Reborn as a landlord in Shanghai

Chapter 28 Negotiation

Guo Xiaoyan hung up the phone, paused for a moment, then checked the time and calculated how long it would take her to get to the storefront. She figured she had plenty of time and wasn't in a hurry.

This afternoon, Guo Xiaoyan and Xue Guangmei went shopping together. Although they didn't buy much, they were quite tired after shopping all afternoon. Xue Guangmei went back to her aunt's house to sleep that night, so she left around 5 p.m.

Guo Xiaoyan carried the things she bought in the afternoon back to her rented room. Since she had nothing to do and felt that there was still time, she called Mao Xiaoyu.

Guo Xiaoyan had originally planned to meet the other party tomorrow morning so that she would have time to talk to them. However, the other party was even more anxious than she was and actually asked to meet tonight.

This made Guo Xiaoyan feel that she could lower her bargaining price a bit more. After all, the more anxious the other party was, the more advantageous it would be for her to negotiate. Therefore, she agreed to meet tonight.

Of course, the best thing would be to agree to meet tomorrow, but Guo Xiaoyan actually still wanted to cooperate with Mao Xiaoyu. After all, as long as she cooperated with Mao Xiaoyu, her monthly salary would be guaranteed, and the stock dividends would be calculated separately.

Guo Xiaoyan's economic situation is that she wants a more stable salary and a larger share of the intermediary company, which would reduce her future financial pressure. That's why she agreed to meet tonight.

Now that the call had ended, Guo Xiaoyan was thinking about what to say next and how to phrase things. She ran these thoughts through her mind first, until she had determined her bottom line and what she wanted to say.

Seeing that it was getting late, Guo Xiaoyan tidied her clothes, left her rented apartment, and headed towards the storefront.

When Guo Xiaoyan arrived at the storefront, Mao Xiaoyu hadn't arrived yet. However, Guo Xiaoyan wasn't in a hurry; after all, half an hour hadn't passed yet, and she had only arrived a few minutes early. She had that much patience. After waiting for a few minutes, Mao Xiaoyu finally arrived on her electric scooter.

"I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting. I rushed over as fast as I could." Seeing Guo Xiaoyan waiting for him at the entrance of his shop, Mao Xiaoyu stopped his bicycle in front of her and said apologetically.

"It's okay, the main thing is that I arrived early," Guo Xiaoyan said, shaking her head as if she didn't mind.

"Let's go, get in the car, let's find a place to eat first, after all, I haven't had dinner yet!" Mao Xiaoyu said politely.

"No need to get on the bus. There's a restaurant nearby that serves pretty good food; it's just a short walk away," Guo Xiaoyan said, pointing to a restaurant not far away.

"Okay then."

Although the other person was beautiful, Mao Xiaoyu's mind wasn't on picking up girls, but on the upcoming cooperation. So when he saw the restaurant, he agreed.

Of course, to show respect to the other party, Mao Xiaoyu didn't ride the electric scooter directly. Instead, she got off and pushed the scooter with Guo Xiaoyan. Fortunately, the journey wasn't far, and they arrived in three to five minutes. Then, the two of them entered the hotel, found a slightly quiet corner, and ordered three dishes and a soup.

After ordering, and seeing the waiter leave, Guo Xiaoyan was about to bring up the real estate agency when Mao Xiaoyu waved her hand, stopping her and saying, "Let's eat first. We can talk about work after we finish eating. Otherwise, if we bring it up, everyone's thinking about work, and we won't even enjoy our meal!"

Upon hearing this, Guo Xiaoyan swallowed the words that were on the tip of her tongue and could only nod.

"Let's get to know each other first. My name is Mao Xiaoyu. I'm from Yangshi, Jiangsu Province, but my household registration has been transferred to Shanghai a long time ago, so you can say I'm from Shanghai. As for my family, my parents are barbers. They own a barbershop in Shanghai, so my family is quite well-off."

My parents originally hoped that I would inherit the hairdressing business in the family barbershop, but you know how it is with young people—how could they agree to do the same thing for the rest of their lives? So, I didn't agree. Fortunately, my parents weren't too insistent on it.

Therefore, my parents gave me some money so I could go out and try my luck. If I did well, I could do my own thing; if I didn't, I'd have to go back and inherit the barbershop, and spend the rest of my life shaving people's heads. "By the way, what about you? Introduce me, so we can get to know each other." Mao Xiaoyu introduced herself first.

Hearing Mao Xiaoyu's introduction, Guo Xiaoyan felt a little strange. She originally thought they were there to discuss work, but it turned out to be a blind date.

However, considering that if they were to work together in the future, they would need to get to know each other a little better, since they would be business partners after all, Guo Xiaoyan hesitated for a moment and said, "I'm also from Jiangsu Province, but I'm from Yanshi. I've been working here for about two years now, doing real estate brokerage for over a year. There's not much else to it."

Guo Xiaoyan didn't want to say much about her family, so she only said a few words and that was it.

Fortunately, just as Guo Xiaoyan finished her introduction, the waiter brought out the food, which eased Guo Xiaoyan's embarrassment.

"Come on, let's eat first, we'll talk after we eat." Mao Xiaoyu had been running around all afternoon and was starving. When she saw the waiter bring the food, she just casually greeted him and started eating.

Guo Xiaoyan hesitated for a moment, then picked up her chopsticks and began to eat slowly.

It took about half an hour for the two of them to finish their dinner. Mao Xiaoyu paid the bill. He originally wanted to talk business in the restaurant, but seeing that there were quite a lot of people in the restaurant, since it was lunchtime, he had no choice but to leave the restaurant with Guo Xiaoyan after paying the bill so as not to affect the owner's business.

"Let's go inside and talk!" Mao Xiaoyu said, pointing to a real estate agency not far away after leaving the restaurant.

Guo Xiaoyan softly agreed.

Since the restaurant wasn't too far from the real estate agency, Mao Xiaoyu didn't ride her electric scooter. The two of them walked there. When they arrived at the agency, Mao Xiaoyu opened the door first, then went to the small shop next door to buy two bottles of Coke before returning.

"Please sit down, don't be shy, it would be too formal." Back in the shop, Mao Xiaoyu saw Guo Xiaoyan still standing there, so she politely invited her to sit down.

Hearing Mao Xiaoyu's greeting, Guo Xiaoyan sat down. Mao Xiaoyu then placed a bottle of cola she had bought on the other person's table, found a chair for herself, and sat down, saying, "Alright, now it's just the two of us. Now tell me your thoughts."

Hearing Mao Xiaoyu ask for her thoughts, Guo Xiaoyan then prepared to bring up the topic she had originally considered: "As for your agency, I actually think it's quite promising. However, as you know, your agency has nothing. Therefore, I think that in order to make your agency more competitive, you need to give some shares to the employees. In other words, I need shares, and I can buy them with money."

Of course, if you don't want to give employees shares, that's fine too. However, I'm sorry, I won't join your agency. After all, your agency has nothing. If I join, I'll have to start from scratch, which wouldn't be worth the effort. So, I'm sorry.

For Guo Xiaoyan, this topic wasn't difficult to discuss. After all, she came here specifically to get shares. If there were no shares, what was the point of talking? Since the other party wanted her to talk about it, she decided to get straight to the point. So, she would settle the issue of shares first, and then discuss other things.

When Mao Xiaoyu heard that Guo Xiaoyan wanted shares, to be honest, this was beyond her imagination. Therefore, Mao Xiaoyu couldn't help but wonder whether giving the other party shares would be beneficial or not for her.

In Mao Xiaoyu's view, giving the other party shares is actually beneficial to her, both in the long run and in the short term, and the benefit seems to be quite significant.

In the short term, you need real estate agents to help you find properties and see how many houses are for sale in the vicinity. After finding out the houses, you need the agents to negotiate the price and drive it down. Once everything is done, you can buy the house yourself, or have the real estate agency buy the house directly and issue a power of attorney.

For Mao Xiaoyu, the real estate agency is just a tool. If it's no longer useful when the land is demolished, she can just throw it away. Of course, if it makes money, she can open another one elsewhere. But even if she opens another one, the real estate agency won't hold a very high place in her heart.

So giving the other party shares, and having them work diligently for me for the next two months, is actually quite good for me. Besides, the other party has to pay for these shares anyway. Although registering a real estate agency costs a little over 1000 yuan and the shares aren't worth much, at least someone will share the rent with me, so my finances won't be so tight.

Furthermore, there was another point that Mao Xiaoyu had just realized: if the owner and legal representative of this agency were someone else, it would be quite beneficial to her.

Because Mao Xiaoyu is going to buy a lot of houses, will these homeowners who sold their houses come to cause trouble with the real estate agency when they hear that the houses are going to be demolished in a month or two?

If these remorseful homeowners found out that they were the chairman of this real estate agency, would they use the charge of fraud to cause trouble for them?

Even though what I'm doing is legal and compliant, if many homeowners come looking for trouble and all sue me, it will be a troublesome matter regardless of whether what I'm doing is legal or compliant.

However, if the real estate agency is someone else, seemingly unrelated to you, and you remain hidden behind the scenes, then even if the homeowners who sold their houses cause trouble for the agency, they won't be able to find you.

Perfect timing! By then, the real estate agency's storefront will be demolished, and the agency will have absconded. The homeowners who sold their houses can go find whoever they want! I can extricate myself from this situation then.

Thinking about this, Mao Xiaoyu felt that giving the other party some shares would be more beneficial to her. In Mao Xiaoyu's view, as long as the agency could be used by her in the next two months and the agency fee was not too high, it didn't matter who the agency belonged to.

The other party wants shares? Okay, no problem.

The other party wants to be the chairman of the board. Okay, no problem.

The other party wants a majority stake? Fine, no problem!

As long as the other party does what I ask for within two months, once I've bought enough houses, I can do whatever I want with the real estate agency.

With this in mind, Mao Xiaoyu felt a bit more reassured, and then said with a smile, "Sure, a small share is fine too. Since you're in the brokerage business, partnering with you would be even better. After all, I don't know anything about it, and having someone in the industry like you will save me a lot of trouble. Besides, whether this brokerage business can actually make money remains to be seen. I'm more than happy to have someone share the risk with me. But I wonder how many shares you're planning to take, Sister Guo?"

Guo Xiaoyan was surprised that the other party agreed so readily and didn't react for a moment. After all, she had seen the other party's thoughtful expression just now, as if he was unwilling to do something.

However, I don't know what the other party figured out, but they actually agreed to give me shares. Since that's the case, I have nothing to say, after all, I have already achieved my goal.

"I wonder how many shares Mr. Mao will give me," Guo Xiaoyan asked tentatively.

"It's up to you. The agency hasn't even been officially opened yet. If you want more, I'll give you more; if you want less, I'll give you less. I'm just trying out the agency to see if I can make money. Who knows what the future holds? So if you want shares, just tell me how many you want. As long as it's not too outrageous, it's fine," Mao Xiaoyu said nonchalantly.

"How about I get 30% of the shares?" Guo Xiaoyan asked cautiously, since 30% of the shares seemed a bit too much.

"Okay, the agency hasn't opened yet anyway. I only registered yesterday. If you had told me a day earlier, I would have added your name when I registered. But it's okay, I only requested registration yesterday, so they probably haven't submitted the documents yet. Go and submit your name for me tomorrow and change the equity structure of the agency."

"And for the sake of management convenience, you can be the boss of this agency. I'll also give you the legal representative position. I'll register a separate company specializing in financial investment. You'll be in charge of everything at this agency from now on. As long as you don't embezzle, you can manage the company however you like. After all, I don't have much experience in this field," Mao Xiaoyu said magnanimously.