Recession fuels home DIY culture

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More and more Britons are signing up to the 'improve, don't move' trend as a means of increasing the value of their home, research has revealed.

Over the past few years, millions of homeowners have shunned the professional talents of the local electrician, builder or plumber in favour of low-cost DIY jobs in order to maximise the value of their homes.

The shift in attitude towards home improvement has resulted in more than four million homeowners turning their hand to DIY electrical jobs, three million carrying out plumbing work and more than one million undertaking structural work such as removing walls.

And the risks to health and safety had little impact on the desire to improve with 450,000 saying they had carried out potentially fatal gas work themselves.

But the quick fix attitude may not translate directly into an increase in value after a recent survey of estate agents by LV found that 69 percent of agents had seen home improvements, such as decorating and landscaping, that had failed to add any value to a property.

A quarter of those surveyed also said they had encountered cases where kitchen refurbishment, often seen as a safe bet for improving the value of a home, had made no difference to the sale price at all.

Copyright © Press Association 2010

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