An apartment is essentially and Inn room that you can decorate as you please, it is only a fraction of the cost to build a house and is plenty of room for a new adventurer to decorate with interior items. Houses allow for particular exterior decorations as well as the ability to customize the house itself (the cost of which is immense and is not included in the initial purchase of the land). Gardening is the main reason to get a house, since you cannot crossbreed seeds in an apartment. If your sole desire is to decorate a room with a bunch of unique things from your adventures then an apartment will definitely suit your needs and fulfill them in a more timely manner.

As long as the team continues to open new wards, you will always be granted a rather fair chance at getting a house provided you have the money when those wards open. There are also, of course, houses that are either sold or auto-demolished due to inactivity, but those run into the problem of a random unseen timer that prevents another player from buying the plot until it expires. Unfortunately, these timers can go on for over a day, and any plot of land can potentially be taken by a previous land owner vacating their old plot for the new one (This of course comes at great expense since they literally have to buy another plot of land).