Just like most members here have already said, it depends on the kind of real estate investor one is. Currently, the world's economy is not smiling and the prices of building materials keep increasing as the day goes by. The cost at which one builds an apartment will definitely not be the cost at which he will build that very design of apartment tomorrow because the price of materials and even labour will go up. If the investor calculates all the cost involved in building a house today and sells that particular house, chances are that he will spend even more building that same house again tomorrow. I am using the current economic situation in my country as a case study.
Except the investor just wants to sell off the house outrightly without any intention of rebuilding, I think renting out the building will generate more returns and is even more profitable than an outright sale.
This current economic situation is actually not favoring almost every sector because of inflation. The cost of everything is going up same as building materials, because of the high cost of leaving and materials, building house is not more profitable if you are building for selling purposes, that is why hotels are becoming more rampant because building a hotel is more profitabe than building a house for rent because the payement will be daily, while an appartment payment will be annually,
opinion, In my opinion, I think building a house for sell is good, and also building a hotel is also profitable.
But people that has already invested in real estate in the past will have more profit than people that just invested.