The Black Card Chapter 99 - Renting A House

Chapter 99 - Renting a House 

Translator: Lav

Editor: Levs

On Sunday morning, Shi Lei took the initiative and contacted Zhang Meimei that she’s home today so he didn’t need to go. 

Half way through the call, Shi Lei could hear Zhang Liangliang’s loud yells on the other side, screaming about something like that she rather want her mother to go to work and have Shi Lei tutor her. As a lawyer who was precise with her work, she obviously began to have doubts. Somewhat feeling guilty, Shi Lei didn’t dare to say too much and hung up. 

There was a real estate agency just opposite his school. Shi Lei pushed the door open and the employee was rather droopy, probably because a lot of university students rent houses through their school reddit page, they didn’t have much business and lost their enthusiasm to welcome clients. 

“Good day, sir, are you looking to buy or rent a house?” He kept the politeness but his tone was so low that it seemed like he didn’t want this business at all. 

“Rent. I don’t look like I’m rich enough to buy a house, do I?” Shi Lei scorned himself. 

The employee forced a smile and lost even more hopes for this business. Shi Lei only seemed to be a little over 20 and without surprise, he was a student of Wu Dong University. Even if a student rented a house at the real estate agency, they usually won’t rent a good quality house. The agency fee was only about half of the rental fee, it would already be great to have 200 or 300 yuan, not to mention that that he would be busy organising all sorts of contracts. 

“What kind of house are you looking for? Joint rental? Do you have any requests on the size and the house’s direction? Are you living by yourself or with someone else?” 

From the agent’s words, Shi Lei knew that he had included Shi Lei into the joint rental category and the agent won’t receive much from this kind of contracts.

Shi Lei shrugged and said: “Do you have apartments? I don’t want to rent it with someone and hope that I have a private s.p.a.ce of my own. For the time being, it’s just myself, but my girlfriend might move in with me later.” 

Hearing that it was not a joint rent, the agent finally put a little more energy into it and said: “The apartments around here aren’t cheap. The lowest would be 2,000 or 3,000 yuan. Actually, if you rent an older house with two bedrooms and one living room, it’s about the same price, or only 100 or 200 yuan more expensive. Do you want to consider that?” 

Shi Lei shook his head without hesitance: “I want the hotel-style managed apartments so that there won’t be a lot of people going in and out.” 

“Oh, ok, but they aren’t cheap. The nearby ones are not furnished upon rental, the landlord still needs to buy all sorts of furnishings such as electronics, couches and beds, the prices are all over 3,000 yuan.” The smile on agent’s face became brighter when he mentioned that the rental fee was about 2,000 yuan, Shi Lei didn’t show any traces of surprise nor unwillingness to accept the price. If he could really sign a 3,000 yuan contract, at least he could receive about 400 yuan out of 1,000 yuan agency fees. 

“Don’t consider the price yet, I’ll tell you my requests first. Because I’m by myself right now and my girlfriend moves in later, it doesn’t really make a difference, does it? So, I don’t want a big house because I can’t be bothered to do ch.o.r.es by myself. I do want good furnishings, it would be best to not have the uniform furnishings that all of them share. The more extravagant the furnishings and the  quality of the electronics are, the better, as I can live there with more comfort.” 

The agent was shocked and quickly said: “If that’s what you want, the price is a lot more expensive. I remember that we have two sets like this right now, but the monthly rental fees are over 5,000 yuan.” 

Shi Lei smiled calmly and said: “I said that you don’t have to consider the price. As long as it’s within a reasonable price, it shouldn’t be a problem.” 

The agent finally woke up from his drowsiness as the higher value that the contract holds, the more percentage of money he would receive too. 

If he could really sign a contract with monthly fees up to 5,000 yuan, the agency fee would definitely earn 2,500 yuan or above and he could receive about 1,000 yuan for himself. 

“Please wait a moment, I’ll look for it.” As he spoke, he began to search using the computer in front of him. This kind of houses were especially easy to find. He only needed to set the price range over 5,000 yuan and usually there would be no more than 20 or 30 options. He could then cancel all the ones with three rooms or more and the options left should fit into Shi Lei’s requests. 

Not long after, the agent said: there are two houses with single rooms. The landlords renovated the place last year and it’s relatively new. No one has lived in one of them yet. The landlord seemed to move to another city after it was furnished. He thought that it was a waste to leave it empty for half a year so he decided to rent it out. He wanted the tenant to have good manners as he doesn’t want the tenant to break anything inside.” 

Shi Lei nodded and asked: “What about the other one?” He was rather interested in this one. 

“The other one was furnished for about a year. At first, a foreigner wanted to rent this house, but the landlord thought that the furnishings was too bad, so he spent a month and over 200,000 yuan to re-furnish the house. The foreigner signed a three year contract with the landlord, but he decided to go back to his home country after a year. Although he paid an extra two months worth of rental fees to the landlord, but the landlord was still dissatisfied. After all, he spent 200,000 yuan on it and he needed about three years to earn those money back. So, the landlord wanted asked for at least a two year contract with high deposit of half a year’s rental.” 

Shi Lei frowned slightly. The landlord was pushing the mistakes which the first tenant made onto the next tenant, which meant this landlord would be rather hard to communicate to. 

“What’s the area of these two houses? How are the furnishing?” 

The agent hid his happiness. The only things Shi Lei cared about was the area and furnishing without mentioning the price at all, which meant that he didn’t care about the price at all. This made things a lot easier. 

As long as he didn’t care about the money, the house wouldn’t be a problem.

“As for furnishings, both houses are about the same. The areas are also about the same with 53 sq. meters and 56 sq. meters. How about you have a look of the furnishings yourself.” With that, the agent turned the computer screen around to face Shi Lei and began to introduce them enthusiastically. 

Both houses had a lot of pictures and the agent promised that they indeed took those photos just a few days ago without any tricks or beautification, and that this was the real look of the houses. 

Shi Lei was rather satisfied with both of these houses. 

50 sq. meter was almost the same as a five-star hotel’s standard room. Although it’s not really one bedroom and one living room, but overall it was rather s.p.a.cious. 

These two houses were also furnished in the modern minimalist style. There were plenty of nice details but also not too exaggerating. 

The pictures also included details of the furnitures and home appliances. Shi Lei checked carefully that one set was Philips, and the other was Siemens, which were both high quality brands.

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