Planning to invest in homes outside key cities? Think again

Nearly five years ago, I made the biggest investment decision of my life - to buy an apartment.

Of course it was not in Beijing. Housing prices in the capital city had already skyrocketed to a jaw-dropping level far beyond the purchasing ability of a wage-earner like me, but they constantly served as a reminder of my foolishness of not having forecast the trend. In a matter of years, property prices in the community where I lived had surged by around seven times.

If I had had any prophetic vision, I would have been able to retire now sitting on my ballooning property wealth, I often thought. The feeling of contrition kept nipping my heart with such an increasing intensity that I finally felt compelled to make up for it - by buying a property elsewhere.