High-risk investment or reckless gamble? Either way, this strategy is becoming increasingly popular among the Chinese capital's speculators.

"Our client, Mr Li, had initially bought the apartment for property investment but, without a suitable buyer, he turned to stock investment," said Yang Jingkun, assistant manager of Beijing Huaxia Pawnshop.

"Every month around 10 stock investors mortgage their apartments for 600,000 yuan to 700,000 yuan in our pawnshop," said Yan Xingnong, general manager of Minsheng Pawnbroking Co, in Beijing.

"One of them pawned three luxury apartments for a total of three million yuan," Yan said.

Beijingers pawned their apartments for a total of 1.5 billion yuan last year and most of the money was poured into the stock market, according to China Securities Journal.

Considering the size of the returns, the risk appears huge. Pawnshops in Beijing offer loans worth 70 percent of the value of an apartment and charge a monthly interest rate of 3.2 percent. If an investor pawns an apartment worth one million yuan and his stocks yield a 50-percent profit, then he or she will still only earn 81,200 yuan a year.

But the Chinese mainland's bullish stock market is attracting investors in their droves.

A BMW owner who twice pawned his car for 200,000 yuan, with a monthly interest rate of 4.7 percent, in the Jinbao Pawnshop in Beijing boasted that his stocks had yielded a 20-percent gain.

Another stock investor surnamed Zhang pawned the stocks he held in Huaxia and invested the money in other stocks that he believed would rise quickly. "The newly-purchased stocks have reached the daily raise limit of 10 percent," he said proudly.

Pawnshops in the capital city give loans worth 70 percent to 80 percent of the market value of stocks and charge a monthly management fee of around two percent. The loan may be as much as 100 percent of the market value when it comes to the lucrative blue chip stocks.

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