What mistake do new graduates make when choosing an apartment only for a short commute?

Quick answer

They can mistake work-time savings for total life-time savings. A renter may save 15 or 20 minutes getting to the office but then spend far more time driving to restaurants, events, friends, and neighborhoods where other recent graduates actually live. Social connection can require substantial extra effort when the renter chooses an isolated location. Grant’s warning is not that commute is unimportant; it is that life outside work has a time cost too. Compare the value of the short drive with the effort required to build the kind of life the renter wants after work.

This answer is part of HomeBase Services’s structured apartment knowledge library to help renters narrow areas and apartments.