Chapter 619 - 8: Handling
After a trip to the city, Chen Zhou successfully sold two pieces of gold, connected with a gold company, and met Miss Feng, who is involved in the currency trade, at an antique store. It was quite a fruitful journey.
After adding Feng Yingxuan as a friend, Chen Zhou did not chat much with her, only politely asked her name and then updated the note on his side.
He specifically reminded Feng Yingxuan to inform him if she came across any yellow jade seed material, assuring that he would definitely buy it if he had the money.
However, natural yellow jade seed material is a rare commodity difficult to come by. Wealthy merchants, celebrities, and big players in the collectors’ circles are all after it. For a small figure like him, even if he gets the news, he might not be able to acquire it—
In modern society, money is certainly important, but power, reputation, and status often outweigh money.
Especially in Hua Xia, relationships matter greatly. Those who are well-connected can make money with ease, while those without connections find it hard to do business, facing difficulties and inconveniences from various departments.
...
Upon returning to the small town, Chen Zhou didn’t go straight home but instead took the over 700,000 in his account, which hadn’t even warmed up, to the sales office.
Recent years have seen many new housing estates built in the new district of Balin Town.
A few years ago, at the height of the real estate boom, the new housing price in this small town peaked at nearly 12,000 per square meter.
In other ordinary towns, even with high housing prices, it wouldn’t reach such levels. However, Balin Town has very strong educational resources. The town’s key high school, where Chen Zhou attended, even produced a provincial science champion, and its entry rate to top universities ranks among the top in the province.
Poverty should never hinder education—
Parents are always willing to spend money to ensure their kids aren’t falling behind academically in hopes of their success.
Even people from surrounding towns and other cities flock to Balin Town, seeking to enroll their children in the town’s key schools.
Over time, Balin Town, despite lacking rich mineral resources, a thriving tourism industry, large factories, or pivotal industries, actually thrived through its education sector, and this prosperity has yet to fade.
However, the boom in education cannot sustain the real estate bubble. When housing prices plummeted nationwide, Balin Town’s housing prices weren’t spared.
In less than four years, the price in the new district has fallen from 12,000 per square meter to 8,000.
This "rapid dive" trend not only affected developers, leaving them scrambling to answer the first batch of homebuyers’ queries but also made potential buyers hold onto their money, adopting a wait-and-see approach—
After all, with such a quick drop in house prices, buying now or waiting a year could save tens of thousands. No one’s money is easy to come by, and everyone wants to avoid spending unnecessarily.
In the sluggish market, even sales staff at the sales offices were either laid off or resigned, switching to more prosperous industries.
With his "huge sum," Chen Zhou, able to buy a house all at once, became a prized customer at the sales office, receiving the rare courtesy of personal service from the manager.
Even though buying with full payment doesn’t yield as high a profit as buying with a mortgage.
But with the industry in a slump, some months they couldn’t sell a few houses, and the real estate developers were starving for any business, grabbing at anything, whether it be meat or not.
That afternoon, after confirming the contract and procedures were correct, Chen Zhou made the payment and acquired the first property of his life.
This property was a small unit, only 60 square meters, but it was located on the first floor near the community gate and came with a 20-square-meter basement.
The wine here is not what the old man is after; buying the house was secondary. The main attraction was this basement.
However, the purchased property was just a roughcast house and couldn’t be lived in as is. To move into the new home, at least some renovation was needed, along with purchasing a safe to store treasures.
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Balin Town is, after all, Chen Zhou’s hometown, with family and friends gathered here.
Since Chen Zhou’s father worked in renovations, Chen knew many elders working in this industry.
After buying the property, he used the excuse that a friend’s house needed renovation to approach an uncle, agreed on the price, and that afternoon, the renovation of the new house began.
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Busy and bustling, it soon reached mid-September.
The over 700,000 that Chen Zhou had used to buy the new house, purchase renovation materials, and settle wages was gradually depleting.
Given the current situation, not to mention purchasing a safe, it’s uncertain whether the renovations could even be completed.
Lacking funds, Chen Zhou didn’t contact Manager Sun at the city’s Gold Recycling Company, even though Manager Sun frequently called, showing interest in further gold resources. Chen Zhou wasn’t swayed at all.
After all, the amount of gold in his possession was substantial, and a significant portion bore clear Inca Empire or medieval European styles, making him genuinely worried about selling too much gold through the same company and provoking unnecessary trouble.
On September 16th, Chen Zhou specifically flew to a city with a gold ATM, exchanging 750,000 through the machine.
Then, he pawned two gold bars at a pawnshop for a relatively low price, receiving 680,000 in cash.
Several large deposits caught the bank’s attention.
But to Chen Zhou’s relief, the bank neither inquired about the source of the funds nor froze his account; instead, they upgraded his user level, assigned him a dedicated customer service representative, and recommended various deposit promotions and suitable investment projects.