While Gen Yers around the world shrug off real estate, China’s young people are investing in brick-and-mortar. As a gender-imbalanced population leaves the nation’s single men battling for wives and girlfriends, securing a family home is seen as a key step for Chinese bachelors.

In 2015, China experienced its weakest year of economic growth in over a quarter of a century, but despite widespread money worries, Chinese homebuyers are bouncing back. In August 2016, over half of loans issued by Chinese banks were funneled into mortgage loans for new home purchases.

Three-quarters of young Britons would like to buy their own property within the next five years, but the cut-throat nature of the market and the complexity of getting a mortgage may hinder their plans. How might the increasing digitisation of the real estate sector make home-buying less daunting?

A fifth of US renters spend more than half of their salary on housing. And with many others pushed towards long-term renting by student loans, an unstable job market or negative financial factors, Gen X and Y are finally stepping on to the property market. How are they going about their house hunt?