More people looking for lodgers

A house share website has seen an increase of nearly 30% in the number of people looking for a lodger.

Some 2,487 people have advertised their spare room on Spareroom.com in the first fortnight of 2010 - an increase of 27% on the same period last year, the company said.

And the company said it had already seen more adverts in those fourteen days than for the whole of last December.

Two-thirds of people who are looking to take in a lodger said it was because their finances were overstretched, and the extra cost of Christmas had forced them to take action.

The group said it had seen a record number of people advertising for lodgers during 2009, and it expected the trend to continue this year.

The average weekly rent charged for a room in a shared property is currently £87, the equivalent of £4,524 a year, the first £4,250 of which is tax-free under the Government's rent-a-room scheme.

Matt Hutchinson, director of Spareroom.co.uk, said: "It seems that Christmas has acted as a tipping point for many homeowners whose finances have been stretched to the limit by the impact of the recession.

"With Christmas over and done with, homeowners are using the start of a new year as the motivation to get their finances in order.

"As a result, we have seen unprecedented levels of live-in landlords advertising in the first two weeks of 2010."

Copyright © Press Association 2010
All articles are copyright The Press Association 2010. News articles provided by The Press Association for Family Investments. Whilst every care it taken to ensure accuracy of editorial content, Family Investments takes no responsibility for any errors or omissions. The views expressed in these articles are not necessarily those of Family Investments.

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