or, if you are in a holiday location, during certain times of the year only.
Car parking can be very difficult to get hold of in many areas.
Rent out a parking space if you have a garage or driveway that you don't use.
Ideally you should live, say, near main line stations; city centre areas where the driver would have to pay to use often expensive car parks; locations close to airports for holiday parking, or those close to sports stadia.
It sounds crazy, but you could even rent out your whole house.
This is a major step, but if you can move into smaller rented accommodation you could pay less than you receive from tenants in your old home.
You have to weigh up all the tax implications of this arrangement though.
As there is a waiting list for most council allotments could you rent out part of your garden? If you aren`t into gardening, this lets someone else look after it for you, and you could share any produce from your land, even if you don`t get hard cash for it.
Foreign students need accommodation whilst they are doing their courses.
Obviously you`ve got a better chance if you live in a university town.
These kind of lets tend to be mainly short periods.
Try the accommodation office of your local college or university to see if you can get any interest.
Your spare space could be ideal for someone who wants to store something, some furniture, for example.
Some big businesses do very well out of providing storage space for people, and you might be able to do the same on a small scale.
And finally, back to the garden.
If you have more than you need, could you sell part of it to your neighbours who may willingly pay for a bit more garden for themselves? If you have a decent amount of land (enough to build a house on), would you be able to sell that part of the land to a developer? These are just a few ideas which might help you to get by during difficult financial times.
Not all will work in your situation, but it only might take the one that means the difference between you going into arrears on your loans and mortgage, and living comfortably.
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