NOVPUB
Chapter 634: Chapter 624 Purchase Again
The next day, Ma Liguo took another day off to accompany her to look at the house.
The house was more or less as he had described. Shen Yunfang was shocked when she saw the house priced over 800,000 RMB. Not to mention anything else, just the antique furniture inside was very valuable, much better than the junk she had picked up from the acquisition station. Well, how should I put it, this courtyard house was a bit expensive, but it looked very cultured at first glance.
So, in Ma Liguo’s negotiation, they finally successfully purchased the courtyard house for 800,000 RMB, which meant they had saved 40,000 RMB in total over two days.
The last house they didn’t manage to get the price reduced at all, and Shen Yunfang wasn’t very satisfied with it either. It really was very dilapidated, as if the owner had not taken good care of it. However, the location of this house was excellent. Although it seemed expensive now, it had great investment value, so Shen Yunfang still bought it with her eyes closed. 𝘯𝑜𝑣𝑝𝑢𝘣.𝑐𝑜𝑚
During this period, to gather enough money to purchase the houses, Shen Yunfang went to the Bank of China to exchange 1.5 million US Dollars.
When Joseph had given her the dividends, she had received the remittance and directly opened an account at the Bank of China to save it, and she saved it in US Dollars. She felt that she didn’t need the money right away, and the exchange rate for the US Dollar was very low at the time. It wouldn’t make sense to exchange it, so she kept it all in US Dollars. Now, when she needed it, she would simply withdraw it from the bank and exchange it.
The current exchange rate for the US Dollar was around 1.7, and her 1.5 million US Dollars were successfully exchanged for nearly 2.6 million RMB.
With the help of Ma Liguo’s connections, the process of buying and selling the houses and handling the paperwork went very smoothly. Shen Yunfang stayed in the Capital for a total of four days, and she had already obtained the three houses.
With the remaining almost 600,000 in cash, she packed it in a big bag, ready to take it to Z Province.
The banking system wasn’t interconnected yet, so the money she deposited in the Capital couldn’t be withdrawn in Z Province. For convenience, she still needed to keep some money close at hand.
Of course, both Ma Liguo and his wife strongly disapproved of such bold behavior. Just one woman, carrying a big bag of money on a train to such a far place, it was worrying to anyone who saw it.
But they couldn’t persuade Shen Yunfang, so they could only send her to the train station with worried faces.
At the ticket check, Shen Yunfang instructed him, "Brother Ma, keep an eye out for such courtyard houses for me in the future, preferably with three courtyards."
Ma Liguo was surprised, "You want to buy more? Aren’t three courtyard houses enough?"
"No, that two-courtyard house is really not to my taste. Even if it’s renovated, it’s still a bit small. When Pangpang and Manman grow up, I must leave one set for each of them."
Ma Liguo wanted to say that should be enough.
"And for Li Hongjun and me, we can’t squeeze in with the kids. So, we need to keep one set for ourselves. Now, these three sets are different in size; I can’t favor one over the other. That’s why it’s best to buy another three-courtyard house to have enough to distribute." Shen Yunfang was earnest in her intentions; these things were ultimately for her children. Whether boys or girls, they were her children, and she wanted to treat them all equally.
Ma Liguo’s mouth gaped open, at a loss for words, suddenly feeling like he was not on the same level as her.
"Okay, I’ll keep an eye out for you. If there is any, I’ll call you again," Ma Liguo said dryly.
"No need for the trouble; didn’t I leave you some money? If it’s enough, you can use it to pay the deposit first, and then if I’m free I’ll come back to have a look, if I’m not I’ll just wire the money over to you. I still trust your judgment, Brother Ma." When she left, she had given Ma Liguo three hundred thousand RMB to help find someone to repair and refurbish the three courtyards, at the very least get the plumbing right.
"Okay, if there’s a house available, I’ll let you know over there. It’s just inconvenient on your end; it would be better if there was a phone."
"No worries, when I go back, I’ll think over it and see if I can get a phone installed at home. If it’s really possible, you can just call directly home," Yunfang considered for a moment. By now, it should be possible for individuals to have telephones installed, she presumed.
Afterwards, Yunfang wobbled back to Z Province by train, and upon arriving home, she received a warm welcome from her family, accompanied, of course, by a chorus of complaints.
"Mom, Dad doesn’t make us delicious food at night." Manman, the little foodie, tugged at her mom and snitched at once, and by this time, Dad had already lost his top spot in her heart.
"Mom, the stories Dad tells us before bedtime are not interesting," Pangpang frowned, clearly troubled.
The last person in the house twitched a corner of their mouth, squeezing out a sentence, "I did my best."
Poor Daddy felt aggrieved. When he cooked for the kids, his wife would praise it, but the kids wouldn’t give him face. He had no choice but to entertain the kids to eat more, and as for storytelling at night, he shared tales of exemplary deeds from the army, but they weren’t interested at all. They insisted on stories about Sun Wukong beating the White Bone Demon, which he had no idea how to tell—he’d be better off fighting.
"Hahaha, you’ve had a hard time, Daddy," Yunfang found her husband’s woeful expression amusing.
"Wife, I’m not suffering. I’ve come to realize that you’re the one who’s had it the toughest in our family," Hongjun said excitedly as he hugged his wife. Considering how frazzled he was just from taking care of the kids for a few days, he thought about how his wife had been managing the two children since they were little, never once troubling him or complaining, which made him feel she was the one who had the hardest time.
After spending a warm night with her family, the next day she went to the bank and got the loan sorted out. Since she had already established connections with the upper levels, the one million RMB she applied for was quickly credited to her account.
Then she hurried to sign a contract with the head of the city administration.
Yunfang proposed a seventy-year lease, surprising the provincial leaders. They hadn’t expected her to ask for such a long term.
Yunfang naturally wanted to lease for as many years as possible. With the regulations on land contracting not yet in place, it would be foolish not to secure the land during this uncertain period.
The city held a special meeting to discuss the duration of her lease and ultimately agreed to Yunfang’s request. However, they also put forward some stringent conditions. She would need to pay half of the lease fee at once, which amounted to fifty years’ worth, and for the remaining twenty years, she could pay gradually, but a lump sum payment could not be less than ten years’ worth.
For others, this condition was extremely harsh. There were eight hundred and forty mu of wasteland total, with a lease fee of fifteen RMB per mu, that made twelve thousand and six hundred. Adding a forestation fee of five thousand RMB, the annual lease fee totaled seventeen thousand six hundred RMB; fifty years would come to a total of eight hundred and eighty thousand RMB.
In an era where households with ten thousand RMB were a rare breed, eight hundred and eighty thousand was really no small sum.
