Homestay students: Typically each student pays between $175 and $200 a week. You provide a room, two meals a day and a heater.
Downside: A lack of privacy and being prevented from going away unless you want to take the student with you. Host families sometimes find their student's customs or manners difficult to stomach.
Lodgers (flatmates): It's rare to charge less than $100 a week for a room and a good quality one is likely to fetch up to $200 a week as well as a share of the utility bills.
Downside: You lose your privacy.
Rental property: Use your equity to get the deposit for a rental home, if you're suited to property investing. On average, properties double in value every 10 years.
Downside: It's not always the right time in the property cycle or right for your personality type to be an investor.
Renting out a granny flat: If your granny flat has building consent you can let it. Even if you can't, you may be able to use it for home stay students, but the rules can be complicated says Scotney Williams, of landlord advisory service Tenancy Practice.
Downside: Renting out a granny flat can be complicated legally. You also have to put up with other people living on your property.
Build a minor dwelling: Minor dwellings are small homes built on your section without subdividing and have been described as a "cash register in your back yard". They cost typically between $70,000 and $140,000 to build, yet the rents on them are little less than those of full-size houses.
Downside: You become a landlord and have to deal with all of the hassles involved in finding tenants, carrying out maintenance, doing the books and so on. The council approval process can be a minefield.
Letting your garage for storage: Is your garage empty? Then you could rent it out for storage or as a workshop for an amateur DIYer, hobbyist, or boat builder. But make sure you check with your insurance company to ensure you're not voiding your home insurance.
Downside: Having to park your car on the road and losing your storage space.
Subdivision: Sub-dividing your property involves splitting the land into two separate sections and selling off one.
Downside: Subdivision is not for the faint hearted. It involves a lot of paperwork and considerable up front cash and risk.
Claiming for a home office: Self-employed people get juicy tax breaks on their home offices and the equipment within them. If you set up a home office, even if you have business premises, you'll be able to claim a proportion of expenses of your mortgage, rates, cleaning, mowing and even some decorating costs, against your taxes. You can still claim your home office costs against your tax bill even if you have a part time home-based business.
Downside: The paperwork and tax forms involved can be a headache.
Offering your home for use in TV commercials: Homeowners around the country have been paid in excess of $1,000 a day for the use of their houses as the location for TV advertisements and films. "The most common brief is to find a house that represents middle New Zealand," freelance location scout Stephen Piper says. "Having said that, I have had requests for State houses and even student flats."
Downside: You have to keep out of the house while the film crew is there.
Home exchanges: Holiday accommodation can cost a fortune. Thanks to the Internet and websites such as Homeexchange.com, you can get free accommodation virtually anywhere in the world. Or you could exchange with friends or family.
Downside: You have strangers in your house.
Diana Clement
Independent Financial Commentator
Issue 11: 28-06-2007