Apartment or Landed House as an Investment in Indonesia? What the Rent and Resale Data Say
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7 min read
You have Rp1,000,000,000. A 40 square metre apartment costs that much. So does a small landed house (a house with its own plot of land) a bit further out. Which one is the better investment?
The apartment ad says 6% rent a year. The house ad says 4%. Apartment wins, right? Not so fast. The two ads leave out different costs. This article puts them side by side, with the apartment vs landed house investment question worked out in rupiah.
Everything below is education, not advice to buy anything. Data was checked on 8 October 2026.
Bank Indonesia (BI) runs the Residential Property Price Survey. It tracks what developers ask for new houses in the primary market, meaning houses sold new by the developer.
For the second quarter of 2026, BI's national house price index rose just 0.69% over the year. The first quarter was 0.62%. The figures are reported by outlets that summarise the BI release, such as Investortrust and Infobank.
By size, the same summaries show:
| House size | Price growth, year on year |
|---|---|
| Large | 0.68% |
| Small | 0.49% |
| Medium | Not found in the summaries we could read |
Prices are barely moving. So a landed house is not growing fast on price alone right now.
One more thing matters. This BI survey is about houses. We found no apartment price index in it. The summaries we read do not cover apartments, and BI's own PDF was not reachable from our setup. So any claim about apartment resale growth needs a different source, and the ones we found disagree.
For Jakarta apartments, two sources gave very different price levels for 2026. Cushman & Wakefield expects selling prices of about Rp20 million to Rp25 million per square metre, according to a search summary. Jendela360 puts average asking prices near Rp35.6 million per square metre.
That is a gap of more than Rp10 million per square metre. On a 40 square metre unit, it is over Rp400,000,000.
Asking prices are what sellers hope to get, not what buyers pay. Use them as a starting point only. Check recent sold prices in the exact building before you trust any average.
Rent is where apartments look good. For the gross yield numbers (rent before any cost, divided by price), we already walked through Jakarta's real rental yields. Global Property Guide put Jakarta apartment gross yields between 4.80% and 12.02% depending on area. Houses are lower. Rumah123 reports gross yields of about 3% to 5% for houses, as quoted in our rent vs buy article.
Now the other side. Knight Frank reported that Jakarta rental apartment occupancy averaged about 67.6% in the first half of 2026, per a Kontan search summary. Roughly 11,300 new apartment units were also expected to finish in 2026, mostly in Tangerang, Bekasi and South Jakarta.
Occupancy of 67.6% means about one in three rental units sits empty on average. More supply gives tenants more choice. That can hold rents down.
A landed house has costs too, mainly repairs. An apartment adds a few more that a house does not.
Service charge. A monthly fee for cleaning, security, lifts and shared areas. A detikProperti guide from 2023 put it at about Rp20,000 to Rp25,000 per square metre per month. That figure is old and each building differs.
Sinking fund. A reserve the building collects for big repairs, such as lifts and facades. The same guide gave Rp100,000 to Rp200,000 a month. OCBC describes it as often around 10% of monthly maintenance. These two rules of thumb do not match, so ask the building manager for the exact bill.
HGB expiry. Most apartments sit on HGB, or Hak Guna Bangunan (right to build). It is not full ownership of the land. On state or HPL land, which is land managed by a body such as a developer or agency, HGB lasts up to 30 years. It can be extended by up to 20 years, then renewed by up to 30 more, under Government Regulation 18 of 2021. The HPL holder must give a recommendation first. Law-firm and academic sources we found say the extension cost falls on the owner who applies. We could not find an official fee figure, so ask the land office (BPN) or a notary.
If the HGB ends and is not extended, the right returns to the land holder. That is why the years left on the HGB matter at resale. For the difference between SHM and HGB, see our land certificate guide.
These inputs are NetWort's illustrations, not market averages. Change them to match a real listing.
Both properties cost Rp1,000,000,000. The apartment is 40 square metres, so Rp25,000,000 per square metre. Vacancy is one empty month a year for both.
| Per year | Apartment | Landed house |
|---|---|---|
| Gross rent (6% vs 4%) | Rp60,000,000 | Rp40,000,000 |
| Service charge (Rp25,000 x 40 m2 x 12) | -Rp12,000,000 | Rp0 |
| Sinking fund (Rp150,000 x 12) | -Rp1,800,000 | Rp0 |
| Repairs (1% vs 1.5% of price) | -Rp10,000,000 | -Rp15,000,000 |
| One empty month | -Rp5,000,000 | -Rp3,333,000 |
| Net, before tax | Rp31,200,000 | Rp21,667,000 |
| Net yield | 3.12% | 2.17% |
The repair rates come from the common guide of setting aside 1% to 2% of property value a year. The apartment unit pays less because the building handles the structure.
The apartment still comes out ahead on yield in this example. But look at what happened. A 6% headline fell to 3.12%. A 4% headline fell to 2.17%. Both lost about half.
Taxes would cut both further. Compare either net number with what a safer asset pays. The NetWort macro page shows the current BI rate and bond yields.
Yield is only half the return. The other half is the price when you sell.
A landed house comes with land. If the certificate is SHM, the land is yours with no clock running. BI data shows landed house prices rising slowly, at 0.69% a year nationally.
An apartment has no BI price index we could find. Its value depends on the building, its management and the years left on the HGB. A unit with 25 years left is harder to sell than one with 70.
Once you have a net number, you can judge it against the rest of your money. Open Holdings in NetWort and add the property as a Real Estate asset with your own value and the rent you really collect. Then you can see how much of your portfolio sits in one building.