You can probably agree here that when it comes to the wish of luxe living, you can usually count on “luxury apartment” getting tossed around a lot. Well, basically, it’s tossed around so much now that it barely means anything on its own. Think about it, though, it’s usually the same generic template all the time, like a building gets some gray flooring, a kitchen island, maybe a lobby that has an aroma lingering, and if you’re lucky, maybe there’s a gym or a rainfall shower. But that’s all it takes to get that luxury label, and that’s all it takes to be horrendously expensive too.
Sure, sometimes it really does feel elevated. But a lot of the time, the word luxury is doing most of the work, while the apartment itself is just there. So before you fall in love with listing photos and talk yourself into paying “luxury” rental prices, maybe you should first find out whether it’s actually luxury or not.
If You Can Hear Everything, it’s Not Luxury
No, really, it’s actually as simple as that! Basically, if somebody can hear the upstairs neighbor stomping around, the dog next door barking, doors slamming down the hall, somebody’s late-night speaker setup, or full conversations through the wall, then no, that’s not luxury. That’s just an expensive apartment with a noise problem. No, literally, it’s as simple as that. Because a real luxury apartment will have things in place to make each apartment actually soundproof.
The Nice Details Still Feel Nice After a Week
When you’re looking around for apartments for rent, it’s not too uncommon that the listing pictures are super aesthetically pleasing. That, lots of lighting, wide angles in the picture, it all looks polished, and maybe in person too if you’re doing a viewing. But just because an apartment looks polished at first glance, it doesn’t inherently mean that it actually is polished, though.
It could be small things, like the cabinet doors being flimsy (or made by IKEA), the shower water pressure being really low, the drawers not closing properly, and this list could just go on and on, really. But with a real luxury hotel, at least, even the little finishes matter; everything has been calculated and intended for the tenant. The whole point isn’t to have any of these annoying “quirks” or imperfections.
How’s the Layout?
For starters here, just because it’s an open plan layout doesn’t inherently mean that it’s a luxury apartment, all it means is that it’s trying to keep up with trends, it’s as simple as that really. Now, with that said, some buildings get way too distracted by looking fancy and forget to actually be livable. Sure, it’s nice to have a rooftop space, or a gym, pool, or even a coffee machine in the lobby.
But if the actual living space is horrible, and the layout is weird (like struggling to fit a queen-size bed in your room), then there’s clearly an issue. But yeah, a truly nicer apartment should feel easy to live in. The kitchen should make sense. The storage should be useful. The bathroom shouldn’t feel like an afterthought. Again, there needs to be a lot of intention in everything, both big and small details.
Photo by Gustavo Galeano Maz via Pexels.