Location, location! How to cash in on your home

Could you be using your home as an extra revenue stream? Forget frantically ironing pillowcases for Airbnb guests; Amber Hopkins, an artist and mother-of-two, regularly welcomes small teams of creatives into her house during the school day.

- OLIVIA LIDBURY

While she works upstairs, brand founders pose in her kitchen’s covetable oriel window. In her living room, the panelled walls provide a stylish background for everything from potted plants to pots of cream. Even her children’s bedrooms have been used by a child psychiatrist needing portraits. All to the tune of £100 per hour.

But what's notable is that Hopkins doesn’t live in a minimalist mansion. Located between the commons in south-west London, hers is a tastefully decorated but compact mid-terrace Victorian house. “The feedback I often get is it's clearly a lived-in family home that is aesthetically pleasing yet practical, which is how we try and live,” she says.

‘The Leyton home of Ashley Cowan, a virtual reality producer, holds similar appeal. His characterful mix of wooden furniture and vintage rugs finds favour with documentary-makers staging interviews. For a local poster brand, capturing its prints across several different walls in one swoop meant more bang for its budget. In the process, Cowan nets about £6,000 to £7,000 a year. “It has been a fantastic help. We've renovated the house and had the pebbledash removed — that alone was £7,000” he says.

Facilitating this almost-passive income is a new breed of location agencies, which allow anyone to book spaces by the hour. From a colourful kitchen for a TikTok chef or a garden where a stylist can capture outfits, fresh backdrops ensure users stay engaged.

Scouty, a marketplace that launched in 2020, has disrupted the old-school model, which caters for big budgets, fancy settings and day-long shoots. “The industry for creating content has changed dramatically” says co-founder Ryan Gannon. “We've moved away from traditional media and towards a much more fast-paced, dynamic type of content.”