It seems SE sees apartments as Housing

[Eraden]

That's the problem - they don't actually promote apartments.

What products are most likely to end up successful? Products promoted in marketing campaigns. We're trained from an early age to become demanding consumers for the things we see being advertised first on TV then later in social media and other places (unless our parents block our access to those things).

As long as SE is going to promote owning a house both in their out-of-game advertising and in their in-game questing, players are going to expect to own a house.

If they don't have enough faith in their apartments to feature them in any marketing, players are going to ignore them in favor of what is featured.

It's a shame because apartments are not that bad if you give them a chance. If you have multiple characters on the same world, you can always try to put their apartments into the same building to create the illusion of having a larger house. They're still not going to suit every player (especially those who will actually do intercross gardening) but a little creativity can create a nice living space.

No, apartments really ARE bad compared to houses. Less functionality (for some of us having other players be able to interact with our apartments IS important), and MUCH less space. Those tiny little boxes restrict people from being able to access a lot of décor styles. Try putting even a single room into an apartment and suddenly you have a LOT less space on your hands. Now, apartments would not be so bad if they were made larger and were allowed access by more tenants. Until they are revamped to be something other than the single-person coffins that they are (a bit of hyperbole here but not far off the mark), people will always go for houses first and foremost.