If your property investment plan ends with “…and then my children will own 10 condos”, you probably grasp the idea of wealth progression in property assets (and if you don’t, there are several hundred YouTube ads that will force-feed it to you).

The concept seems simple enough: start with one home, then sell it for more and upgrade. Then you let that home appreciate, sell it for more, and buy a bigger or more homes, rinse and repeat.

But here’s the thing: the later part of the plan (choosing which two condos, landed property, etc. to buy) is the easier part. The tough part is the very first property. After all, if your first home doesn’t appreciate well, then the rest of the plan is just a pipe dream.

This leads a lot of first-time home buyers to ask: is the bog-standard Built-To-Order (BTO) flat the right choice of a first property?