David, a 35-year-old banker, sold his home in Dublin last year for €300,000, rented an apartment and decided to invest in property abroad.

The house he'd bought in 2001 had increased in value by 40 per cent and he felt he had enough to diversify a little.

He isn't married, and "won't necessarily be in Dublin in five years' time", so felt now was a good time to take a punt on the overseas market.

So he put a deposit on a €150,000 apartment in Dubai that will be ready in 2008, and last week, bought a three-bedroom apartment off-plans in Beijing for €250,000. It will be finished by the end of the year.

He hasn't visited China, but agrees that he's lucky to be in a position to take a gamble - but he's also confident that his Chinese investment is low risk compared, say, to investing in some Eastern European countries.

"China has made huge progress in 20 years, while a lot of Eastern European countries are still finding their feet."

He had been looking at the property market in Shanghai, but felt it was too volatile, and was persuaded that the property market in Beijing was quite separate when he met Andrew Paul, a director of Investors in Asia, an Irish/Beijing property development company.

He expects to get €1,600 a month rent for his Beijing apartment, and good capital appreciation - up to now, growth has been about 25 per cent a year, says Investors in Asia. He raised a mortgage through a foreign bank based in Beijing and was attracted by a favorable rate of exchange.

Many of us assume that people likely to buy property in a country as far away as China are big investors with enough money to buy into a wide range of markets.

But a talk on Chinese real estate by Investors in Asia director Patrick Parsons in Dublin last week attracted quite a few smaller investors like David.

There is lively rivalry between Irish companies selling property in Beijing and Shanghai, and anyone interested in investing in China will, at the end of the day - like David - have to do their own research on which city to buy in.

Beijing is currently experiencing a boom, but there will be a ban on construction in 2007 to make sure that the city is completely ready for the 2008 Olympics - so it's likely that prices there will go on rising.

Investors in Asia maintains, however, that Beijing is better value than Shanghai, and that at the top end of the market, a property costing €150,000 in Beijing would cost around €250,000 in Shanghai.

Beijing, with a population of 15 million, has benefited hugely from China's rapid economic growth over the past decade, growth likely to continue after the current pre-Olympics boom.

Some 7,200 property developments are currently under way in the city and by 2007, about 35,000 apartments of international standard will have been built.