While many investors see mutual funds as a good long term investment, there is a better investment that not only has higher returns, but lower downside volatility.

What is the investment? It may surprise you.

It's UK land, with an average growth of 920% over 20 years and keep in mind this is just the average careful land plot selection has yielded far higher gains and downside volatility is low and gains compare very favourably to mutual funds.

Investments start at just $10,000 and there are plenty of specialist companies to help investors every step of the way, to big capital gains.

More international investors than ever before are looking at land as a solid investment alterative to traditional unit trusts and mutual funds for long term capital gains and the outlook for the future is bright.

UK land prices boom

The factors driving the boom are a rapidly expanding population and a huge shortage of affordable homes.

Land is needed to build new homes on and investors, who buy plots that have a good chance of being developed, can make a huge capital gain if planning permission is granted.

They can then sell and bank their profit.

Location is the key

While the growth in average UK land is impressive, the way to make really big gains is to buy land that has a good chance of being granted planning permission.

Investors who have been able to do this have made gains of up to 400% in just 4 years and all this with low downside risk, which is much better than the bulk of mutual fu

The downside

Of course, there is no certainty that the land bought will be granted planning permission, but downside is limited, as land tends to rise in value longer term anyway and many developers offer buyback options so investors can liquidate funds quickly.

Big gains and low risk

All investors want low risk and big gains, but it's a hard combination to find, however land is a proven solid long term investment and looks set to remain so for the foreseeable future, representing a viable alternative to mutual funds

As an investment in its own right, or one that is part of a diversified portfolio land can give you above average profit potential with low downside risk and the UK offers a great location to buy land.

Check out investing in land and you will see the attraction over traditional investments such as property and mutual funds:

Great long term growth, low risk, low minimum investments, specialist advice and liquidity all add up to an outstanding investment opportunity.