“Furnished” is one of the least regulated words in renting. It can mean a fully equipped room, or a mattress on a frame and nothing else. Since you are usually deciding from photographs, sometimes from another country, the only useful version of this page is a specific one.
What is in every room, in both buildings
- A full bed, with linens, made up before you arrive
- A study desk and a desk lamp
- Shelving
- Most room types add a wall-mounted television
The suite around it is furnished too: a kitchen, and a dining or sitting area shared with the three other bedrooms.
What that means in practice is that you can land at the airport with a suitcase and sleep in the room the same night. You are not buying a bed in week one and selling it at a loss in April.
What is in the rent
Heat, water, power and Wi-Fi. Laundry in the building. On-site maintenance. There is no utility bill, no service fee and no application fee.
The number to hold on to is that in an Edmonton winter, heat is not a rounding error. A cheaper unfurnished room with utilities excluded is a different product from the one below, and the gap shows up in January.
The seven rooms
Rent is quoted every four weeks, because that is the billing period — it is the number you actually pay rather than a monthly average nobody is billed.
| Room | Building | Every four weeks | Weekly | Floor area |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flex Basic | Garneau Towers | $560 | $140 | 180 sq ft |
| Flex Plus | Garneau Towers | $660 | $165 | 225 sq ft |
| Deluxe | Garneau Towers | $800 | $200 | 235 sq ft |
| Flex Basic | University Tower | $700 | $175 | — |
| Flex Plus | University Tower | $800 | $200 | — |
| Flex Balcony | University Tower | $820 | $205 | — |
| Deluxe | University Tower | $880 | $220 | — |
Every one of them is a private bedroom in a four-bedroom suite. One bathroom is shared between the four bedrooms, in both buildings. No room on this site has a private bathroom.
The University Tower rooms cost more for one reason: the building sits on the campus boundary. The Education building is a five-minute walk and the hospital four. From Garneau Towers, a block east, the same walks are seven and six — and the rooms are cheaper, and it has the fitness centre.
Furnished against unfurnished: the honest arithmetic
A cheaper unfurnished room looks better until you write out the first month.
Against the unfurnished rent you have to add a bed, a desk, a chair, a lamp and shelving; the connection fees and monthly bills for heat, power, water and internet; and the time and transport it takes to assemble all of it in a city you may have just arrived in. At the end of the lease most of the furniture sells at a fraction of what it cost, or goes to the kerb.
None of that means unfurnished is the wrong answer. If you are staying several years and want your own things around you, buy furniture once and amortise it. For a nine-month academic year, or a term, the arithmetic rarely gets there.
What to check before you sign anything furnished
Whoever you rent from, ask the same five questions. They are the ones that separate a furnished room from a photograph of one.
- Is there a bed frame and a mattress, and what size? “Furnished” occasionally means neither.
- Is there a desk? For a student this is not a detail. Working from a bed for nine months is a real cost.
- Which utilities are in the rent, and which are billed separately? Get heat in writing, specifically.
- How many people share the bathroom? Here it is four, in both buildings. Elsewhere it varies, and it is rarely in the listing.
- What is the deposit, and under what law is it returned? In Alberta a security deposit is capped at one month’s rent and comes back with interest after you move out and the room is inspected.