Inexpensive yet of quality = good value?

The quest for an inexpensive yet of quality (equals good value?) rental apartment in the city is on. While saying “inexpensive”, we should quickly add “relatively”, as everything else is in this city. Describing “quality” is also a tricky subject to take on: it won’t for sure mean “luxury” (and we will try to disrupt this term in a separate post), and in fact it may mean different things to different people.

So, let’s describe here what it means to us:

First thing is to acknowledge the quite obvious fact that any apartment is not separate from the building it is in. The implication is pretty simple: for the apartment to be of quality, we think that the building it is in has to be of such as well. I mean, if you had a nicely renovated unit in a deteriorating, poorly managed building, would you be happy with it? To some extend, maybe, but overall, rather not.

So #1 on our shortlist of elements describing a quality apartment actually refers to the apartment building: it has to be well managed, well taken care of. What we are taking out of the equation are building’s features and amenities. While important, we believe that you can have a quality apartment in an otherwise featureless building.

Now, regarding the apartment itself, at the top we have good living space. The space that can be worked out to provide for your essential needs: good separation of day and night zones, kitchen /dining, bath, and storage.

Next comes the light. We think that quality apartment should get some decent natural daylight, regardless of how well the artificial one might be designed. And as you may already know, there are apartments in this city that get close to none of natural daylight. It is a “no go” for us, sorry.

Finally, we are looking at the level of renovation and some most important apartment features. Painting the walls and restoring the floors (if needed) are only two items on the much longer maintenance list of good owners /managers of the well cared for apartments in between tenants. And a good working stove and a clean fridge are probably more important than a microwave, or even a dishwasher.

We are happy to add to this list, if you have any suggestions, but keep in mind that we are only talking about the essentials here.