7 ways your home can make money for you

5. Run a bed-and-breakfast
The plan: Offer one or more rooms in your home to travellers who are visiting your area.

KA-ching!: Rates vary widely, from about $50 to $200 a night, depending on how luxurious the accommodations are and where you are located. Debbie Gaspich purchased her 150-year-old home, the Martin House Bed and Breakfast, in Jordan Village, Ont., (close to Niagara-on-the-Lake and the popular Shaw Festival) with the intention of continuing to rent out the rooms to pay for the renovation and upkeep of her large property. She began by renting just a couple of rooms and earned $7,000 in her first year. Today she rents five bedrooms, as well as a small cottage on the property, from May to October and earns $25,000 annually. She manages the B&B on top of a full-time job.

Reality check: Changing sheets. Preparing brunch. Keeping your home tidy. Engaging in small talk early in the morning even if you don't feel up to it. Running a B&B can require a lot of work and energy.

6. Go back to the land
The plan: If you own a large parcel of land in a rural area, you can rent it to farmers to raise crops or livestock.

KA-ching!: Depending on where you live and what the land is used for, rates can vary from $20 to $200 an acre, says Kevin Hursh, an agriculture consultant in Saskatoon. "There are different values for different crops – you can earn more if you rent your land to harvest soybeans instead of wheat or barley, for example." Six years ago, Tami and Daniel Blais sold their house in town and moved to a $130,000 country home that came with 160 acres outside Battleford, Sask. Instead of farming the land themselves, they rent 80 acres to a local farmer. The farmer keeps two-thirds of the profits and pays the other third (about $3,000 a year) to the Blaises as rent. "We use the money to pay our property taxes and insurance," says Tami.

Reality check: The odour of manure in the fields and the noise of combines swathing the crops may be a bit of a nuisance, but for most people in rural areas this is just part of country living. More concerning is the potential for pesticide drift when crops are sprayed. Also cattle or horses may get out and require rounding up.

7. Tap into your equity
The plan: Apply for a home equity loan. One-quarter of Canadian homeowners have borrowed against the equity in their home, according to a recent Ipsos-Reid survey. These loans are easy to qualify for and have lower interest rates than other types of loans (usually around prime). Plus, banks typically require that you pay only the interest expense of the loan.

KA-ching!: This is an easy way to get access to a lot of money without having to wait too long. "Many banks will lend you up to 75 per cent of the value of your home, minus any outstanding mortgage," says Paula Sprentz, a certified financial planner and vice-president of compliance at GP Wealth Management Corporation in Toronto.

Reality check: Because they are so easy to acquire, you can land in more debt than you can handle. If the market turns downward and your $300,000 house is suddenly worth only $250,000, you've lost a lot of the equity in your home and still have the loan to repay.

Read more:
• 6 budget grocery shopping tips
• Create a budget that works
• 10 things you're wasting your money on

Page 3 of 3