A crash course in credit cards for returning students + MORE Aug 14th

TORONTO – As thousands of Canadian students head off to college and university this fall, many will find themselves bombarded with credit card offers.
Signing up for a credit card has become a sort of rite of passage for young adults, alongside frosh week parties, late-night study sessions and diets comprised primarily of ramen and mac-and-cheese.
But experts caution that it’s important to be prudent or risk harming your credit score, which could affect your ability to land a mortgage, purchase a car or secure a loan years down he road.
Jackie Rosen from rate comparison website RateSupermarket.ca says it’s common for credit card companies to offer incentives, such as free T-shirts and other goodies, to lure students into signing up.
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When Rosen signed up for her first credit during college 13 years ago, she received a free wine cooler, she recalls…

(Stuart Dee/Getty Images)
Q: My husband and I are both 60 and working full time. We’ve just made an offer to purchase a house for $75,000 that we will use as a cottage. We have $30,000 in cash for the purchase but could take money out of our TFSAs to pay full price for the place. Thing is, the cottage needs extensive renovations which we think will take about two years to complete and will cost us roughly $50,000. Once all this work is done, we plan to rent out the property for $1,000 per week for 15 to 20 weeks each year.
We’d like to know if it would be better to pay the full $75,000 purchase price now, and slowly do the renovations using our homeowner’s line of credit. If it gets high enough, we could renegotiate this debt into our primary home mortgage. Or should we use our $30,000 cash as a down payment, get a mortgage for $45,000 and use a combination of our TFSA money and line of credit for the renovations?
— Debra Hamel, Ontario

Nawar Naji, mortgage broker with Mortgage Architects:  
A: Since mortgage rates are at historic lows it makes sense to buy the cottage with just a 20% down payment and mortgage the rest…

From bidding wars reaching levels as high as $500,000 over the asking price, to the fight over rental apartments, there are a number of challenges to find a good place to live in Toronto’s and Vancouver’s red-hot real estate markets. RateSupermarket.ca takes a look at the latest messages from experts, and examines options for homebuyers to consider.
Varying Opinions on the Markets
On July 13, 2016, the Bank of Canada decided to leave the 0.5 per cent overnight lending rate unchanged, meaning mortgage rates will remain low. At the same time, home price growth year over year in both cities is outstripping incomes earned in the majority of jobs ($193,000 in Vancouver and $103,000 in Toronto). Homes in Vancouver are now worth more than the average property in New York City or London. There may be no better time than now to buy or sell.
Shortly after the BoC announcement, a warning came from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) about strong evidence of overvaluation in several major Canadian markets, including Toronto and Vancouver…