Aluxury ski-chalet in Bulgaria. An eco-house in Venezuela. An elegant terraced apartment in Paris. These are just a few of the hottest properties that UK investors are snapping up as they increasingly rebuff their home market in search of racier returns overseas.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors estimates that up to 225,000 UK households now have at least one property overseas. Many of these are holiday homes but, as buy-to-let investors have grown tired of relatively low rental yields and sluggish property prices in the UK, a growing number are turning abroad for investment opportunities.