Properties in this area are going for 20%-25% above the asking price," the estate agent at our first flat viewing told us. "But this one is so desirable, it could go for anything."

Properties in this area are going for 20%-25% above the asking price," the estate agent at our first flat viewing told us. "But this one is so desirable, it could go for anything."

Desirable? Up to a point. It was all right if you had oxygen for the climb to the top floor. The sitting room looked on to a wall; and the kitchen was so narrow I had to reverse out of it.

She was right, of course. It did go for anything - and add a bit. Ours was the bottom bid. I say "ours" euphemistically. It is our grown-up children who are trying to put a toe on the property ladder. Accompanying them on this so far fruitless voyage has been a revelation.

Like most complacent property owners, I've spent the past decade warmed by the glow of the ever-rising value of our home. And, like millions of others, I've dreamed of swapping our flat for a wonderful house somewhere.

Most weeks I browse the property sections, surf the property websites and channel hop from Location, Location to Grand Designs and A Place in the Sun. It's a pleasing way of window shopping; the property equivalent of retail therapy in Harvey Nichols.

It was only when our children started to work and to talk about buying their first properties that the harsh realities sank in. What was a comfort zone for me spelled a real difficulty for them. For the disparity between their salaries and the cost of anything they might want to call home is shocking. The gap seems to be widening by the month.

We worked out that if, like many parents, we offered them a deposit or at least stood guarantor, and they pooled their resources by sharing the mortgage, they might just be able to square the financial circle. Renting out a bedroom would hopefully do the rest. Then we set out to look and discovered that lots of would-be property buyers are chasing relatively few properties.

It's like a game of musical chairs with the music getting faster and faster and the prices spiralling higher and higher.

There is a danger of a crazy sale fever setting in. You find yourself talking of a property costing 150 when you mean £150,000. Or you suggest adding 10 to top up a bid until you realise just how long it takes to earn the money to repay £10,000.

The average house price in Scotland is now £143,045, which is five times greater than the average salary. It has risen 13.6% in a year. Glasgow's 9.5% rise seems modest compared with 14% in Edinburgh, 16.5% in Dundee and 23.9% in Aberdeen. The Highlands have risen by 12.8%, thanks partly to wealthy London financiers with six-figure bonuses who see a Highland retreat as a "must-have".

So how are ordinary people supposed to leap on the property escalator? It's hardest for first-time buyers. Many are adding mortgage debt to student debt. They multiply their earnings by three on a mortgage calculator only to find it comes nowhere near the asking price. So the multiples get higher and higher and the loan companies oblige. Then they choose an interest-only mortgage because it's all they can afford.

Some are getting together with friends to share mortgages. Others are clubbing together with strangers. All are dependent on interest rates staying low. Financial experts say they are unlikely to rise much more but even a quarter per cent rise will hurt those borrowed to the limit. The monetary policy committee of the Bank of England is likely to raise rates by that amount on Thursday or at its next meeting in May.

I look at these youngsters and compare their experience with my generation's. We had greater job security and our salaries allowed us to buy our first homes without going dangerously into debt. No wonder this generation stays uncommitted for longer and delays family life. Who wants to face the responsibility of borrowing four or five times salary?

Even when they do, finally, manage to buy their first home, more indebtedness awaits them when they have a family. The gap in price between a starter home and a family home can now be so great they have to borrow even more.

There isn't even a huge up-side for those scaling down. A friend who wanted to downsize to release money for her children was initially thrilled by the valuation on her family home. She spotted a smaller, pretty, town house and put in a bid. But it sold for such an inflated price that (had she bought it) by the time she had paid her costs, stamp duty and furniture removal, she would have had little left over.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder who does benefit from booming property prices - apart from estate agents on a percentage fee. The rural young have no choice but to embrace emigration as their birth places are taken over by second-home owners. The urban young have to content themselves with renting or amassing worrying debt. Young couples with young children can only buy a big enough family home by both of them working because their large mortgage requires two salaries to service it.

I wonder if Scotland, once the land of the council-house dweller, now of the owner-occupier, might revert to public sector housing if it could. New public housing is now regarded as an anachronism and affordable housing a dream. The only new building of any scale is in the private sector.

Given that a roof over our heads is so basic a requirement, we are now making a poor fist of the property market. That greedy gleam in the soul that cheers us at the mention of how much our existing home has gone up in value soon dulls when we attempt to capitalise on it.

For many of us who do not intend to downsize, or buy in Bulgaria, it is pretty much a notional value. It would surely be of more benefit to us all if property rose only modestly and maintained some relation to the rise in wages.

Is that beyond the cleverness of a Chancellor who has shrunk our pensions? That was among his first acts in No 11. Perhaps he could balance it with a final stroke of financial wizardry that restored a link between income and house prices. Until that happens I'll view the television property programmes with a sense of guilt - in fact, I won't view them at all.