Aparthotels are a blend of buy-to-let and holiday home investment that have proved extraordinarily successful...and none more so than those bought in prime locations, like Miami's South beach area, says Tony Booth.

The concept is being heralded in the US as a new and more stable form of property investment, but it all sounds rather too familiar to me.

It is reminiscent of the old fashioned hard-sell timeshare model, which immediately sets off a few alarm bells and although I want to present this concept from an unbiased point of view, it is impossible to do so.

I was one of those unlucky investors that got stung in the late 1980's by rogue timeshare deals and lost thousands through it.

As a direct result, I am now over-sensitive to and extremely cautious of anything that smells like a replication of the same thing.