The Black Card Chapter 100 - Unreasonable Landlord

Chapter 100 - Unreasonable Landlord 

Translator: Lav

Editor: Levs

Since the overall status of these two houses were about the same, Shi Lei quickly made up his mind. Although that one had tenants before, but that tenant seemed to maintain the property very well and it wasn’t too different from the new house. 

“Can I book an appointment with the landlord to have a look at the house?” Shi Lei asked. 

The agent was delighted as it seemed that Shi Lei already made up his mind. Until now, Shi Lei didn’t ask anything about the price so this young lad really had a lot of money to spend. 

That’s because he didn’t have an eye for judging price. If it was someone else, they would’ve noticed a long time ago that he was wearing Armani. With a set of clothes worth 30,000 yuan, obviously he wouldn’t care about merely a few thousand of rental fees. 

“I have the key to the house that was never rented before. But my manager has the key and he’s not here at the moment. If he was going to come over, he will take about an hour as he lives quite far away. But the one which the foreigner rented before should be fine. The grandma has the key and she lives not far from here. If we call her, we should be able to go and check the house in about 10 minutes.” 

Shi Lei nodded and said: “How about you contact both your manager and the landlord grandma, I’ll have a look at both houses so I can make a comparison, is that ok?” 

“No problem, I’ll contact them now.” The agent was extremely delighted as he took out his phone to make the calls. As he entered the phone number, he asked carefully: “Aren’t you going to ask about the price? Although the houses are in similar conditions, but the prices are quite different.” 

“Don’t be in such a hurry, just make the call first and tell me the price after.” 

The agent quickly made two phone calls. His manager naturally didn’t have a problem with it and said that after he’ll come after driving his child home in about two hours. 

The granny landlord was also taking a walk around the area and she could head over right now. After explaining to Shi Lei, the agent said: “I’ll tell you a bit about the price first. The house we are going to right now is slightly bigger in area with 56 sq. meters. The landlord’s request is that monthly rental fee is 6,500 yuan and the tenant pay it annually with a deposit of a half year’s pay. But personally, I think we can negotiate about this because no one really pays six months of deposit at the very beginning. Her house’s rental fee is already high so I think we can negotiate with her and make it three months instead. The rent is also slightly more expensive than the usual since the reasonable price is around 6,200 yuan, so we can also talk about that. Except she’s very stubborn on making the tenant pay the rent annually so we may have a hard time to change her mind.”

Shi Lei nodded and said: “That’s not too bad. What about the other one?” 

“We have complete control over the other one as the right was given to us by the landlord. We strictly followed the trend of the current market and he trusts us with that, so the rent is 5,800 yuan per month. As for the deposit, he requests the minimum of two months, although three months would be the best since he spent a lot of money on the furnishings. He didn’t even live in it for a single day and all the home appliances are new and he was worried about damaging the property. You can pay the rent every six months or even better, annually.” 

Shi Lei expressed that he understood and said: “Let’s check out the houses and discuss this later.” 

Both houses are on the street just in front of the school. It was only 300m away from the dorms of Wu Dong University and would only take about 5 minutes by foot. 

The granny landlord was already waiting in the hall on the first floor. When she saw the agent and Shi Lei, her first sentence was a complaint: “Why did you take so long? I’ve waited for more than 10 minutes already.” 

The agent could only smile and said: “I’m sorry, please understand that we took time to walk over too.” 

The granny snorted. She spoke whilst walking towards the lift: “I’m telling you, I’m earning money for your agency since I left my house in your hands. My house’s rent is more than 6,000 yuan per month and you can take almost half of it, so you should pay more attention to it. I’ve left it in your agency for half a month already and although you came to have a look at it twice, but you couldn’t rent it out for me. Will this man rent it or not? Don’t waste my time to come here, I even waited for 10 minutes.” 

The agent kept on smiling but Shi Lei frowned. He thought that this landlord would be rather hard to get along with, but since he could pay the rent annually and only see her once in the beginning of the second year, he didn’t really mind. Except, he didn’t expect this granny to be so unreasonable. 

And how did they even take 10 minutes? When the agent made the call, Shi Lei checked the time and it was 10:31AM. It was only 10:39AM right now and only 8 minutes had pa.s.sed, not to mention that it took them about 5 or 6 minutes to walk over from the real estate agency. 

Of course, Shi Lei didn’t say anything and followed them upstairs. 

The house wasn’t bad. It was somewhere between the 20th and the 30th floor and 38th floor was the top floor. It was in the middle to high range and was one of the best floors for an apartment like this. 

The distance between the apartment room and the elevator was also suitable. It wasn’t too close to the elevator to catch its noises, but it wasn’t on the end either so the outside sounds could only pa.s.s through the windows. Overall, Shi Lei was rather satisfied with the house’s location. 

The granny mumbled continuously. When she opened the door, she turned around and glared at them: “Did you bring shoe covers? If you didn’t, just have a look from the outside. I’m scared that you youngsters have smelly feet.” 

Shi Lei frowned even more. If it wasn’t for the agent who constantly smiled and wanted to make the deal, he wanted to turn around and leave. 

Luckily, all agents bring shoe covers on them. He pa.s.sed a pair to Shi Lei, muttered ‘sorry’ in a low voice as they followed the granny inside. 

It wasn’t too different from the pictures and the house was maintained well. If it wasn’t for the agent’s information, Shi Lei couldn’t really tell that someone lived in this house before. It seemed that the foreigner didn’t spend a lot of time inside and only came back to sleep. 

In this moment, the granny was studying Shi Lei carefully and suddenly asked: “What do you do for living? Do you know how much the rent is for my house?”

Shi Lei forced a smile and said: “The agent told me already.” He walked past her and opened the bathroom door as he wanted to check it. 

“I’m telling you, lad, I spent a lot of money to renovate this house. You know that it was a foreigner who rented my house before, right? Foreigners have such good manners. If it wasn’t for that foreigner, I definitely wouldn’t spend that much money to re-furnish the whole place. The home appliances are all new. They are all Philips and are very expensive. If you are renting my house, you need to cherish it. If you make scratches on them, I’m going to ask for extra money.” 

Shi Lei turned his head around and glanced at the granny, but didn’t bother to talk.

The granny was still asking: “Oh, right, I just asked what do you do, you haven’t told me yet.” 

“That’s not important. I’ll make everything clear when I sign the contract anyways. Can I please have a look at the house first?” Shi Lei was neither being humble nor pushy, but he was rather dissatisfied with the landlord. “This young lad looks rather fine, but why do you talk like this? What’s wrong with me asking? If you are renting my house, obviously I need to know what you do, if you are doing some random things in my house, I can’t let that happen. My house was rented by a foreigner before. He had such good qualities and during the year he lived here, he never messed the house up. My furnishings are so good too, obviously I need to ask you about it.” 

Shi Lei was rather annoyed and replied: “Didn’t he still break the contract and left early? I don’t think he had great qualities. If he really did, why didn’t he pay the three years’ worth of rent and just leave the house empty?” 

The granny was speechless against Shi Lei’s statement.