Questions for UofT Students

[Guest Dent 4 Life]

Hi, I was accepted to UofT Dentistry from out of province and I was wondering if any current UofT students have any recommendations on where to live. I am quite unfamiliar with Toronto, but any help will be much appreciated.

 

Also, has anyone applied for a line of credit yet. If you have, which bank is most pleasing. Do you need a cosigner?

 

Thanks

[Guest jenleemo]

That's cool. Congrats!! Which province? I'm oop from BC.

 

About places to live, there's a thread about that topic on this forum called Toronto Neighbourhoods.

 

Line of Credit:I personally think RBC is the best. 150,000 at prime and you get 12 free certified cheques peryear.

 

In second place is Scoita. They also give 150,000G at prime, but you have to pay for certified cheques.

 

BMO and CIBC offer less money to dents (~125,000G), BMO interest rate was prime +1 for dents.

[Guest Aplusdent]

What are certified cheques?

And what is prime?

[Guest jenleemo]

Hey, no prob...

 

certified cheques are the same thing as a money order. You pay the bank a certain amount of money, then the bank writes you a cheque for that amount from the banking instution. They're useful for paying tuition.

 

prime... it's an intrest rate term & it fluctuates. So say prime is 5.0%, then prime +1 is 6%. The value of prime changes with economic factors.

[Guest tamkhan1]

i heard cibc tries to lure students by taking them out for lunch and stuff..haha..this is supposed to happen on the first day of class..lol..

[Guest Aplusdent]

Thanks jenleemo I've never used a money order before...someday...

Does Canada Trust have anything for students??

[Guest power2005]

Could somebody explain the RBC line of credit?

 

- Does every dental student get accepted for one?

- How much is it per month? Or is there a cost? (ie. is it you only have to pay interest? How does it work?)

 

Thanks!

[Guest Adversary]

Aplusdent - no, Canada Trust does not. Only 3 banks are competing for our interest at the moment: CIBC, RBC, SCOTIABANK. I did all my research the day after I got into dentistry. In fact, you can open a professional account by providing your acceptance letter as proof as I did.

 

Power2005

The RBC line of credit explanation can be found here: www.rbcroyalbank.com/RBC:.../plan.html

 

Currently, they are superior because of the 12 free money orders. YOU WILL USE THEM, TRUST ME! I used 3 already for school to pay for equipment, insurance, etc. which required money order or certified cheques ONLY. However, you can ask Scotiabank or CIBC to make an exception, but will they do that more than once is the question.

 

YES, every dental student will get accepted WITHOUT COSIGN for $150,000 LOC. After that, you will need a cosign for more.

 

The cool thing about RBC is that you can use the $150,000 any way you want (you can spend $60,000 one year and $30,000 next) whereas the others restrict you to a maximum per year, ie. $30,000.

 

FOR all the banks, the moment you use your LOC (take out cash, use it, etc), you start paying interest. All 3 banks should provide interest at prime which is the lowest you can get. You do not have to pay anything until 12 months after you graduate, but the interest continues to accumulate. This is normal.

 

If you are in the BC area, contact me (private message) and I can get you the RBC MEDICAL AND DENTAL ACCOUNT MANAGER. She specifically deals with us and can get you a credit card limit as high as $15,000!

[Guest Aplusdent]

As far as credit cards..i don't really understand them. I have 2, I use one since it has rewards, and the other for backup. But I only use it if I know I have that amount in my bank account so I can pay it off at the end of the month. Doesn't it hurt you if you spend too much on it and you can't pay it all back at the end of the month and can only pay the minimum balance...don't you have a lot of interest that racks up and then you end up spending even more....I don't really get it. Financial stuff is not my forte obviously, thank god for parents and significant others.

[Guest Adversary]

I need the higher limit to pay for tuition. Since credit cards can be used, why not? At least you get points out of it. Me, I am using the RBC Avion card. Just pumping out more points to get free travel tickets.

[Guest TheRetardedOneDDS]

Set up a line of credit and a credit card with good rewards.

 

Pay for everything using your credit card. Then transfer money from your LOC to your card.

[Guest jenleemo]

also, RBC gives dents an automatic mortgage approval for 150,00$ based on projected income. No other banks do this.

 

RBC is REALLY eager to help you out with all you "debt planning", which is helpful if you're interested in investing in real estate.

[Guest jugule]

Does anybody have any opinions on joining Canadian Forces to pay off the tuition?

[Guest Adversary]

It's a great idea I believe. Two of my classmates are in that program and do not have to worry about any debts. You do commit yourself to a specific number of years to the army, but when you are done, you will have learned a lot and be debt-free. You will be paid by salary so no worries about the business aspect. HOWEVER, you will be assigned to a base, most likely your first choice. A lot of my classmates, particularly the females, state that they would have liked this option if they were not in relationships. That's one of the drawbacks.

 

More drawbacks include never having a summer again. All your summers belong to the army. You train when you are off school which means remedial exams are not an option.

 

Still, getting a $150 allowance for pens alone is pretty good. That's just one example.

[Guest Dent 4 Life]

Thanks for the information jenleemo. What is this automatic mortgage approval? Do they give you when you get into dentistry?

[Guest wishywish82]

the automatic mortgage sounds nice I'm soooo friggin tired of paying rent. But I doubt I could buy anything nice for 150K, never know we'll see.

[Guest venus]

Is the loan or line of credit affected by the amount of osap you get? or is osap and bank loans completely independent?

[Guest jenleemo]

Whether you osap doesn't affect the LOC. Just show RBC your letter of offer to dentistry & they give you the LOC. The opposite might not be true- I'm not sure if LOC affects osap.

 

About the mortgage thingy, you automatically get approved for 150K just for being accepted into a dents program. This means RBC gives you 150G LOC plus another 150 for a mortgage.

 

Bachelors/studio apts downtown are not too expensive. You'd be surprised what you can find.

[Guest Adversary]

Not in the Vancouver area....

[Guest jenleemo]

yes- forget about living in Vancouver for under 200,000. :\

 

I was referring only to the apts in TO since Dent 4 life is going to U of T.

[Guest Adversary]

Yeah, I was just adding meaningless commentary. I should get back to cramming.

[Guest Dent 4 Life]

Hey Jenleemo,

 

Are you going to purchase a condo to live in throughout Dentistry? Do you know how much the mortgage payments would be?

 

Thanks

[Guest jenleemo]

yes, I'm definately thinking about it. Mortgage pymnts will depend on the $ amount of the mortgage & the interest rate (RBC offers pretty good interest rates, like 5.15% for a 48 month term, closed). The interest rate is always changing so if you're even slightly considering buying, I'd definately recommend that you get pre-approved for a mortage, so that you are guaranteed a certain interest rate for ~ 90days. If the interest rate drops during that 90 day period, RBC will give you the better rate. There's no obligation to buy once you are pre-approved, it only secures the interest rate if you do buy a place.

 

There's a handy little mortgage calculator on-line from invis:

invis.ca/_bin/calculators...lifier.cfm

 

You can play around with the amt of the downpayment, purchase price, property taxes, interest rate & condo fees to get an idea of how much your monthly pymnts will be.

 

When you're shopping around, watch out for high condo fees- payments you make to the apartment building to cover operating expenses. This $ doesn't go towards paying off your mortgage, it's essentially just gone like rent $. All apartments have condo fees, but they vary quite a bit between buildings and the units within the building depending on the square footage. IMO Under 250$/month is good. I've see fees as high as 700$/mo for some places!!!

[Guest jenleemo]

... I forgot to mention that the bank will run a credit check before you can be pre-approved for the mortgage...

[Guest jugule]

Hey all,

 

Thanks Adversary for providing all the information about LOC. I got accepted to Dentisry at U of T. I am thinking of applying for a line of credit to pay off my tuition. Since I will live with my parents in Toronto I am not applying for an automatic mortgage but I am thinking of applying for OSAP to get extra money. Does anybody have any comments or opinions on my plan? Any help would be really appreciated.

Thanks in advance