Kate Moss has, according to tabloid reports, moved her mother into her new North London pad. She may not need to charge her mum rent, but she has at least made having a lodger fashionable. This may be some consolation to the rising number of homeowners considering letting their spare room to offset the rising mortgage costs that, according to a report from the Centre for Policy Studies, have contributed to making the typical British family more than £1,300 a year worse off than it was four years ago.

Rupert Hunt, founder of the flatshare website spareroom.co.uk, says that record numbers of people have been taking in lodgers in recent months: “When we started in 1999, most of the listings came from young people looking to fill a room in their flatshare. Now, live-in landlords account for almost half our room ads.” The site's average user today is 33 and can peruse ads ranging from traditional student grotboxes to flats in Chelsea and Mayfair.

For an increasing number of financially stretched homeowners, more drastic measures than taking in a lodger are required to keep the bailiffs at bay. The Council of Mortgage Lenders' forecast that home repossessions will increase by 50 per cent this year to 45,000 means that some of us will be looking to make an expeditious sale. This is where the new property auction site, discountpropertyauction.co.uk, comes in. Last year, over 30,000 properties were auctioned in the UK, at an average price of £167,295. This site allows you to do the same from the comfort of your living room.

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