College friends Lina Dorkhman and Olivia Zhang spent the first few years after graduating from New York University living at home, saving for what they assumed would be an eventual move back to the city.

But after starting their apartment hunt from their respective New Jersey perches — Ms. Dorkhman was living at her parents’ house in Old Bridge, in Middlesex County, and Ms. Zhang was staying with family friends in the Newport neighborhood of Jersey City — the women decided that, in fact, they would rather be in Jersey.

Ms. Dorkhman and Ms. Zhang, both 25, reached that conclusion one afternoon in the fall of 2016, after touring their fifteenth Jersey City apartment of the day. It was a two-bedroom walk-up, on a corner Grove Street lot, and it was flooded with light.

The apartment was both bigger and cheaper — $2,550 a month — than another place they had been seriously considering a few blocks away, and it was no-fee. The exposed brick in the kitchen, the spacious living room, the in-building washer and dryer, and the recent renovation were all strong points in the apartment’s favor. And then they saw the bathroom.