This article appeared in The Weekly Review.

Hi, I’m Mal James and I’m a buyer advocate. Let’s imagine I’m sitting with a prospective buying client to have a latte at my favourite cafe, Treat in Armadale.

Mal: Good day, Mike.

Mike: How much?

Mal: One of the deeper questions I usually get three minutes after the ‘how much’ question is How do I know what to buy?

Mike: Yeah. Do I buy next to a train line, with or without the renovations done, is land content important Has this suburb got better growth than the next?

Mal: Whoa, hold up a second!

The real question is: what will make you happy?

If we can work this out well, it can result in you buying the right home in a week, a month, a year … a home that will make you happy.

To do this, we suggest a three-step process. The first step we call Clarity. Like any three-step process, there are two other steps after the first one but let’s not worry about them right now.

With true clarity comes an easier and more meaningful way forward in life and it’s the same in home-buying, which, for almost all of us, is seriously intertwined with our happiness. Happiness is the only true measure that my 50 or so years of searching has found that counts – you can find happiness in a material possession and you can find a lot more in one you like. The trick is to realise it’s not the material possession that provides you with the happiness – but, hey, I’m moving into another bloke’s bread and butter if we go too deep here.

Let’s lighten up a bit.

Mike: This clarity and happiness thing – does it include the kids and the spouse?

Mal: Yes, and depending on gender, clarity also covers the kitchen, storage, ensuite or garage, shed and cellar.

Mike: Can happiness and mortgage appear in the same sentence unless the word ‘nil’ also appears?

Mal: It can include whatever you want. It’s your way forward: your home and your happiness – not mine. My happiness in this process comes from you being satisfied and giving me getting a cheque at the end, which, in turn keeps my wife, kids and banker happy, all of whom don’t seem fully enlightened but in a state of material splendour that my previous work has allowed them to become accustomed to.

No Mike, it’s your process and there is no right or wrong start to it, mid-point or finish that is the same for everyone. And you can be three-quarters there and wing the final bit – the risk may well be worth the reward.

Mike: So, my big concepts in the home-buying process are not granite and growth, they are clarity and happiness. Where do we go from here?

Mal: I think structure is the next step. The happiness and clarity thing without guidelines seems to send many into a wilderness that can alienate and ultimately lead to poorer decisions.

Mike: Structure?

Mal: Yep, structure and here is a bit of the structure I like – others may express things differently. Happiness is a desire. Happiness for you, in my opinion, will come from child and spouse happiness. Mike,we have a saying “Happy Wife – Happy Life”. So part of your job should be to find out what they want as well. And, to keep it moving along, I suggest you structure the questions around PPP.

Mike: PPP is structure?

Mal: Yes, structure. Price, Property and Position. With so much information around, I have found a useful technique is to categorise all bits of info into Price, Property and Position. It allows me to box and then assess things more easily – it gives me structure. You might want more land – that is a Property thing. To get more land, you need more money (Price) or you go further out (Position). It’s the ol’ ‘for every action there is a reaction’ kinda thing. You want less Price (lower mortgage and more holidays), then it affects the other two Ps – Property and Position.

Mike: I’m starting to get it, Mal.

Mal: Good. So on a piece of paper, just draw up three boxes. Allocate the info you collect to either the Price or Property or Position box.

Mike: For me, almost everything is the Price box – I don’t care that much. I just want the best deal. But my wife, Janet, she has to have the best and she wants to live in Hawthorn near the kids’ schools and her mother. But she doesn’t seem to realise that it costs a packet to get what she wants and I’m not sure of capital growth. I think a compromise – could we buy a house to fix up, further out, and put in some sweat equity?

Mal: I have no answers for the mother-in-law but, very broadly, what you are talking about here is happiness and, whether you know it or not, you are looking at outcomes. You want good outcomes. Good outcomes for you will give you happiness.

Mike: Yes, I want good outcomes.

Mal: Good outcomes for you lead to your happiness and they come from good decisions. I have found splitting outcomes into two simples categories really useful. There are financial outcomes and there is the rest, those not easily measurable in dollars – the feelings stuff, which we call emotional outcomes. You want good growth – that is a financial outcome to make you happy. Janet wants to feel secure and the kids safe – a nesting instinct – that’s an emotional outcome that will make her happy.

And there in a nutshell it is. A goal – happiness. Some building blocks – emotional and financial outcomes. Tools and techniques – the 3Ps: Price, Property and Position. The fun can begin any time you like.

Mike: Fun?

Mal: Yeah, the fun of seeing everything you wanted overruled by the wife and kids. Didn’t I tell you – home-buying for blokes is not about compromise, it’s about submission.

Mike: How much did you say you cost again … ?