Reborn as a landlord in Shanghai

Chapter 34 This is too cunning!

"Good morning, Lao Li!"

At the appointed time, Mao Xiaoyu rode his electric bike to Li Mingyue's house early the next morning. Seeing Li Mingyue already waiting for him outside, he politely greeted her.

"Xiao Mao, my workplace is a bit far... We'll have to take the subway there later. Look at your electric scooter..." Li Mingyue said meaningfully when she saw Mao Xiaoyu riding her electric scooter.

After all, Li Mingyue works for a financial institution, and the office is located in Lujiazui, the most bustling area of ​​Shanghai. If she were to ride an electric bike from here to Lujiazui, it would take more than an hour. Therefore, Li Mingyue commutes by subway every day.

"It's okay. When we get to the subway entrance, I'll park the electric scooter there. When I come back from your side, I can ride it away from there. Come on, get on, it'll be faster that way," Mao Xiaoyu said.

Li Mingyue hesitated for a moment, but still got on Mao Xiaoyu's electric scooter.

Then Mao Xiaoyu started the electric bike and drove directly to the subway station entrance. She got off and locked the bike. The two of them then got off at the subway station. Since Li Mingyue had a monthly pass and didn't need to buy a subway ticket, only Mao Xiaoyu bought one.

After another 40-minute journey, they finally arrived at the financial institution where Li Mingyue worked.

Although the financial institution where Li Mingyue works is located in Lujiazui, it is not in the most famous "three-piece set" (referring to the three main buildings in Beijing), but in a 30-story building not far away.

Even so, although the rent can't compare to the most famous three-piece suites, it's still exorbitantly expensive here.

Mao Xiaoyu accompanied Li Mingyue to the 23rd floor where their company was located, and things became easier from there.

After the two arrived at Li Mingyue's work area, they simply had Mao Xiaoyu sit there. She could sign whatever she was asked to, which seemed quite convenient. After an hour of work, the property certificate was left there, and the loan could be disbursed in a few days.

"Please keep an eye on things in three days. The loan is usually disbursed after three days. I will give you a call when it is disbursed, and you can check your bank card at that time."

After finishing with the loan application, Li Mingyue politely saw Mao Xiaoyu out of the company, saying something to her as they walked.

"Okay. Thank you, Lao Li. I'll treat you to a meal next time," Mao Xiaoyu said politely.

"Okay, if there's anything, let's talk at my place. This is an office area, so there are some things that are inconvenient to say, since there are too many people around. That's all for now, goodbye." Li Mingyue looked around and didn't see any acquaintances, so she whispered to Mao Xiaoyu, then waved goodbye to her.

Seeing Li Mingyue leave, Mao Xiaoyu also left the building, preparing to go back and earn her own money. After all, even if the loan came through, it wouldn't matter much; she still had to earn money after all.

Mao Xiaoyu would never give up an income of several hundred yuan a day.

After returning home, Mao Xiaoyu enjoyed two peaceful days. Finally, the third day, May 1st, arrived—the day to pay the rent.

…………

Early in the morning, Mao Xiaoyu wasn't in a hurry. After all, she had already discussed with Old Man Ge that she could only come to collect the rent after 10 a.m. Otherwise, opening the store to collect rent so early in the morning would easily affect the store's business for the day.

The landlord, Old Ge, could accept this superstition. Business people are sometimes just that superstitious, so he tried to avoid it as much as possible. Therefore, the two finally agreed that they would collect the rent at least after 10 o'clock each time.

After having breakfast at home and getting rid of her troublesome younger sister, Mao Xiaoyu set off on her electric scooter. Halfway there, she stopped at a bank and withdrew 3500 yuan. Combined with the rent she had received over the past three days, it was definitely enough to pay her rent.

And so, amidst sparks and flashes, Mao Xiaoyu rode her electric scooter to the real estate agency's storefront.

After Mao Xiaoyu parked the car at the entrance, she took a look at the real estate agency's storefront.

Perhaps because of the short timeframe, the agency's storefront sign wasn't finished yet, but Guo Xiaoyan made a temporary sign and put it up there, with the four big characters "Youcai Agency" written on it.

That's right, the real estate agency that Guo Xiaoyan and Mao Xiaoyu jointly opened is called Youcai Real Estate Agency Co., Ltd., with a registered capital of 5 yuan, which is already considered a very small real estate agency in Shanghai.

Although the agency's storefront wasn't finished yet, there seemed to be quite a few people inside. Mao Xiaoyu counted the number of people and found there were six in the entire agency.

Aside from Guo Xiaoyan and Xue Guangmei, Mao Xiaoyu didn't recognize the others. However, judging from their attire, the remaining four people should include employees and customers.

After all, the male employees of the real estate agency usually like to wear suits, but one of the men in the group was wearing a suit, which was different from the others, and his interaction with the others seemed a bit out of place. They didn't look like a family at all.

Seeing this, knowing there were customers inside the agency, Mao Xiaoyu didn't go in. Instead, she went directly to the small shop next door and greeted Boss Liu.

"Mr. Mao, hello, hello. I never expected your friend to be such a beautiful woman, and also so capable, to run a real estate agency all by herself."

Because of the previous reason, the shop owner, Mr. Liu, really thought that the real estate agency next door was found for his friend by Mao Xiaoyu. And after several days, Mr. Liu could tell that the agency next door was managed by a woman, and a beautiful one at that.

"My friend has been working at the agency for several years now. He's a seasoned veteran. Now that he's capable, he wants to start his own business. But I just glanced inside and it seemed like there were customers, so I didn't go in," Mao Xiaoyu said with a laugh.

"I don't know much about this real estate agency business, but there aren't too many people here. Of course, that's how it is with newly opened stores. I believe that once the signboard is up and running, many more people will come."

Shop owner Liu said with some relief, after all, he had been looking for several days and hadn't seen the real estate agency doing any business. In his opinion, the rent had been paid in vain.

"That's none of my business. I'm just helping my friend find a place to live. Whether they make a profit or a loss is none of my concern. Okay, now that their customers have left, I'll head over there. We can talk again when we have time."

Seeing the customer leave her real estate agency, Mao Xiaoyu said goodbye to the shop owner, Mr. Liu, and started walking back to her own shop.

When they arrived at the store, Guo Xiaoyan saw Mao Xiaoyu and greeted her warmly, saying, "Xiaoyu, you're here."

At this moment, Mao Xiaoyu had already entered the store. Seeing that the man in the suit had not left, she was certain that this man in the suit might actually be a newly hired employee of her store.

"Let me introduce you. This is Xiao Liu, Liu Mingbo. He was just hired yesterday and started working today. Although he has no experience in real estate brokerage, he seems quite clever. I believe he will definitely have a bright future in this industry." Guo Xiaoyan introduced the new man to Mao Xiaoyu.

"Hello, hello, I'm a friend of your store manager Guo. You can call me Xiao Mao or Xiao Yu, it's up to you." After listening to Guo Xiaoyan's introduction, Mao Xiaoyu politely shook hands with Liu Mingbo and then introduced herself.

After Mao Xiaoyu greeted Li Wenbo, he also greeted Xue Guangmei, and then he and Guo Xiaoyan sat down at the last desk.

However, on her way to the desks at the back, Mao Xiaoyu looked around the shop. The company already had two computers, a printer, a water dispenser, and a lot of documents on the desks, so it looked like a proper real estate agency.

"Come, sit down. Would you like some water?" Guo Xiaoyan warmly invited Mao Xiaoyu to sit down.

"It's fine, just pour me a glass of water. And this money, put it in your desk for now, it's a bit uncomfortable to have it all crammed onto me."

As she said this, Mao Xiaoyu took out the 5100 yuan she had prepared and handed it to Guo Xiaoyan.

Guo Xiaoyan knew what the money was for when she saw it, so she took it and counted it. After all, it would be hard to explain if she didn't count the money.

"Why is it 5100?" After counting, Guo Xiaoyan felt that it was 300 yuan more than 4800, so she thought Mao Xiaoyu had overpaid and asked.

"I still have to pay the rent for the extra few days last month, so this time I need to pay 6300 yuan," Mao Xiaoyu explained.

"Oh, then let's put this 300 yuan on the books for now, and settle the accounts later," Guo Xiaoyan said.

"That doesn't matter, just put it on the tab. By the way, I saw a few customers come in just now. What are they doing here?" Mao Xiaoyu asked curiously.

After seeing those customers stay in the store for a while without doing anything and then leave, Mao Xiaoyu was a little curious about what those people were there for.

"Those people who wanted to sell their houses just now came here to register. The house price isn't too high because the owner is in a hurry to sell, so the price they offered is really quite reasonable," Guo Xiaoyan said.

"Oh, where is this house located?"

Mao Xiaoyu was quite interested in the houses in the area, and now that she heard that the people there were selling houses and offering very attractive prices, she became even more interested and asked them with concern.

"Isn't there a cluster of three-story buildings between Binyang Road and Zaozhi Road? His house is on the second floor. It's not a big house, only about 50 square meters, with two bedrooms and one living room. He's asking 3900 yuan per square meter, which is a slightly lower-middle price, but not too low either. Of course, he's in a hurry to sell, so you might be able to negotiate the price down a bit," Guo Xiaoyan said, giving the address and price.

Upon hearing the address and price mentioned by Guo Xiaoyan, Mao Xiaoyu's mind started racing, trying to figure out where it was located. After a while, she finally remembered that this house was originally located in the second phase of the demolition area. It wouldn't be demolished in this batch; it would have to wait until the demolition in 2008.

If I were to buy it now, it seems I would have to wait several years for the land to be demolished and redeveloped, which would tie up some of my capital.

Mao Xiaoyu felt a little regretful, but she also felt that letting go of this house would be a waste, since such a low price was really hard to come by, and the seller was in a hurry to sell, so the price could probably be negotiated down.

So Mao Xiaoyu thought for a moment and asked, "Did you hear from the seller that they were in such a hurry to sell the house?"

"I heard it's to buy a bigger house for their son's wedding. The elderly couple is a little short on funds, so they want to sell one of their houses to help their son get a bigger one," Guo Xiaoyan said.

Hearing Guo Xiaoyan say this, Mao Xiaoyu thought for a moment and said, "Go and arrange for someone to take pictures of the house, then start finding fault with it and help me negotiate the price. Let me know how much you can get it for as quickly as possible. If it doesn't work out, I'll buy the house myself."

"You want to buy a house?" Guo Xiaoyan asked, somewhat surprised.

"Isn't this normal? If I don't buy houses, why would I open a real estate agency? Didn't I tell you I have two businesses? One is running a real estate agency, and the other is buying houses to rent out. Since there are cheap houses available, of course I'll buy them. So you should have your staff investigate and see what the lowest price is. As long as the price is low, I can buy it and rent it out. As long as it covers the mortgage payments each month, I'll make a profit," Mao Xiaoyu said, feigning disdain.

Guo Xiaoyan felt a little dizzy. Opening a real estate agency was just for buying houses? What's the connection between buying houses and opening a real estate agency?

I've never heard of a real estate agency being opened to buy houses. At most, there are cheap houses that the agency's employees like, they buy, and then resell. But the other party actually wants to buy a cheap house to rent out.

This kind of business is not easy to do. After all, it requires a lot of money. You know, even the cheapest house costs tens or hundreds of thousands of yuan. If you take out a loan, you will have to pay a lot of money every month. Can renting out the house really cover the mortgage?

Guo Xiaoyan wasn't sure if she could cover it up, since she hadn't investigated this kind of thing before. But Guo Xiaoyan was only now realizing that this person in front of her looked young, yet dared to go to such lengths to build a business.

Guo Xiaoyan realized she had underestimated him. She thought he was young and easy to manipulate, but little did she know that he was just pretending to be weak while actually being strong.

Suddenly, Guo Xiaoyan remembered an internal shareholder agreement in the contract, which seemed to stipulate that shareholders did not need to pay brokerage fees when buying houses through real estate agencies.

Holy crap!

Could it be that Mao Xiaoyu already knew that she was going to buy a lot of houses and that she was trying to save money by offering some kind of internal shareholder preferential policy, just to save on the brokerage fee?

That's so cunning!