Make Your House Earn Its Keep

Did you realise that there is a lot you can do get an income from what is probably your most valuable asset? Not only is your property a great (long-term) investment, your home could also bring you an income while you are still living in it. Here are some ideas to make your property really earn its keep.

Does your property have a spare room? Firstly, in the UK did you realise that you can rent out a room in your house and not be liable for Income Tax on the rental income up to £4,250 per year? The scheme is called Rent a Room and applies to someone who lives as a lodger in your house. The lodger would be someone who shares your facilities and would have meals provided.

The scheme was set up by the government to help alleviate the huge shortage of affordable housing in the UK.

As well as advertising your room in your local newspaper or newsagent's window make sure that you ask around where you work and play! This scheme is particularly suited to people who live a long way from their place of work and only need rent somewhere to stay during the week. You would have a lodger that you knew and you would also get your weekends back for some privacy.

A fun way to make some money from your home is to hire it out as a film location. It does not need to be a mansion or stately home of the type seen in costume dramas. For example, the house of Harry Potter's cruel Aunt and Uncle used for the films is on an ordinary housing estate in Bracknell, Berkshire, UK, and trust me it doesn't get much less glamorous than that! Think of all the shots in TV shows that are filmed in ordinary streets - only long running soaps have their own sets built for constant use.

Recently we saw the staff of a local estate agent packing up their files and moving out. Thinking that the local housing market wasn't that bad, we asked what was going on. A film company has seen their shop front and decided it was perfect for a few scenes in the film they were making nearby!

The easiest way to get your home on TV is to register your home with an agency which specialises in finding properties for TV and films, most will add you to their database for free, only taking a fee where your property is actually used for filming. It may not be a regular form of income but you could have the cream of Hollywood sitting in your living room!

Copyright Jacqui O'Brien 2005

Jacqui O'Brien is the editor of http://www.ahomeofmyown.co.uk, the directory of UK Private Seller property websites where you can also list your FSBO property for sale free.

There is something emotionally charged about the buying and selling of New York high-end real estate. How else to explain the juggernaut of reality TV shows about high-end brokers?

After 30 years of marriage, Sharon and Michael Newman decided it was finally time to move from the Catskills to New York City.

On blocks near Kissena Park streets are quiet, houses are small, and the electricity that charges the atmosphere in downtown Flushing is nowhere to be found.

A five-story, seven-bedroom house in Brooklyn Heights has sweeping views of New York Harbor and the Manhattan skyline.

Demand is so intense that there are waiting lists in some buildings, and a few landlords report that eager renters are even bidding up rents.

Sales at the very high end of the market barely missed a beat in the recession. But that prosperity hasn’t yet trickled down.

A Flatiron condo, a Midtown South co-op and a Brooklyn Heights carriage house.

A four-bedroom ranch in Montclair, N.J., and a four-bedroom colonial Cape in Babylon, N.Y.

For a century, Roosevelt Island housed a grim penitentiary. It was demolished in the 1930s.

More borrowers are opting for fixed-rate loans with terms other than the standard 30 or 15 years, especially when it comes to refinancings.

Two more glass skyscrapers are added to a group of towers on the waterfront of Long Island City.

Insurance coverage for a co-op unit; when a tenant is ‘blacklisted’; a co-op is smaller than estimated.

The market for $500,000-to-$600,000 houses in Westchester has become especially active.

A shaky real estate market means more sellers are providing buyer concessions, from gift cards to help with paying property taxes.

Houses of worship are adaptable to residential and other uses as congregations dwindle.

The settlement reached last week over questionable mortgage practices by major American banks hardly cracks the iceberg that is the foreclosure mess.

Under the settlement, nearly two million Americans could benefit from mortgage relief from the nation’s biggest banks.

A cold war-era satellite relay station is for sale in California after a Silicon Valley mogul gave up on plans to turn it into a weekend home.

How can I make my front porch more appealing to buyers?

Court hearings meant to protect New York homeowners from foreclosure are hopelessly slowed by endless paperwork and requests for additional information.

The Bay Area and Silicon Valley expect the windfall from the Facebook stock offering to make their in-demand region even hotter.

The house, designed by the architect Eric Fisher, looms over the street like a big industrial arm.

A town house in Dallas, a midcentury modern in Rhode Island and a Tudor in Denver.

Prices in some parts of the country are still off by as much as 25 percent from their 2007 peak.

Trinity Church is the largest landlord in Hudson Square and is part of the effort to rezone the area to residential from manufacturing.

Rising oil prices and a boom in shale exploration are leading companies to add office space in the Houston area, most notably Exxon Mobil.

Ms. de França is the president and chief executive of Douglas Elliman Development Marketing, which focuses on new residential developments.

Meet the real estate broker’s interns: an ambitious group willing to do anything, earn nothing and wake up early on a Sunday to fluff the couch cushions at open houses.

A Flatiron condo, a Midtown South co-op and a Brooklyn Heights carriage house.

A four-bedroom ranch in Montclair, N.J., and a four-bedroom colonial Cape in Babylon, N.Y.

Homes in Dallas, Rhode Island and Denver.

Compare the cost of renting and buying equivalent homes.

For recently divorced men, a new breed of decorators offers help navigating a strange new world.

Plants that light up the winter garden can be found at Broken Arrow Nursery in Connecticut, which has long been a favorite of gardening geeks.

A sister in need drew the painter Beverly McIver back home to North Carolina, unaware that a new beginning was in store for both of them.

A jewelry designer finds striking new objects for storage.

Timothy Sakamoto and Jochen Repolust are part of the small but growing niche making mobile apps focused on specific works of architecture.

To promote an auction of 20th- and 21st-century design, the interior designer Stephen Sills has created a preview exhibition in an apartment at the Apthorp.

Fishs Eddy now sells plates acquired from the archives of the now-defunct Syracuse China Corporation, many more than 100 years old.

The designer Russell Greenberg creates custom baby rattles with ends shaped like profiles of mom and dad.