“So you’ve decided?” Most other people would look a few times before making a decision. This one only need to tour it once.
“More or less. It is not going to change much even if I look at it a few more times. Find out their bottom line. I’ll buy it if the price is reasonable.” Truth was, it was alright to stay at an old house like this occasionally. A flat was much for comfortable to live in on a permanent basis. Not to mention that Shu Yan designed her current place using the design from 20-30 years later. It was very comfortable to live in. She only wanted to buy this for investment purposes.
To put it bluntly, she was going to wait for the demolition time. Whether she would be compensated with another house or an office, she could always rent it out for a handsome amount of money.
Bartering is Lao Hu’s specialty. Shu Yan went out to the backyard and let him deal with that. In the corner there was a Chinese rose. Shu Yan walked over and sniffed it. It has a very faint scent. The backyard was filled with flowers. Enjoying the breeze and looking at the stars in the backyard in the summer time would be very nice.
She turned and saw an old watering flowers with a little wooden bucket.
The old lady smiled and nodded at Shu Yan when she saw her and went back to her watering. She had already forgotten that she had met Shu Yan before. Or that Shu Yan had changed so much that the old lady no longer recognized her.
Shu Yan smiled and nodded. She didn’t say anything else. She walked around the backyard some more and saw Lao Hu walking out.
Lao Hu said to her in a low voice. “400,000 yuan at the lowest. Everything inside the house will stay.”
“400,000 yuan? That’s too expensive.” Shu Yan frowned.
In the 90s, Chinese generally prefer flat over houses. Flats were usually more expansive than houses.
This would become the golden district in the future. Problem was, this is now 1993. From a City Nan native’s perspective, this was the countryside. Even if the natives were living in a crowd environment, they still wouldn’t buy in this area. They felt that it was a downgrade.
As such, 400,000 yuan was too much.
“You should know that I am not planning on buying this to move in here myself. I have a pretty good place right now and you have been to my place. Why would I want to move here from my current place? I only want to buy this place because I have some money to spare. This Is not a good price.”
What Shu Yan was trying to say was: She wasn’t planning on moving here; it was straightly for the purpose of investing. She was in no rush and she would not move forward if the price was too high.
“That’s what I told him as well but he refused to come down any,” said Lao Hu helplessly.
Shu Yan shook her head. “Talk to him some more. A house here maxes out at 300,000 yuan. This is not in the city. If this is in the city, nevermind 400,000 yuan, I will pay up to 500,000 or even 600,000 yuan for it.”
“Sure, I will talk to him some more.” Lao Hu nodded.
It was all business. The seller asked for a large amount, and the buyer would barter it down.
This village was quite remote. Only after the City Nan Mansions were built when a bus stop was added nearby. It would be hard press for them to ask for prices like in the city.
Shu Yan delegated the issue to Lao Hu. The price that she had in mind was 350,000. Anything over that would not be a good deal. There wouldn’t be any rises in prices in the next few years. She had time to keep looking.
Somehow, Lao Hu was able to work his magic. He called up Shu Yan he next day and said the owner was willing to come down in price. 330,000 yuan but must pay in full.
That was not a problem. Shu Yan had gotten over 90,000 yuan from her last landlord and brought in another 30,000 yuan more from the liquidation sale. She had pocketed that herself. Then she got another 40,000 yuan from Lao Zhang. That came out to be 160,000. In addition, just being the president by name at her company, she was paid 20,000 yuan salary a month. That was 120,000 in 6 months’ time. She had 280,000 yuan right now. She only needed a little bit more and she would have enough to pay for this house.
