I had $1m to buy a house for a friend. What could go wrong?

The view punched me hard in the gut, with the harbour glittering from the Harbour Bridge and Opera House on my right, all the way to Manly on my left. This is it, I thought to myself gleefully. The search is over.

My mission, as I’d chosen to accept it, was to find a one-bedroom lower north shore apartment for an Australian friend in the UK to buy.

As a regular journalist for Domain, the author of a book about apartments and a weekly guest on the Flatchat apartments podcast, my credentials were impeccable.

This should be easy. I had my list of potential purchases, the opening times of each, a fully charged mobile for WhatsApping photos and a yellow highlighter pen. What could possibly go wrong?

Firstly, finding the bloody places. I’m not familiar with the area, so I soon joined a slowly shuffling crowd of people peering at Google Maps, turning their phones around, doubling back on themselves and finally asking passers-by for directions.

Secondly, the apartments. From thrilling discoveries to crushing disappointments, from excitement to despondency, I jogged through the whole gamut of emotions, which left me, after just six hours on the hunt, completely wrung out. How do people do this, day after day?

Take that apartment with the incredible view from its rooftop … er … sorry … “observation deck”. I was entranced, as was Mina, one of the other 20-odd people at the inspection.

“You can imagine how this would be with a great outdoor lounge set put up here,” I suggested.

“Absolutely,” she replied. “And it’s so big, you could have a few, really. Turn this into a big, usable outdoor space. A barbecue. A sunshade.”

“And think of the New Year’s Eve parties here too …” I mused. “You’d be so popular …”

Suddenly, we looked at each other with the realisation that we were both thinking of this as the apartment to buy, and had morphed from potential friends to deadly rivals. We rode the lift down in silence – until a resident got in along the way.

I asked him what it was like living in this block. He grimaced. The concrete cancer was the biggest problem, he said. And all the work needed to rectify it. Then there were all the special levies to pay the bill.

“But that magnificent observation deck makes up for that, doesn’t it?” I asked him hopefully. He looked confused. “Oh, the rooftop?” he said. “It would, but the owners’ corporation doesn’t allow us to put anything up there – even a chair – and on New Year’s Eve, you’re not allowed to take a single drink.”

The next prospect looked promising … until I was buzzed in through the front door. Where’s the lift? Ah, there isn’t one. It was a long trudge up two flights of stairs to the apartment. With heavy shopping, that would be even longer. With furniture to move in, it didn’t bear thinking about.

I had a break for coffee to cheer myself up.

I bumped into Mina again in the third apartment. We greeted each other warily. This one seemed quite nice: a unit in a pretty art deco block with leafy garden views and a slightly less cramped layout than the others. But wait, Mina’s frowning.

“I saw an apartment in the building next door last week, and there’s a DA in to build something just there,” she said, pointing to the view. OK, that’s another one dismissed. Only later did it occur to me that it might have been just a ruse to put me off. All’s fair in love, war and house-hunting.

The fourth one was beautiful, in a bigger, modern block, but it had two bedrooms and would easily bust my $1 million-plus-a-little-bit budget. I sent an email plea to my friend to consider spending more. No luck – she was sticking to her budget.

It did occur to me at this point that getting a friend to spend a mill for you is a very good idea. Apart from the leg work you avoid, a friend won’t get so emotionally involved in the search, can dispassionately draw up lists of pros and cons, is more likely to talk calmly to rivals for information and is happy to ambush current owners – knowing they’re not later going to be neighbours — to drill them for intel, too.

The fifth apartment was in another contemporary tower, small but perfectly formed, with an immaculate presentation. I tried not to be swayed by the expensive furniture and hip artwork, but … I couldn’t help it.

But then another hopeful entered, in such expensive clothes and painfully hip shoes, and looking so at home I assumed she must be the owner. But she wasn’t – yet.

“Is the vendor open to pre-auction offers?” she asked. Suddenly the agent abandoned me to focus all his attention on her. “Yes!” he replied. The price was going up by the minute.

My sixth and last call was to an apartment at the other end of the lower north shore. I glanced at my watch: 18,000 steps and counting. I started walking quickly and then ran to make it by closing time, arriving hot and red and unable to speak.

The agent did all the talking for me. Yes, there were special levies for necessary work, but they weren’t much. Yes, there was a loan against past improvements to pay off, but that had been budgeted for. Yes, the back gate to the ground-floor unit was dreadfully insecure but that could be remedied. Yes, part of the fence was missing, but …

By the end of the day, I was exhausted, but I presented the list to my friend, who, satisfyingly, made an offer on my recommended number one.

If I learnt anything from the whole process, it’s to always get a friend to go house-hunting for you, knowing they’ll discard the dross and you can simply sweep in and check out their best three afterwards.

I know the next time I move, I’m going to do precisely that. And I know the exact person I’m going to ask. She won’t be able to refuse.