This question comes up a lot and is generally based on confusion between where you would like to live and what is a good investment.
The simple answer to the question of whether to buy a house or an apartment is “whichever gives you the highest return” though we can look into some of the basics of why investors prefer each property type.
For a start, most investors who buy property live in houses. Therefore many of the newer investors believe that houses are more popular and have the potential to extend to make additional money. Some investors like the idea of having a freehold house so will initially believe that they only want to work with the small number of freehold houses.
Before you decide it is highly recommended that you look at investment without pre-conceived ideas. Any ideas you do have make sure you can back them up with data and facts, otherwise, you are making an emotional purchase with a high chance of weakening your decision making.
UK property is simple as we have up to 100 years of data. Want to know the % of apartments vacant compared to houses, we have that data, want to know the % of leasehold properties in a city, we have that data, want to know the average earnings of people in an area, the supply v’s demand, the ethnicity, population density, average growth over the last 25 years, the size or type of windows in any property of the UK – WE HAVE THAT DATA!
One of the benefits of apartments for example is they tend to be in prime city-centre locations. If there is a large plot of land a developer can either build 100 apartments or 6-8 houses on the same plot, then the houses will have to be very expensive to justify this.
This naturally makes the premium areas, where you have the highest population density, and lowest vacancy rates almost entirely apartments. This means that more experienced landlords, pension funds etc tend to focus on apartments in city centre locations as they provide the simplest investment case.
Choosing before you have looked at all of your options would be a poor strategy. Have a free one to one with a Baron & Cabot specialist so you can ask questions, get the relevant reports and start to decide what type of investment suits what you are looking for.