Which "wood" flooring in a flat?

[hippospot]

We are renovating a flat to let out in London, first floor.

Soundproofing will obviously be an issue out of consideration for the residents downstairs, but I believe there is a layer you can put under hard flooring for this.

In our own house we have installed solid oak flooring which we love. But for the BTL we hope to do things a bit more cheaply yet still practical/hard-wearing.

Is bamboo a good option? Or should we go for engineered oak instead? I'm not a fan of laminate generally but I also appreciate that modern laminates are probably better than in the old days. Worth considering? We plan to let this flat out for a 20+ year investment and we hope to attract long-term tenants, so we anticipate it being a really nice home for someone. Equally, it needs to be able to withstand some wear and tear.

Any experiences most appreciated thanks.

Anyone?

Hi there, I would really think hard about this. Many leases don’t allow wooden flooring so I’d check that first. Secondly living beneath a flat with a hardwood floor is an absolute nightmare- literally every noise carries and is amplified. Even if the lease does permit it it is a recipe for neighbourly discord and rows, I have several friends who have had a horrible time either because they lived beneath someone with a wooden floor and suffered the noise, or because someone beneath them did nothing but complain about (relatively normal) noise. You can get a special underlay but it doesn’t make a huge amount of difference- I think in order to properly soundproof a flat you need to put sound insulation between the floors. I would recommend looking into a good wool carpet with stain remover or maybe a vinyl floor. If the flat is on 2 floors you could use wood on the upper one.

I honestly wouldn't. I spent 6 years in a ground floor flat which had Woden flooring upstairs and I have to say it was hell on earth! It was in our leases that it had to be carpet but since the upstairs neighbour was the freeholder we were stuffed. Even with 'good' underlay it's not good enough.
We moved out 12 years ago and I'm still very sensitive to upstairs noise