Whether you are 30, 45 or over 60 James Buyer Advocates can show you (anybody) how to:

• put a million dollars in your back pocket by making good, but very simple home buying decisions
• live happier lives by being a happier home. (Harvard School of Public Health)
• secure homes against the odds or secure homes when you absolutely have to.

We are a government licensed buyer advocates/agents.

James Buyer Advocates has 4 clear underlying principles:

Belief: Good Plan – Good Processes – Good Decisions – Good Outcomes
Purpose: To make a positive difference by matching perfect buyers with perfect homes, perfectly.
Ethic: Do unto others as you would like done unto you. And we say to all our advocates. You are the sum of your actions and we are the sum of your actions.
Way: A balanced way forward is enough.

Good Buyer Process and Good Decision Making is what we are all about.

G’day Mal James is my name and I’m a father, Buddhist (sort of), vegan (mostly), Collingwood supporter (always) and founder of James Buyer Advocates. I live in a compound of 3 homes in Inner Melbourne with my parents, children and wife – it’s an interesting way to live and I have lived here for 23 years.

I have been involved in buying over 1000 homes, my first in 1985; which was for myself and a disaster (wrong property, wrong position, wrong price). It forced me to think about buying a better way, which in turn lead to the patented buyer industry standard James Home Ratings.

Real Deals we have walked over broken glass for:

• $400,000 savings in 72 hours at a pass-in
• $1,000,000 saving (not once but twice on pre auction offers NOT being made)
• $230,000 saving by not opening our mouth.
• Great homes that meet clients stated outcomes
• An $8,000 saving that took almost 6 hours to negotiate after an auction. Not much hey – it was my client’s $8,000 not mine

Real Deals we walked away from:

• Conflict: A potential client was referred to us, rang us and wished to engage us to buy a home for $8,000,000 in Toorak. We already had an existing client, although we knew our existing client didn’t have enough $. Nonetheless we said no to the potential client who went and bought the home. We bought for our existing client at $4,000,000 in Bayside at a later time.
• High Price: We were asked for price valuations on a $5,500,000 home in Hawthorn East. We gave them and negotiated for 8 months. We recommended walking away. After 12 months that home is still for sale and our client bought another home (without us) and we are OK about that. Their written referral is in our testimonials.
• No Client Value Add: We “sacked ourselves” on a $4,000,000 and a $3,000,000 recently as we felt whatever we were doing wasn’t providing any value to them and if we don’t add value we don’t want a fee.
• Wrong Home: We are not “yes” men/women and if you ask us our opinion on a home in relation to your stated outcomes then we will give it. If that opinion offends you to such a degree that you leave, then we accept that as a cost of ethical business. This comment has nothing to do with “good taste” – we are not the arbiters of good taste, you are.

Guides we have given to our great writers, thinkers, doctors, scientists, movie stars, sports people, business people and mums who have become clients.

• History repeats itself unless you break the cycle
• Good decisions and bad decisions take the same amount of time and angst – only the quality of the prep is different.
• Time heals or hides nothing in Melbourne property, it only accentuates.
• No definition of value maintains its rigor for all men and women accept value to you.
• In negotiation the closer you are, the more you talk about money and the more you talk about money the further you drift away from getting what you really want.

I can give younger (and older) people $1million for free if they want it.

In 2014 I was asked to write a series of 7 articles for The Age, Domain and The Weekly Review to help young homebuyers on life’s journey. The theme I chose was put a million dollars in your pocket by doing nothing else other than making a good decision.

Young Apartment Buyer In 2000 a young home buyer could have bought an apartment in Docklands at 15 Caravel Lane for $507,500 and resold it for $576,000 in 2014. Young Inner Melbourne Buyer Around 2000 you, as a young home buyer could have spent similar money on a family home in Celia Street Glen Iris $493,000 and sold again in 2014 for $1,500,000.

That’s a million dollars – gratis.

Series can be found at click here: http://www.theweeklyreview.com.au/property/news/10242-young-buyers-guide-week-6/#.VDhCmtSUddU

Here would be my opening conversation lines for other buyers.

Downsizers - Is the sqm rate $8,300 or $12,100 and did you measure the home to find the claimed 220 sqm was actually 180 sqm making that a $326,000 (mis)calculation.
Growing Families - Good homebuying is cheaper than divorce and at 1% I’m cheaper than a lawyer.
Single Women - Let me show you why a car park is so important on financial and emotional fronts.
Overseas - How would I go buying a home in the area you are living in now with a blindfold on?
Divorced Men - You need a rock to rebalance on – but quite possibly that rock is not a gem
Trophy Hunters - Who came second in the 2012 Brownlow.
Investors - You’re boring and I’m boring and that’s the type of ideal investment result we will produce together.

Fees, money, worth?
I am probably very much like you – I would never pay somebody to do a job I could do myself (well) and I would never agree to a fee where I saw value provided as being less than the fee. I’m sure the hundred or so clients of ours felt exactly the same as you last year before they engaged us and after they paid us.

Buyers engage me to buy well for them and I do on many occasions. Each year I buy between 50 and 100 homes. In early 2014 James Buyer Advocates had an 84% success rate for our clients – yet we pursued less than 1% of the homes we assessed.

At James we don’t have monthly budgets, growth targets or bonus schemes. What we have is peer review, mindfulness, rigorous training programmes, negotiation councils, meaningful work and client agreements that state if you (the client) are not happy then you can stop at anytime (no charge if we haven’t found a home).

All our co-workers are paid above industry averages.

Personally I’m all about doing a job I love and I’d like to work until I’m 83 if in a healthy state. I don’t believe in superannuation, turnover targets nor maximising profits. But I do believe in planning and going for it. I try and meditate regularly and encourage all our co-workers to work on average 38-42 hours per week with around 10 weeks holiday a year AND to be in balance with themselves and their family while still maintaining a healthy edge for “game days”.

What and where over $1m do we buy James Buyer Advocates’ geographical and financial focus is $M+ Inner Melbourne, however one of our more intricate purchases was the sourcing and purchasing of land for Torquay Council for $15 million and then getting it through various committees and multiple levels of local and state governments – in other words the selection, values and deal stood up to mass scrutiny. And guess what, the Torquay CEO hired us off our website, so you can too.

I personally have bought a number of homes over $10million in Boroondara, Bayside and Stonnington, but my “sweet spot” is the family home in the $2m to $6m range where each week I buy (or pass) on behalf of professionals, doctors in particular, both on and off market (unadvertised). I much prefer this kind of emotional transaction to buying an investment property – but I do buy a number of them each year.

Having said that we get much of our work through personal referral – unfortunately repeat client business is slow as most seem to be happy in their homes and don ‘t want to buy another – how thoughtless of them.

While a number of our negotiations and pricing estimates are in public situations such as auction; there is also a large number that happen away from gaze of the public where our involvement is unknown (off markets, expressions of interest).

I/we act for overseas (expats) and local clients and people of all nationalities including many non English speaking clients – although I get help as my Chinese, Spanish, French or Indian is not that good. Siento. 對不起. Désolé. खेद

Relationships Agents - I have excellent working relationships with all key selling agency directors – as it simply doesn’t make sense not to. Ask them yourself.

Old school tie - Dangerous and that’s coming from a grammar boy. Recommendations based on performance – yes. Recommendations solely based on Old school ties or friends – no. The cost to you is often way too high.

Negotiation

OK how would I negotiate a better deal for our two young homebuyers

Young Apartment Buyer who bought in 2000, an apartment in Docklands at 15 Caravel Lane for $507,500 and resold it for $576,000 in 2014. Young Inner Melbourne Buyer who spent similar money in 2000 on a family home in Celia Street Glen Iris $493,000 and sold again in 2014 for $1,500,000.

How about this? If with some brilliant negotiation you could have got the Caravel apartment for $400,000 then would Caravel Lane have been a good negotiation?

This is how we would best negotiate Caravel Lane – we wouldn’t.

This is how we’d best negotiate Celia St – we’d get it for a client, even if it meant paying a bit extra.

Finally if you’ve read this far then you deserve from me a coffee or a juice.

My work mobile is 0408 107 988 or my public email is mal@james.net.au or if you see me in the hat and suit just come up and say hello.

We can meet if it makes sense to you. I’ll toss you for the coffee – see I can be frugal.

Lets sit down together and really understand your PPP’s (price, property, position) requirements and how they can better be FFF’d (Five year, flexible, future proofed) to your benefit.

Thank you for your time

Mal James

James Buyer Advocates promises if you contact us

We will not

1. Pass your details to anybody, without your express permission – we promise.
2. Follow you up or continue to ring you unless you want us to – we promise.
3. James has a no database and no email policy. If you ring us and you feel we are not for you, then you will not go onto our database (unless you want to) – we promise.

We will

1. Tell you if we have an existing client on a home before you tell us anything - we promise.
2. Talk to you openly about values, quality, and negotiations on the home you ring us about – we promise.
3. Before you decide to use us, give you a written quote of our fees. We will never charge more than our written quote – we promise.

My work mobile is 0408 107 988 or my public email is mal@james.net.au or if you see me in the hat and suit just come up and say hello.