5 Ways Your Home Can Help You Retire

1.Put your spare space to work. Depending on where you live and whether you have room, you may be able to rent your home out, a little bit at a time. On sites like VRBO you can rent out as little as one room, your mother-in-law unit or your whole house for one night, one week or one month (or any combination of these). Also, savvy homeowners are increasingly renting out spare rooms or floors for the long-term.

2. Hack your utilities. If you do the whole weather-stripping - and - dual - pane - windowing drill, you definitely stand to save some cash on your monthly utility bills. But in some areas, homeowners might also be able to save, big-time, with little or no cash out of pocket by opting out of their regular utility service and into something called solar power service. These companies sell solar power as a service, on a long-term contract, so home owners don’t have to pay for panels, then charge a lower power rate than the traditional utilities.

3.Pay your mortgage off early. There are two levers you can pull to supercharge your retirement plan: (1) you can boost the income you’ll have to save and live on or (2) you can slash your future living expenses. The largest of these living expenses is, of course, your mortgage.

4.Tune up your mortgage. If you’ve been in your home a few years, it can be easy to tune out of the whole mortgage scene. But the news now might be better than you think, as home values are starting to steady and even edge up, and rates are still uber-low. If you have a 6 percent home loan you got 6 years ago, you stand to save thousands and thousands of dollars by refinancing into a 3.6 percent loan (the going rate this week). And that’s thousands and thousands you can put into your retirement fund. (Of course, the precise amount that you personally will save from refinancing depends on your current interest rate, your loan amount and the costs you incur refinancing.)

5.Start a side business from home. Put your home to work! Whether you use your space to dog-sit, baby-sit, bake or make preserves to sell at the farmer’s market, using your home to start a side business or to work a side job can pull the “extra income” lever of the retirement cushion-fluffing equation. It might also enable you to claim a home office deduction from your income taxes, depending on whether you’re able to dedicate the space completely to your business endeavor.

What other way can your home ,yard or garage help you retire?

Randy BettInvestment Realtor/Author/Investor

Real Estate Professionals Inc.Better Group Real Estate 202-5403 Crowchild Trail NWCalgary, AB T3B 4Z1

Phone:403-774-7464 Ext:1Fax:403-208-0082Toll Free fax:888-711-6801

Randy Bett www.BetterGroupRealEstate.ca