China investment in Malaysia's residential real estate could double by 2025, driven by the investment market and education, according to Juwai.Com.

"It is not unrealistic... the Credit Suisse Global Wealth 2016 report shows that there are now 1.6 million US dollar millionaires in mainland China.

"Because of their prosperity, these individuals dominate the buying of international property" said Juwai.Com chief executive officer Carrie Law in a report entitled "Belt and Road drive Chinese real estate investment in Malaysia”.

The report also stated that the China buyers currently held A$13 trillion (RM39.26 trillion) of assets, up by about 16 percent per year, from A$5.3 trillion in 2011.

On a population-wide scale, wealth per adult has more than quadrupled over the past six years in China. The real property today accounts for 53 percent of wealth held by China adults.

Juwai.Com said the average monthly views for properties in Malaysia on its platform grew to 21.3 percent in the first half of last year, from 3.7 percent in the first half of 2016. Property enquiries more than tripled since 2015 with a median enquiry price of US$235,000 (RM918,850) as at in the first half of last year.

Consumers enquiring about Malaysia in the first half of last year were driven by investment (65.4 percent), own use (58.5 percent), education (9.9 percent) and emigration (3.7 percent).

Law said compared with other parts of Southeast Asia, Malaysia attracted more buyers from China.

"They are purchasing for their own use, including for the purposes of housing their children who are studying abroad in Malaysia" said Law.

He also said relative to the global average, Malaysia also attracted more investment-oriented buyers.

In a survey earlier this year, China overseas investors named residential property their favourite asset class.

Nearly three quarters (71.6 percent) of China overseas investors own residential property overseas. More than 60 percent intend to invest in real estate overseas by 2020.

"In the case of Malaysia, if the macro market and regulatory conditions remain positive, the global trends discussed above will drive growing China investment in local property" said Law.