Figures from the flat and house share website showed that new live-in landlord ads in August rose 9.8% on July 2010 to the highest number of new ads place in any one month since Spareroom.co.uk launched six years ago.
Matt Hutchinson, director of Spareroom.co.uk, said: “Homeowners are feeling the financial pinch and, with the government announcing its spending review in October, tax hikes imminent and many people worried about job security, any additional income streams are welcomed.”
The current average weekly room rent in the UK is now £88 per week, according to Spareroom.co.uk, offering much needed income for homeowners. In addition, the government’s rent-a-room allowance allows people to earn up to £4250 tax free from renting out a spare room.
Hutchinson said that the site had seen spikes in homeowners advertising for lodgers in January, when many were suffering from spending too much at Christmas, and in June, following the government’s emergency Budget.
“Numbers have been on an upward trend ever since as thousands of homeowners, who may have thought they had escaped the recession unscathed, received a wake up call about the fragile state of their finances,” he said.
“We expect another spike in live-in landlord numbers following the Coalition government’s spending review in October.”
