By David Field.

Bulgarian beach resorts are cheap and only slightly nasty and they could be about to make me a large amount of money. It was on a last-minute deal to the large Black Sea resort of Sunny Beach that the idea came to me that this is an area that could be ripe for investment. After a week of lying around on the beach, eating at nice restaurants and losing horribly, and with an appalling lack of grace, at mini golf, I thought that this could be the place to enter the property game. Click here to book flights to Bulgaria

I know nothing about property investment. However, I knew that the price of a pint in the bars of Sunny Beach was a third of that which I might expect to pay back home, that the Swedes and Germans seemed to have a good time here, and that I had read in the holiday brochure that the Black Sea resorts were an "up and coming" area that British holidaymakers would flock to in coming years.

All in all, the Black Sea seemed, to my limited property knowledge, to offer perfect conditions for investment. Added to this, as I found out later, that Bulgaria was set to join the EU in January 2007 and it seemed that prices could only go up. Furthermore, with ever increasing tourist traffic I could rent out the abode until I found a good time to sell. Perfect.

One large bank loan later and a couple of months down the line I returned to Bourgas airport armed with a number of potential properties to view. The trouble was, most of them were still in the form of building sites and although they looked as though they would be quite swish in a couple of years time, I was not prepared to take a chance on them. You only have to take a short drive around Bulgaria's neighbour Greece to see huge numbers of half finished houses and apartment blocks, evidence of the funding problems that can beset any project.

My Seat Ibiza was a most reluctant vehicle but we had fun together as we trundled up and down the coastline, looking at fully built apartments crying out to be bought by me. I narrowed it down to an apartment in Sunny Beach and a nicer, larger and slightly less expensive apartment further north in the much quieter town of Byala, which still had its fair share of tourist traffic and a smattering of hotels.

The place in Sunny beach was fairly small but I felt sure I could make a decent profit on it thanks to the tourism that was, as the estate agent kept telling me, set to grow massively in the coming years. But the apartment in Byala was actually nice and the kind of place I could see myself staying in and indeed, why couldn't I? I think in the back of my mind it had always been my intention to find a place that I might be able to pop off to at a moments notice in low season. And, I convinced myself, Byala was the quiet kind of place that the wealthy, discerning visitor may wish to come for a week's repose: meaning I could jack the price up.

So the decision was made and my Byala apartment is awaiting it first visitors this spring followed by a deluge in the summer. Will it work out that way? I'll let you know.