But what could possibly go wrong with a home purchase in Bangkok, unlike any other city, is the traffic.

 Some people who bought and moved into homes in the Theparak side of Srinakarin Road would probably not have done so had they known coming home was going to be such a nightmare.

"It used to be pleasant living here but recently, driving to work and coming home has been getting bad," said one resident at a low-rise condominium project. "It doesn't look like it will get better."

Indeed, the recent traffic congestion has made the area less than friendly towards residents. For several days last week, commuters could not turn into Srinakarin at Bang Na, not just for a couple of hours, which is bad enough, but for entire days and nights on end.

The jam affected not just Srinakarin residents but people at Bang Na, Theparak, La Salle, Baring, Udomsuk and outer Sukhumvit. These places are some of the more expensive real estate areas in eastern Bangkok. Wealth, it seems, is no guarantee of defence when urban calamity strikes.

Indeed, this is just the beginning of an awful trend that is certain to make residential living in these parts a major challenge in the years to come.

To be sure, it would be unfair to blame developers for such unfortunate circumstances, but it would also be foolish to believe developers had not made checks at the sites to see what kind of traffic conditions existed or calculated the extent of the congestion that would come in the future.

The opening of Suvarnabhumi International Airport near the area is almost certain to add heavy flows onto this eastern zone shortly. The huge number of vehicles already using the few roads in the area will most certainly pile up, making monster jams the like of which has never been seen in Bangkok.

A developer on Rama III Road says even this generally traffic-free stretch of Bangkok will eventually be devastated by the overcrowding of vehicles on the road. New bridges being constructed to link Rama III to the industrial routes in the eastern zone will mean the gridlock will one day pack Rama III as well.

"Today Rama III is one of the least jammed sections of town, which is amazing, considering that nearby Sathorn, Sathupradit and Silom can be extremely congested at peak hours," he said. "But when the bridges are built, and the heavy trucks and containers pile through, it will just be an extension of the Bang Na-Srinakarin jams."

So far, there seem to be no contingency plans about what emergency measures can be adopted in the event of a breakdown in the city's road system, which is clearly becoming more probable by the day.

None of the existing expensive and gigantic systems appears adequate to match the massive build-up of automobiles, new housing projects or commercial and industrial development.

The urbanisation of suburbs - once thought as a solution to overpopulation - is itself squeezed. With scores of malls and other business centres scattered in the outer parts of Bangkok, they are unable to further absorb the explosion of new vehicles or homes.

When so many locations are equally undesirable for housing in the future, the potential for property companies is fundamentally at risk. In short, it would be in their vested interest to address the scope of this problem before it strikes.

The ranking of Bangkok as a place of residence among Asian cities has been dropping for years. The lack of efforts to address this issue is one of the most serious drawbacks for real-estate investors.

Such conditions make it difficult to justify why anyone would pay more for real estate that is not conducive to global living standards.

Itthi C Tan

The Nation