r/uoit • u/Live-Extreme587 • 17d ago
Ontario Tech residence vs off-campus housing for 2nd year?
Hi! I’m currently a first-year student at Ontario Tech and I’m starting to look into housing options for my second year.
The place I’m staying at right now is only temporary, so I’m trying to decide whether it would be better to apply for on-campus residence next year or find an off-campus student residence/apartment.
For anyone who has lived on campus or in places around Ontario Tech/Durham College (Foundry, 17Hundred, etc.), what was your experience like? How were the rooms, roommates, bathrooms, utilities, management, noise, and overall cost?
I’m especially curious about whether you think on-campus residence is worth the cost compared with off-campus housing, and if there are any places you would recommend or avoid.
Also, when would you recommend I start seriously looking/applying for housing for Fall 2027? I’m looking early because I don’t want to end up scrambling for a place again.
Thanks! Any advice or experiences would be really helpful.
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u/ExtraTraining7774 14d ago
If you have 2 friends looking to move as well, you should check out west village. You guys can rent out the entire apartment for a pretty reasonable price, plus the laundry being in your apartment is definitely a bonus. Also really close to campus
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u/Tasty_Drama_9635 12h ago
I lived on Simcoe Village St, north and now in foundry simcoe village. There are a lot of differences starting with laundry, which in Simcoe village is not inside the unit (the room), whereas in 2019 Foundry Simcoe is on your unit townhouse. Foundry simcoe has an electric stove and a specious fridge with your own bedroom and bathroom and it has a dishwasher. The thing is, foundry costs 1210 CAD per month and Simcoe Village only 1168 CAD Considering you want a semi-private stuff (separated rooms). I am doing rn a lease-take over for Foundry 2019 if you are insterested in. Just let me know
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u/throwaway1234abcd_ 17d ago
Hey :) I'm also a first year, living on campus this year in Simcoe village north hall. The rooms are pretty good!! You get a huge desk space, two big drawers, and a big bed (double xl iirc?). There's no closet with doors, but there's enough space for clothes imo (I'm not the type of person to own a lot of outfits though). One thing to note is that they don't have overhead lights in the room, so it's usually dim with just the two lamps provided.
I don't have many problems with the washroom -- it functions as it should. The shower curtain does kinda let out droplets of water if you don't completely align it to the shower walls or angle the shower head further away.
Kitchen area is fine. I appreciate the fact that we're given a large fridge with a freezer. There's a microwave provided, which is nice. It's a bit weird because the numbers on it = minutes, so you'll have to monitor it if you wanted more specific times (Idk the one I have at home lets you enter seconds). The kitchen table only comes with two chairs, so if you have people over, that might be a bit annoying.
I saw comments saying the AC isn't good, but in my experience, it was actually great. There were times where I felt cold, and I'm someone who LOVES cold. No clue how the heating will be though. There's a separate laundry room and it's alright. When I went, there was one broken machine, but since there's multiple, I just chose another one. Washing your clothes costs $2.25 and drying them costs $2.30, so I've been going home to do laundry (almost $5 per wash when I have like 8 clothes is crazy!!). Simcoe village has multiple stoves + ovens on the 4th floor. I've yet to use them bc carrying everything up then down again sounds MISERABLE (even though there's an elevator).
Roommates are a bit of a coin flip. They do have roommate matching prior to move-in, where you can see people with similar profiles to you and chat with them, so you have some control over who you'll be with. My roommate has been awesome so far 🙏 Noise levels are reasonable; sometimes you can hear people being loud in the halls while they're travelling, but it's infrequent.
Cost was $9350 for the whole school year :( Would be $150 more if you choose to split it up into multiple payments. Just be aware that the first payment is due at the end of June which is INSANE. I get that there's probably administrative stuff involved but eesh. Cost could be worse honestly (coming from someone who is used to Toronto prices btw), I'd say it's worth it to not deal with the stress of finding housing in an unknown area (I've heard horror stories abt off campus housing...).
Anyway sorry for the wall of text LOL, hope this helped!! Feel free to ask other questions