Many people have found it harder to sell their house recently, so if you’re keen to get your house sold in 2009, then you may need to implement a few extra tips and tricks to help boost its selling potential.

1. Try and identify any areas that may put buyers off, like clutter, particular interior decoration or an unusual way of organising a room. A fresh pair of eyes may help.

2. Be prepared to make changes if you really want to sell your house. It doesn’t need to be drastic or cost a fortune, but you do need to make an effort.

3. Clear out all your clutter. If you’ve not got immediate storage space available, see if you can store items in a friend’s garage or use a self-storage facility.

4. It’s fine to decorate rooms to your taste when you’re living in a house, but if you’ve got strong colours or unique decorations, then they may need toning down when you’re selling. Neutral colours are a safe bet and a quick lick of paint can work wonders.

5. Likewise, it’s fine using rooms for different purposes when you’re living there, but when you’re selling they work best presented in a more functional manner. So move out the sofa bed from the conservatory, reclaim the study and present rooms to buyers as they could be used.

6. Make sure your home is well lit, especially on dark winter days. Open the curtains and blinds, put some lights on and swap low wattage bulbs for brighter bulbs to improve the lighting.

7. Get dusting! Clean all the key areas, but don’t forget things like light switches, skirting boards and lampshades, where buyers may notice errant spots of dust.

8. Consider having an open day or weekend, where you solely concentrate on showing prospective buyers around. If you’re going for this option, you can even produce your own buyers pack with more details and information to entice buyers.

9. First impressions count, so tidy up outside your house too. Give the front door a lick of paint, pop some potted plants by the front door and make sure the approach to your house is clean and welcoming.

10. Not all buyers love pets, so consider moving pets out of the house whilst you’re showing buyers around.

The ultimate aim should be to make your home stand out from the crowd for the right reasons, and be a property that people remember – and hopefully buy!

For more advice, take a look at our guide to preparing your home for sale.

If you’re a landlord, are you expecting rental arrears in the coming year? According to research released recently by the National Landlords Association (NLA), 71% of landlords are expecting rent arrears to increase in the coming year.

With the current global economic situation and credit crunch, it’s a worrying time for everyone, including landlords. Of those questioned in the survey by the NLA, only one per cent thought that rent arrears would decrease in 2009 and 28% thought there’d be more no major change.

They also found that 67% of landlords have experienced problems with rent arrears in the past and 37% are currently having difficulties with non-payments from tenants. Not receiving rent from tenants can lead to all sorts of problems and it’s no fun trying to evict tenants. The NLA are advising that landlords do all they can to try and regularly receive rent, including keeping regular channels of communication open to try and alleviate any issues.

Don’t forget that if you’re currently trying to rent out a property, it’s important to make informed decisions about the financial worthiness of potential tenants. As much as you may be keen to get the property rented out, don’t skimp on doing credit or tenant reference checks, as these can save you a lot of hassle in the long run.

There used to be a time when decking the halls and adorning your home with twinkling Christmas lights merely meant sticking up a few tired decorations and a Christmas tree inside. But for many people, those times are long gone – as decorating the outside of their homes is now just as important (if not more so!).

The obsession with so-called housebling has gone a bit crazy over the last few years, with some houses draped to the rafters with endless flashing lights and mad yuletide creations. Even this year’s economic climate doesn’t seem to have put people off, with houses dolled up to the nines for Christmas.

For the seasoned houseblinger, the bling is likely to be well and truly up and in action by December 1 – or earlier, for the true devotee – but there’s still chance to add a bit of interest to your home now, if you so desire. In fact, you could even save yourself a few pounds by buying late, both in terms of the cost of electricity and with bagging a lighting bargain.

Argos, for example, has reductions on most of its Christmas decorations, including this set of 80 blue multi-function LED lights, and at Tesco there’s up to 75% off Christmas lights.

If you need inspiration of what you could create, then Festive-Lights is brimming with product ideas, from simple sets of strings of lights, to elaborate decorations and light-up moulded figures. Or there’s even a whole website, Houseblinger, dedicated to the art of housebling, where you can see current and past housebling in action – or submit examples of your own.

Getting involved with housebling is a sure-fire way of making your house stand out from the crowd – but can easily become for the wrong reasons. If you’ve currently got your house on the market, then it may be wise to tone down your bling, just in case. In the same way that buyers can be put off by unsightly interior issues, too much housebling can have the same effect.

Your neighbours may not love you either, especially if your lights are blazing late into the evening and shining into their rooms when they’re trying to get to sleep. So have fun and be creative with your decorations, but do remember to spare a thought for those who live around you.

Christmas dinner
Dilemma: You don’t know how to stuff a turkey, or you just don’t want to. You’re not interested in making yorkies from scratch or hunting down the right wines to match each course. And yet, at an earlier, more innocent age (probably around October), you stupidly made the grand gesture of declaring that YOU would host Christmas day this year. And now you will have people at your place next week, expecting to be fed something spectacular.

Surely not since The Last Supper has any one meal ever caused this much anguish and gnashing of teeth. Good grief, why don’t we all just give it up and order in. Jamie Oliver’s doing it, so there’s no need to feel guilty.

If you’re in London, take a leaf out of Jamie’s book and order Christmas in a Box from the celebrities’ favourite deli, Melrose & Morgan, in Primrose Hill for £39.95 per head and be kitted out with turkey or goose, wine, cheese, pudding, organic sausage meat and all the trimmings.

If you’re not in London, take a look at The Christmas Dinner Company. They’ll deliver a brilliant pack with everything you need (including a roasting pan) by 23 December.

Decorating
Dilemma: It’s two days until Christmas and you still haven’t decked the halls. Don’t feel bad. You’re probably very busy and important, and understandably, tinsel and fairy lights don’t feature all that high on your life agenda.

Of course, when you finally get the chance to drop into M&S, all the good stuff is gone and you’re left with 80cm of garish multicoloured lights, a box of plastic baubles (half of which are already broken) and some semi-squashed chocolate ornaments.

Never mind. You have two options.

Option One: Embrace whatever tacky delights are left over at your local pound shop and give your Christmas an ironic theme of eye-watering garishness. You’ll need loads of poor quality tinsel in as many different colours as you can find, plus the aforementioned broken baubles and multicoloured lights, and on top of those just throw on anything you’ve ever worn to a hen’s night (feather boas, plastic tiaras, etc). You’ll also need the ability to carry this off with a laugh and a carefree hair-toss as you hand each guest a glass of cava in a plastic cup and trill, “Yes, I thought we’d go a bit ‘Katie & Peter: The Next Chapter’ this year…”

Option Two: Embrace your inner domestic god/goddess and declare this year to be a homemade affair. You’ll need a recipe for stained glass window biscuits (to hang as tree ornaments), some string, a needle, cranberries and popcorn (for a homemade tree garland), and some potted poinsettias from your local florist to dot around the place. Prepare to feel Nigella-like levels of smugness.

Shopping
Dilemma: It’s 22 December. You’ve left your Christmas shopping until the very last minute. Again. And after an office Christmas party, a disastrous ice-skating adventure, and a three-hour performance of The Nutcracker (during which you fell asleep) all in one week, the last thing you can face right now is a soul-crushing trip to the high street.

No problem. Make a list of the people you need to buy for, assign them to one of the following gift categories according to age, gender and how much you like them, and buy online at one of the listed websites (all of which offer same-day or next-day delivery, so you can have everything delivered to your door by 23 December).

• Flowers from Interflora
• Cupcakes from The Cupcake Factory
• Chocolate from Chouchoute
• Theatre tickets from Lastminute.com (print them straight from your inbox!)
• Bungee jumping, skydiving, makeovers, spa breaks, flying lessons, steam train journeys, afternoon teas and wine tasting days from BuyaGift

Christmas cards
Dilemma: All the lovely Christmas cards from your friends and family are piling up. And so are the lovely Christmas cards to your friends and family. Over there. In a corner. Still unwritten.

Avoid writer’s cramp and a trip to the post office by sending everyone free holiday e-cards. It’s the (eleventh-hour) thought that counts.

Choosing to buy property and live in the south could improve your longevity, or so researchers say.

According to statistics published in the report, Changing UK, people living in Hampshire, Dorset and the Isle of Wight live longer than anywhere else in the UK. Changing UK investigated how life has changed in the UK over the last 40 years, using data from censuses and other key sources, and was carried out by a team of researchers from the University of Sheffield.

22% of people living in the south were found to be pensioners and the southern population has increased by 15% since 1981 – making it the fourth highest area rise in the UK.

The study highlighted that house prices in the south are the second highest in the UK, after London, and that those who move to the south to retire are likely to be higher income earners. This may in part explain why people living in this area live longer, as there could be a correlation between income and life expectancy.

If you’re interested in moving to these areas – whether in hope that you could live longer or not – check out the property for sale in Hampshire, Dorset or the Isle of Wight.

It’s almost a year since Home Information Packs (HIPs) were introduced in England and Wales, and now Scotland has followed in their footsteps, with the introduction of Home Reports.

As of the 1st December 2008, everyone selling residential property in Scotland has to produce a Home Report. It’s expected to cost sellers in the region of £500 to £800 to have the report produced, as it involves a so-called ‘single seller survey’ and valuation by a surveyor. The report consists of three main documents:

• A Single Survey – which is an assessment produced by a surveyor of the condition of the property, whether it’s accessible for people with particular needs and a current valuation of the property.
• An Energy Report – which is an assessment carried out by a surveyor of the energy efficiency of the property and its environmental impact. Where applicable, they’ll also include ideas for improving energy efficiency.
• A Property Questionnaire – filled out by the seller of the home, it has key information about the property, such as the Council Tax rate, parking facilities and maintenance costs.

Like HIPs, the theory behind Home Reports is that it will provide buyers with extra information about the property they’re interested in and avoid the need for multiple surveys to be carried out.

According to some critics, the potential downside is that, for properties that don’t sell quickly and need improvement work carried out to help their selling ability, the Home Reports will need to be updated again after the work has been carried out. This will cost another £80 to £150, so could make the Home Report rather pricey. Of course, one way around it would be to do any improvement work first, before you put your house on the market, to avoid unnecessary costs further down the line.

In cities across the UK, parking spaces and garages are often in demand. One nifty way of making a bit of extra money from your home is to make use of unused space and rent out your garage or parking space.

There used to be a time when cars were routinely parked in garages, but these days the garage is frequently used for storage of garden equipment or tools, rather than as a place to park your car. If you’ve got a double garage, plenty of parking, don’t own a car or have a garage that remains unused, then you could consider renting it out and making full use of its potential – and earn yourself some extra income at the same time.

With garages and parking spaces in short supply in city centres, it makes sense for those not being fully used to be rented out to those who do need them, such as city workers or business people who need regular or occasional car parking facilities. The amount of rent your garage could command will vary depending on its location and size. A single garage in the SW6 area of London, for example, is up for rent for a weekly fee of £80 or a secure underground parking space in SW3 is on offer for £60 a week. Elsewhere, in Cardiff, a refurbished garage with metered power supply has a weekly rental of £75.

To find out what a garage in your area might make from rental income, put the location and the keyword ‘garage’ into the Primelocation.com rental property search.