Here's a simple apartment hunter's tip that also applies to condos and homes: test the shower! My first apartment in Boston was in a 150-year-old Victorian. Lovely old lady, it was. But besides the coal scuttle in the basement and some cloth-covered wiring down there that would have given an inspector fits, it also had anemic plumping.
You know how annoying it is to turn on the faucet and have to wait five minutes for hot water. It's wasteful, too. More importantly, the shower had feeble water pressure. With my long hair, I couldn't get the soap out without adding another ten minutes to the shower. Again, wasteful.
When I moved, the top two things on my wish list were storage space and water pressure. I did a quick test of each apartment I visited. The one I wound up with gives me a great massage!
Of course, you also have to consider water-saver shower heads, but if the apartment doesn't have them, then you certainly don't want to start with low water pressure.
Sometimes the problem can be fixed or adjusted, especially if you're moving into a condo or house. One person told me that she complained about her water pressure to the condo complex's management, and the plumber found that a valve at the pump was set to 50%. Adjusting it to 70% fixed the problem.
So you may be able to ask for water pressure (and heat?) to be adjusted before you move in, but it's definitely something to consider, and it's one I haven't heard anyone else recommend.
