With the holiday season fast approaching, and the deadline for purchasing RRSPs hitting fast on its heels, consider gifting yourself some financial breathing room by tapping the equity built up in your home through a Line of Credit. A Line of Credit can help finance a pre-holiday renovation that adds value to your home plus, come February, help leverage your retirement investments.

There’s nothing like knowing a house full of guests is headed your way to make you think about updating and renovating your home’s living and entertaining space. Perhaps it’s a makeover of the spare bedroom, finishing off the basement, or installing new kitchen cabinetry? Let the holiday spruce up begin with a secured Line of Credit. Borrowing against your home equity, often of up to 80% of its value, can help establish an accessible, flexible source of capital to fund what you need, when you need it, at a great rate.

Used properly, a Line of Credit is an excellent financing tool that can actually create wealth, believes John Bargis, Executive Vice-President, Mortgage Edge, Richmond Hill, ON, who advises clients to use a LOC for improvements that add value to their home. “I am also a big fan of leveraging from a LOC to build an investment portfolio that ultimately helps a borrower build wealth and plan for a better retirement,” says Bargis, a MCAP Broker. Securing a Line of Credit is a fairly simple process that usually involves a home appraisal and one round of borrower-lender paperwork. Once established, the funds are yours to access quickly and efficiently: borrow, pay off, re-borrow, pay off, all at a cost-effective rate.

Vince Gaetano, Principal Broker-Owner, MonsterMortgage.ca, a Toronto-based MCAP Broker, advises that using a Line of Credit does take discipline. Good habits of setting a realistic payment plan and timeline to pay off principal and interest are key to maximizing its benefits. Vince says, “a line of credit can make that big holiday renovation happen quickly or top up an RRSP contribution, but make sure you pay if off including depositing that tax return into the LOC account when it comes in.”Visit www.mcap.com to learn about the benefits of MCAP’s Home Account and Home Account Plus lines of credit.