Comparing student housing on rent alone is how people end up paying more than they planned. The four options carry different hidden lines, and the cheapest headline is rarely the cheapest year.

Here is the cost structure of each, and the one set of real numbers we can give you without guessing — our own.

What we charge, in full

Room Building Every four weeks Weekly
Flex Basic Garneau Towers $560 $140
Flex Plus Garneau Towers $660 $165
Deluxe Garneau Towers $800 $200
Flex Basic University Tower $700 $175
Flex Plus University Tower $800 $200
Flex Balcony University Tower $820 $205
Deluxe University Tower $880 $220

Included: heat, water, power, Wi-Fi, the furnished room with the bed made up, laundry in the building, on-site maintenance. Not charged: application fee, service fee, utility bill.

One caveat that changes the arithmetic. Rent is quoted every four weeks because that is the billing period. Four weeks is shorter than a calendar month, so a nine-month term is nine and three-quarter payments, not nine. Anyone comparing our figure to a monthly rent elsewhere should multiply by 9.75, not by 9.

At the cheapest room that is roughly $5,460 for the academic year, all in. At the dearest, roughly $8,580.

The four option types, and what each one hides

University residence. Bills and furniture are normally inside the fee, so the headline is close to the total. The cost that is not money: the place is tied to your registration, so a changed programme or a deferred term becomes a housing problem as well as an academic one.

A private student residence — what we are. Same shape: bills and furniture inside the figure. The lines to check are the billing period (see above) and the deposit. Ours is one four-week rent period at signing, refundable under Alberta’s Residential Tenancies Act with interest after you move out and the room is inspected. Alberta caps a security deposit at one month’s rent.

A room in a shared house. Usually the lowest headline and the longest list of additions: heat and power through an Edmonton winter, internet, and furniture you buy in September and sell at a loss in April. Then the structural one — on a joint tenancy, if a housemate leaves in February their share of the rent becomes yours until you find a replacement. That is not a monthly cost, it is a risk, and it is the reason the lease structure matters more than the rent.

A studio. Highest rent, every bill in your name, all furniture yours. Honest and simple; it just costs what it costs.

The line nobody budgets: the commute

Distance is a cost you pay in January rather than in dollars, and it is the one that most often makes a “cheaper” room dearer.

A transit pass, winter clothing rated for waiting rather than walking, and — the expensive part — the mornings when the trip is bad enough that you do not go in. From both of our buildings the walks are short enough that this line is zero: the Education building is seven minutes from Garneau Towers and five from University Tower, the hospital six and four.

How to compare two options honestly

  1. Take the headline rent and convert both to the same period. Four-weekly and monthly are not the same number.
  2. Add back every utility the figure excludes. Heat specifically.
  3. Add furniture you would buy, minus what it will resell for.
  4. Add the transport the location forces.
  5. Add the risk — what happens to your rent if a housemate leaves mid-year.
  6. Only then compare.

Most of the time the gap narrows to far less than the headline suggested, and occasionally it reverses.

If you want our figures next to the room they belong to, they are on the rooms page, each with its own deposit — or book a tour and ask.