Home away from home investment

Faced with a slowdown in the nation's real estate sector, some cash-rich Chinese are looking overseas for bargains, reports Zhou Yan in Kuala Lumpur.

Back at the height of China's property boom in 2009, Qiu Liping embarked on a foray into Malaysia's tepid housing market by investing around 3 million yuan ($465,000) to buy a spacious apartment adjacent to the Petronas Twin Towers in the country's capital, Kuala Lumpur.

At that time, Malaysia's property sector was on average moderate, with virtually no growth in terms of transaction volumes. By contrast, China's real estate market rose to a fever pitch during the same period. The sales volume of residential properties, for instance, surged 43.9 percent in 2009 from the previous year.