If you had to live in an apartment or condo...

glennmagusharvey

Would you rather live in a low-rise building or in the lower floors of a high-rise building, or the higher floors of a high-rise building?

Say, if you were offered a choice between the 4th floor, and the 16th floor, of a 20-story building.  Or if you had to choose between the 4th floor of a 5-story building and the 16th floor of a 20-story building.  Which would you choose?

And why?

Tatterhood

whichever one lets me have a cat

but actually being way high up is pretty cool, view wise

Imipolex G

gotta be low to the ground.

I am not getting caught on the upper floors of a burning building.

Calica

lower because @buttercupistiny has to use elevators

Tre

16th floor, my man. That view!

Yarrun XIX

16th floor. 

Viani

All the Same price?

Top floor. Rather have noisey neighbors below, than ontop, or both. That, and its less easier for people to spy on you when you're 20 floors up.

Gotta pack your own furniture?

Bottom floor. Top floor moving is so terrible.

4th of a 5th floor, or 16th of a 20th, I'd prefer the 4th to 5th.

Less people on a 5'er than a 20'er.

In general, ALWAYS COST.

COST IS MOST IMPORTANT. I am not going to be a apartment owner's passive income just to suffer with no air conditioning, poor tenant management, bad access (keys/keycards), and minimal write-offs for utilities. 

Bee

Lower.  In summer, higher rooms get hot as hell, especially if the people below you are using window AC that just blows hotter air straight up.

Also in really tall buildings -- like, higher than 15F or so -- I can start to feel the building sway and it creeps the shit out of me.  I'm aware of the structural engineering on why that's actually safer than the building being completely rigid, but there's a caveman in the back of my head that insists buildings aren't supposed to move.  And when you look up at some of the taller skyscrapers that sway most of the width of the sidewalk...*shudder*

Yarrun XIX

Oh, is *that* why I was constantly burning up last semester?

Scratch that, 4th floor. I am not going through that sweat box again.

Bee

Heat rises.  When you live in a building with lots of other people putting off body heat, device heat, cooking heat, AC heat...that's a lot that rises into your room.  Convection is a huge problem in dense residential buildings.

Also more direct sunlight because less shade from other buildings and landscaping.

Keep in mind even if you go shirtless all day and tough it out without AC to save on costs, your refrigerator still uses very nearly as much electricity (in an average unit during summer, fridge and AC are the highest power consumption by far).  Even if the lower floor were slightly more expensive, you'd likely see a lower overall cost from monthly utility bills.