A young Chinese couple recently brought a French-style luxury mansion in Beverly Hills for US$34.5 million.

As the property market in the US slumps in the wake of the global financial crisis, relatively low housing prices have begun to attract Chinese flush with cash.

The buyers of the Beverly Hills mansion were Ning Siqiao and his wife Karen, according to insiders. Ning Siqiao is a Chinese entrepreneur, and while he and his wife travel abroad often, they spend most of the time in China, according to their friends.

The mansion has nine bedrooms and 13 bathrooms, and is decorated with agate and gold; the stunning edifice covers an area of two acres. In the summer of 2008, when the house was first put up for sale, the asking price was US$68.5 million. It fell to US$55 million last year, however. This spring the price fell again, until the mansion was sold a few days ago for US$34.5 million, nearly half the original price, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Soccer star David Beckham's US$22-million home in Beverly Hills looks modest compared with the Ning's mansion.

Large mansions in Southern California are increasingly being purchased by wealthy immigrants from China and elsewhere, who are eager to invest the area, home to a large population of ethnic Chinese.

The most expensive luxury apartment in Manhattan, New York, was sold in 2010 by the price of US$33.2 million after 35 rounds of bids — the buyer was also Chinese.

Please contact us in case of Copyright Infringement of the photo sourced from the internet, we will remove it within 24 hours.