Household Bills
Eight top ways to make money from your home
On this day 25 years ago, the Queen opened the doors of Buckingham Palace to the public. At £8 a go and as many as 400,000 visitors a year, it helps with a bit of outside painting and a replacement roof tile or two. But you don’t have to live in a castle to make money from your home. Here are eight options for normal folk.
1) Accept paying guests
The advent of sites such as Airbnb or Spareroom has made it super-easy to let out spare rooms in your home. The best thing about it is that it is temporary – if you get a bad guest, you don’t have to suffer them for long. Remember that if you are making more than £1,000 a year, you will have to pay tax on the income.
2) Use it to get a free holiday
Sites such as Guest to Guest or Guardian Home Exchange give access to a global network. It’s a bit hit and miss as to whether you’ll find someone who wants to be where you live with a house somewhere you want to go, but if you can be flexible, it can make for a super-cheap holiday.
3) Rent your spare room
This is a more permanent arrangement. You can rent out a room for up to £7,500 each year tax free. Sites such as Gumtree and Craigslist can help.
4) Rent out your excess space
If you’ve got cupboard space you don’t use, you can rent it out for storage. Storemates gets great online reviews.
5) Become a film location
Yes, admittedly this will probably only be a certain type of house, but there’s no harm in trying it to see if your house can play a starring role. Approach location agents such as Shoot Factory or the Location Collective.
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6) Rent out your drive
Those who are lucky enough to have a spare drive can rent it out. Register with Just Park or Your Parking Space.
7) Rent out a room for meetings
Once again, it has to be the right sort of home, but you can try registering on Vrumi.
8) Host international students
Students may not be everyone’s idea of a welcome house guest, but international students may be better house-trained. You’ll probably have to do a bit of nannying, fetching them from the airport and so on, but Host International claims that you can make up to £200 per week.
There are other less exciting ways to make money from your home. Most mortgage providers will allow you to take a payment holiday if you need a break from your mortgage for a couple of months. However, do remember that you are adding to the debt, so you’ll pay back more over time. You could also consider taking a second charge on your home, though this is more for circumstances of genuine distress and interest rates tend to be high. A good mortgage adviser can help.
There is no reason why your home should lie idle, so give it a try – like the Queen, it may help with the upkeep of one’s home.