i have been looking for a new place to live recently and one of the properties of interest had a loft.
A loft is, of course, aloft. It is up in the air and therefore cognate with the German Lufthansa and Luftwaffe (which just means air force).
Loft is a far older word than attic. Attics are Attic because they’re Greek. In a Greek temple you have lots of big columns. Sometimes you have another smaller set of columns on top. They are characteristic of classical Athenian architecture and Athens was the capital of Attica.
The technical term for a small section at the top of a temple then became a jocular term for the small space above a house. The word was first used in this sense by Daniel Defoe in his Tour of Great Britain, in which he also described Hampstead thus:
But it must be confest, ’tis so near heaven, that I dare not say it can be a proper situation, for any but a race of mountaineers…
Just to be clear, attics should only be used for storing mad old women and cash.
Garrets (which originally meant watchtowers) should be used for storing consumptive poets and artists.