Bangkok's daily newspapers and magazines are always full of eye-catching property advertisements.
Developers offer all sorts of not-to-be-missed features such as "state-of-the-art design" and "360-degree views of the Chao Phraya River", or the opportunity to "indulge yourself" in a condo where "imagination becomes reality". Best of all, your "dream home" can be all yours for "just 150,000 baht per square metre", or something similar.
And therein lies the rub.
While developers are happy to make light of the per-square-metre price of their units, that is the exactly the detail that is key to most would-be buyers.
Do this simple calculation. At 150,000 baht per square metre, a 60 sq m unit will cost you 9 million baht. For a decent-sized family home, of say 100 square metres, the total would be 15 million baht.
Many people think condo prices in Bangkok are unreasonably high, but the capital is not unique. I recently saw a property for sale in Hua Hin for 35 million baht.
I never thought property prices in Bangkok would ever be as high as they are today, and they look like they're going to keep on rising. The country's strong economic fundamentals and the desire to develop the capital as a megalopolis seem to be the key drivers of the property boom.
The problem, however, is that many salaried people are struggling to find homes they can afford in decent locations close to the mass transit network.
As a result, many people are being forced to buy houses in the suburbs and then struggle with a long commute. Neither travelling for hours on a public bus nor trying to navigate through Bangkok's awful traffic jams is any fun first thing in the morning or last thing at night.
The cost of travel is another downside to that option.
An alternative for some young people is to continue living at home with their parents until they can save enough for a deposit on a property nearer the downtown area. However, this could take many years.
In 1998, I remember condos in the Sukhumvit area costing about 20,000-22,000 baht per square metre. My friend even asked me to go with her to look at one she was thinking of buying on Sukhumvit Soi 59.
Today, just 15 years on, condos in that area fetch upwards of 100,000 baht per square metre.
But have our salaries increased fivefold in the same period? For most of us, the answer is "no". Housing prices and salaries do not go hand in hand.
It seems to me the Bangkok property market is booming. It has been growing faster than other business sectors and quicker even than the economy as a whole.
Like it or not, the boom has driven up property prices year after year, and even when the economic outlook is weak, they never seem to fall.
Developers, of course, say the prices reflect demand. But what I've learned over the past two decades covering the sector is that Thailand has never had any property price controls.
Every time the economy slows, the government likes to spur economic activity by promoting policies to help the property sector. These have included various tax breaks for buyers and developers, and low-interest mortgages for selected groups.
In my opinion, these measures are unnecessary as the property sector is quite healthy. Often, they are not even practical as many potential buyers fail to benefit from the tax and loan privileges because purchase prices are beyond their financial reach.
What I want to see are measures to cool the market and rein in prices. Nobody wants the property bubble to burst.
What do you think? Should we have price controls on property? It needn't be like the Commerce Ministry's controls on pork or vegetable prices, but maybe we should consider something similar. Or maybe you have a better idea?
Krissana Parnsoonthorn is Deputy Business Editor, Bangkok Post.