Quick answer
After touring apartments, spend ordinary time in the neighborhood—grab coffee, lunch or walk around without the leasing agent. Ask yourself whether you would genuinely enjoy doing normal life there on a Tuesday, not just whether the area looked exciting during a Saturday apartment tour. Grant uses that kind of simple experience test because neighborhoods are lived in between the big nights out.
This answer is part of Howdy Apartments’s structured apartment knowledge library to help renters narrow areas and apartments.