Although the UK economy is showing signs of recovery, the housing market remains in turmoil. Despite optimistic reports on increasing average house prices, it should be remembered these positive figures refer to monthly rises and not quarterly or annual gains.

Nevertheless, signs of improvement are enough for many homeowners and property developers to consider how best to proceed in the market.

In view of the difficulty that many have experienced in terms of keeping up with mortgage repayments, putting up property for rent has become popular during the last couple of years. However, have the tenants been properly considered?

Whilst the financial concern of tenants is not, strictly speaking, the landlord’s responsibility, the two are nevertheless interdependent. High rental prices will not deter tenants who would struggle with such costs in a normal housing market because, according to the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA), around 93% of agents have dealt with tenants who have haggled over costs with their landlords. However, whilst some tenants have proved successful in driving down costs, around 65% of ARLA agents have claimed more are falling behind with rent.

Although housing benefit is available to many unemployed tenants, the payments are often made a month in arrears and only after time is lost setting up new claims. This is driving more tenants into rent poverty and, owing to the nature of housing benefit, which is paid directly to the tenant and not the landlord, many tenants are forced to choose between survival and paying their rent on time. As market prices recover and unemployment increases, this problem is set to worsen before it improves, which ought to be realised by landlords and tenants alike.

Home improvements will ordinarily include a spot of redecoration and perhaps a little building work such as an extension or garage conversion. Furthermore, a new garden design is especially popular during the spring/summer months, while a thorough clean throughout the home will inject new life into a property.

However, homeowners are becoming more sophisticated when it comes to decorating their properties, which is arguably a result of the many home improvement television programmes and related online resources that are available now. Homeowners are finding much cheaper ways to improve the home during the recession.

Space is an important aspect of any home; too much of it can make a house feel cold, impersonal and uninviting, whereas too little will often impact negatively on the more practical points of arranging furniture and providing sufficient living space. Nevertheless, in terms of space, as with many things in life, the bigger the better can be adopted as a general rule. The average UK home will not comprise an area too large to be considered excessively spacious, so usually the requirement to increase space is considered instead. In this respect, it is possible to make small spaces appear much larger than they actually are without having to develop the building itself.

Maintaining light, uncluttered rooms is often the best place to start in this respect. Dark furnishings and floors can visually close off a room, whereas with good natural sunlight, light furniture and flooring, the room will feel and look far more open. Other designer tips to improve space include attracting attention to the far end of a room, keeping central spaces clear and decorating in order to accentuate the vertical perspective of rooms.

When the British summer is in full swing and the weather is sunny, thoughts of winter tend not to be at the forefront of the typical person’s mind. Indeed, a hot summer is all about enjoyment: basking in sunshine, trips to the beach, eating ice-cream and relaxing in the great outdoors. However, in these difficult economic times it is also important to spare a little thought and energy on how best to survive the winter.

Indeed, the summer will undoubtedly be over before the recession ends, so many home-owners must take stock of their predicament that has seen them unable to sell their property due to deflated market prices. Until the economy recovers, it is important for home-owners to concentrate on what they already have and, in doing so, a little home improvement is often seen as a useful way of increasing the home’s value for the future.

Home improvements for the winter can also be cheaper to carry out in the summer. Labour and materials tend to inflate according to what is in season, whilst when there is a large availability of work prices tend to become more stable. In other words, there may be an increased chance of buying and installing products such as an underfloor heating system at reduced rates during the summer.

In respect to underfloor heating systems, reducing the initial outlay on such systems will pay huge dividends later as they tend to be far more efficient than traditional radiator installations. Moreover, underfloor heating can be installed under virtually any type of flooring and heats the most important areas of a room without causing cold draughts. Thus, installing underfloor heating during the summer may turn out to be a very wise move for home-owners.

In the midst of a recession and flagging housing market, which has seen average house prices slashed to the extent that home-owners can no longer afford to sell up and property developers forced to hold on to their portfolios, giving the home a makeover can seem a waste of money.

However, carrying out home improvement during a recession offers at least two significant benefits: first, materials are often cheaper in a weakened market; and second, developing the home will invariably increase its future sale price after the market has recovered.

Alas, home extensions can cost tens of thousands of pounds and even a simple home makeover will cost money, which is one thing that most people will have less of during a recession. Nevertheless, a home makeover does not necessarily need to cost the Earth. Indeed, a spring clean and a fresh paint job can achieve similar results to a complete redecoration, so there is not always a need to worry about costs in order to give the house a makeover. Thus, there is perhaps no better time than the present to undertake a belated spring clean.

Cleaning the home is also a great opportunity to breathe new life into the arrangement of furniture and decorative items. Indeed, a home makeover on a budget will comprise elements of a spring clean that serve to rid the house of clutter in addition to the rearranging of furniture to provide an entirely revamped living space. Room planning can also be made simple at virtually no cost by using scale cardboard cut-outs that include all the rooms of the home and the furniture contained within them, which can be shuffled around to see what works before the actual moving gets under way.

The Times reports (13th July), that the government will shortly implementing ‘feed in tariffs’ to the National Grid. It is thought that by April next year, these tariffs, which have existed in many European countries for some time, will allow customers who have Solar Panels, or Wind Turbines, to feed energy back into the National Grid, and receive cash back for doing so.

Ed Miliband, the Secretary for Energy and Climate Change, stated that the schemes could “help create the clean energy of the future”. It is thought this will come at a price, though, with experts suggesting that the schemes could end up costing households £230 a year on their annual energy bills. The government has reluctantly admitted there will be a ‘bedding in’ cost, whilst the schemes form and grow.

However, those who can afford the ten to fifteen thousand pounds that it costs to have Solar panels installed, will indeed benefit from doing so. Solar panels work by generating renewable energy from light, which is then either stored for use later, or imported into the National Grid. Solar Paneled houses are fitted with two way meter clocks that monitor the amount of energy that is both given, and taken, to and from the National Grid.

It is thought that offering cash back to communities may ‘generate’ the same level of enthusiasm here, as it has in Germany, where whole villages and communities have joined together to install solar panels and wind turbines. Under the “clean energy cash back” initiatives, this has seen villages earning up to fifteen thousand pounds a year. Whether this community spirit exists Britain today remains to be seen.

Summer is finally here and what better way to welcome it into your home than by a spot of home improvement, with an influx of Oriental Style, hard and soft furnishings.

The Daily Mail (20th June 2009), advises that we take a softly, softly, approach to adding a hint of Oriental into our residences, and, although never previously knowingly associated with subtlety, The Daily Mail promoted and encourages the use of flourishing florals, in addition to tasteful eggshell and fiery pink hues.

Try adding a feature wall, decorated with Pompadour wallpaper. A mere £46, for a ten-metre roll, this Oriental style wallpaper is available from Osborne & Little website, and it is the epitome of Oriental chic. But be careful to use it sparingly, so as not to take over the whole room!

For a show stopping item of furniture, The Daily Mail recommends an Oriental style lamp, that, whilst not to everyone’s taste, will certainly be a talking ’statement piece’ of any room. A metal branch style table lamp, with an owl perched half way and topped off with a white and pink lampshade, is available for £325 from the Designers Guild.

If you are looking for stylish flowers and summer florals to complete your Oriental look, then go to the An Angel at My Table website. A potted Cerise Orchid will cost you £30, but will last a lifetime.

If you have cash to splash, then an Oriental floral patterned Norton armchair, costing just under £1400, could be yours from Heals. Finally, The Daily Mail recommends a trip to Knots Interiors for a Florence Broadhurst Rug, a steal at just under £3000.

Despite the never ending Credit Crunch, many people have held on to their properties, and are keen to move up the property ladder. However, large numbers of home owners have found that they cannot afford to ‘physically’ move up the property ladder! The advice to these home owners, from the Money and Property section of Sky News, is to make some home improvements that will raise the value of their property.

Experts for Sky News were asked to compile a list of home improvemets that would boost the value of your property, but also to estimate how much these renovations would cost you! The results showed that the most valuable home improvement you could make was adding space to your downstairs. An Extension of the downstairs living area could add as much as £20,000 to the value. Beware of spending more on the extension, than it will actually add to your house!

Next on the list was Loft Conversions. For inner city properties a loft conversion could cost up to £15,000, but in London this could add upward of £40,000 value!

Next up was a fitted modern kitchen, this type of conversion could add up to £8000 to the value of your property. A top tip being to shop for a kitchen during Bank Holiday Sales!

Sky News also recommends that you splash out on a conservatory. Experts estimate that for an initial outlay as little as £3000, you could add upwards of £12000 to the value of your property!

The final improvement regarded central heating, but it was concluded that this is now an expected feature of modern properties, however, new style high efficiency condensing boilers can add value through improvements of the home’s energy rating in the home buyers information pack.

Across the Atlantic divide, our American cousins are more or less in the same financial crisis as we are. Indeed, the whole world appears to be firmly held in the jaws of the ubiquitous credit crunch monster. Moreover, in the USA the crippled realty market has had a negative impact on home improvement spending. Indeed, a recent report published by analyst Fitch Ratings suggests that home improvement spending will slow further in 2009 following a 4.5 percent drop in 2008 from 2007. This represents lost revenue of around $13 billion across the industry. Meanwhile, though, the UK market is looking altogether different…

Housing Market Down, Home Improvement Up

Towards the end of May 2009, the Halifax Home Improvement Survey (HHIS) confirmed what industry experts have been saying all along: home improvements in the UK remain big business. Seemingly undaunted by the housing market collapse, homeowners and property deveopers are availing of a weakened market economy to make improvements to their property. Whilst for some this may simply mean a little redecorating amounting to little more than a late Spring clean, to others it means a loft conversion, extension or garden landscaping. Indeed, the HHIS figures show that 55 percent of homeowners have undertaken home improvement projects in the last year. The average spend of these projects, excluding major jobs such as extensions, rests at a fairly whopping £5,300.

Figures also show that redecoration is a priority amongst 64 percent of homeowners, whilst 39 percent are electing to improve their gardens. Additionally, 13 percent of homeowners have added space to their homes, comprising either a conversion, extension or conservatory. These figures may suggest that homeowners are planning for the future by improving the sale price of their homes for a time when the credit crunch monster has since been slain. However, they could also suggest that homeowners have given up on selling their homes and have instead decided to make changes to improve their living conditions. Either way, home improvement is on the up in the UK at a time when everything else seems to be heading South, which is good news for everybody.

How do you express your love and gratitude to the woman who gave you life? It is actually a pretty daunting question! Sadly, for the majority, Mother’s Day has been lost in the sea of commercial ‘celebrations’ and has been reduced to a box of chocolates added to your trolley during the weekly shop or a hastily purchased card and drab bunch of flowers from the local garage!

So why not put in a little extra effort for for Mother’s Day 2009 (which is on the 22 March for anyone that has forgotten!). Instead of the usual flowers or chocolates, this year give your mother a gift that will enhance her home. The 2009 ‘hot to have’ gift, as recommended by the Ideal Home Magazine, is stylish ceramics from Susie Watson Designs. With designs as fresh as the coming spring, these handmade beautiful gifts are of the highest quality. Available as individual pieces or part of a set, this pretty pottery collection is as beautiful as it is functional.

Ranging in price from £6.75 for a delicately decorated daisy egg cup, to £15 for a ‘mummy’ cup (perhaps the perfect mothers day gift?), £25 for a star themed candle stick, and up to £75 for a Large duck egg blue fruit bowl, there is something to suit all tastes and budgets within this collection.

If pottery is just not your mother’s thing, then Susie Watson Designs also stock an extensive range of Textiles and Fabrics (napkins and tablecloths), Accessories (wall hangings, beach bags and bathrobes), Lucy Art (cards, prints and gift wrap), Bed Linen (quilts, sheets, throws and pillowcases). The site is also worth bookmarking for fabulous gifts ideas for weddings (gifts or lists) or babies (nappy bags, cot bed quilts and play mats).

All items can be purchased online from the shop website (www.susiewatsondesigns.co.uk) or from the Susie Watson Design shop on Marlborough High Street. Gift vouchers are also available and orders can be placed by telephone – for further details see the website.

Undeterred by the recent Arctic (at least it felt that way) cold snap Spring is drawing ever nearer. Traditionally seen as a time for change, this is especially the case in these dark economic times. Therefore, as fresh buds begin their fateful journey to Mother’s Day, it is suggested that there is no better time than now to carry out home improvements.

One area of the house that can be changed entirely without breaking the bank is the wall space. Whilst a fresh coat of paint can have a positive psychological effect, a wholesale change is often more therapeutic. Indeed, in the spirit of clearing out the old and ushering in the new why not follow contemporary trends in wallpaper design to completely alter the look and feel of your home?

According to House to Home online, Eco wallpaper designs from Marks & Spencer will be extremely popular this Spring. Available in Leaf Trellis or Chalk Damask, these wallpaper designs do not only have a floral theme, they are actually eco-friendly. Well, relatively eco-friendly. Indeed, the wallpaper itself is sourced from managed timber produce whilst the prints use water-based ink. Ideal for that uplifting bedroom design, there are also a number of other Eco style wallpapers available from different retailers.

The Geometric wallpaper design is expected to be the trend of the year even if at first glance it looks more in keeping with a 1920s Manhatten apartment. Of course, the art deco look is the key inspiration behind geometric wallpaper designs. Moreover, according to Claire Vallis of Harlequin, the art deco factor is perfectly suited to this day and age adding that “dark tones and metallic hits” are “bang on trend”. Just be sure that you get the curtains right if you go down this route!

Finally, consider the ‘Timeless Curve’ look which is essentially a modern take on the classic Baroque style. Blending the old with the new which is perfectly fitting for a Spring redesign, Timeless Curve wallpaper mixes predominantly black, white, grey and metallic shades to produce abstract designs that offer eighties charm with ‘noughties’ stylishness.