Where would the property be? I wouldn’t touch UK property with a bargepole, with all the Brexit uncertainty and what not, but of course other people will have different opinions and no one has a crystal ball.
Why do you think property is a good long-term investment? In London it’s been a phenomenal investment till very recently; in other parts of the country, not so much. In my experience, investing in properties tends to have an emotional and irrational side which should play no role in the decision-making process; also, many people tend to underestimate the costs and risks of being a landlord, like works needed every x years.
To begin with, you need to open a spreadsheet (even a free one like google sheets) and run some numbers. The money you are investing is not only the purchase price of the property, but price + stamp duty (are you a homeowner? Would you be paying the 3% additional stamp duty?) + legal fees + cost of refurbishing / furnishing the property.
Let’s say you buy a property for £300k. Stamp duty, with the additional 3%, will be £14k. Even with minimal works or furniture to buy, you’d very easily get to at least £320k (including legal fees). Let’s be hopeful and let’s say that the rental yield is 4%, i.e. £300k x 4% =£12k of rent per year. However, you have not spent £300k, you have spent £320, and £12k/£320k = 3.75%, not 4%. Should the property stay unoccupied for only 3 weeks a year, the rental yield would drop even further to 3.5%. Start adding other costs, like ground rent or managing agents’ fees if it’s a leasehold, the cost of annual gas safety inspections, the odd repair here or there, the cost of a letting agent, and your rental yield will easily drop below 3%. All of this is pre-tax, of course. I don’t know what your tax situation is, but, if you compare this with an investments in stocks and shares, investing in property is not necessarily a slam dunk, as the Americans would say.
People often compare investing in properties vs investing in a saving account, but it’s like comparing apples and oranges. Yes, even if you paid the highest 45% marginal tax rate, 3% pre-tax would still be 1.65% post-tax, and you won’t find many saving accounts paying that much after tax (you can’t invest 300£ in an ISA in one go). It’s not impossible to invest in a stock portfolio with a dividend yield higher than these rental yields, and tax on dividends is typically lower (tax is complicated and depends on many factors).
So far we have talked about income only. Then there’s the matter of capital appreciation or depreciation. No one really has a clue what’s going to happen, but don’t expect property prices to rise at 5% or more every year like they did in most of London till 2015 or so.