I would assume that the cottages would rent more quickly.

I am in the home stretch in purchasing some investment cottages in Southwestern Michigan on lake Michigan.

My father in law owns a cottage on a lake on the Maine/NH border.  

I'm currently in the process of purchasing a 2/2 cottage with a 1/1 basement apartment (that needs quite a bit of work, but it permitted).

I was on Kauai looking at property last week and found a lot of them have a main home and a cottage or extra studio.This is great because we can rent to a family in a 3 bed and then make the extra income and rent to someone looking for a 1 bed or studio.

I would call it a barrel cottage.

They live in the small 'cottage' or 'guest house' whilst the main house is vacant and in poor condition.

Historically this has also happened in these specific neighborhoods: chatam arch / chatam arch / cottage homes Old north side / herron morton / fall creek place Lockerbie / Fletcher Place / Fountain Square.

We plan on renting out the main house, with good cash flow, then using the guest cottage as a vacation rental.

When I worked in Holland some years ago, we rented a cottage which was around 400yrs old ... it had been updated many times over the centuries ;-)