New research finds that a quarter of the UK's homes are set to be boosted in size as homeowners start to treat their property as a home instead of an investment.
Britons intend to make a house a home during the recession, according to new research from AA Personal Loans.
The firm found that six million people plan on renovating their properties over the next year, with nearly five million opting out of selling because of the declining property values the UK is experiencing. Despite some signs of recovery, house prices are still down by about ten percent on their peak in 2007, according to Hometrack.
AA Personal Loans found that most householders intend on adding features for domestic rather than economic purposes. Almost a quarter of respondents in the survey said that they would be adding an extra room to their property, with one in four of these building a room for entertaining and one in six adding an office.
Six out of ten people who were making improvements said they were doing so to create a higher standard of living, with just three in ten responding that they would to boost the property's value.
"Although many would expect demand for home improvement loans to be less during the recession, our figures show that their popularity is actually unchanged," said Mark Huggins, head of AA Personal Loans. "As long as the recession keeps impacting property values, we're not expecting that to change as homeowners continue to make improvements, albeit for their own needs, not necessarily the needs of a future owner."
