Reborn as a landlord in Shanghai

Chapter 48 Chat

"Not bad. Do you have enough money in the store?"

Hearing Guo Xiaoyan mention the money the shop made in 10 days, Mao Xiaoyu felt it was pretty good. Of course, if she hadn't sold her house, the shop would have only earned 800 yuan in those 10 days. If you calculate it that way, it would be a huge loss. Of course, Mao Xiaoyu wouldn't say such an embarrassing thing.

However, this is common for new stores. Generally, new stores don't make money for at least two or three months. Many customers don't know there's a real estate agency here. In addition, Mao Xiaoyu uses her company's employees to attend to her own business, so it's inevitable that she neglects other businesses. Besides, real estate agencies usually only do good business the longer they've been in business and the better their reputation is built up. So, it's understandable that the business is in such a state now.

"That's enough. We even have enough money to pay the employees' salaries this month. And I've already invested our shares proportionally. According to the current bills, even after deducting all the company's expenses, there's still over 1 yuan in the intermediary's company account," Guo Xiaoyan said.

Guo Xiaoyan felt she had the self-awareness to know that business would definitely not be good once the new store opened. Now that she had such a sucker partner with her, she could relax a bit. In addition, the real estate agency was doing fairly well thanks to Mao Xiaoyu's business. At least she had a salary and the agency was making a profit.

"By the way, for the commission from selling houses, give me the bill a week before payday. I'll transfer the money to you then. After all, even though the company isn't making money, we still have to pay our employees."

Thinking back to the shareholder agreement she had proposed, Mao Xiaoyu wasn't prepared to renege on the debt for that small amount of money, so she told Guo Xiaoyan.

Guo Xiaoyan rolled her eyes at Mao Xiaoyu's words, speechless, and said leisurely, "Yes, employees can't afford to lose money. Someone would rather give profits to employees than to the real estate agency, so it's really not easy for the agency to make any money off him."

Hearing someone's somewhat provocative words, Mao Xiaoyu pinched her nose a little embarrassedly, then whispered, "I opened this real estate agency so that I could buy a house cheaper for myself. If opening the agency doesn't make buying a house cheaper for me, then what's the point of opening it? When you buy a house yourself in the future, you'll know what it feels like to buy a house from your own agency and not have to pay a penny."

"I don't know how I feel, but I do know that I don't have the money to buy a house. Even if I do have the money to buy a house in the future, I won't be able to buy that many houses," Guo Xiaoyan complained.

"But you can't deny that with the opening of the new store and my business, the company's operations are doing very well. After these few months, even without my business, I believe the agency can still maintain normal profits. Actually, this is good for both of us," Mao Xiaoyu advised.

When Guo Xiaoyan heard Mao Xiaoyu's words, she knew how much benefit the business Mao Xiaoyu brought would be to a new store. Otherwise, Guo Xiaoyan would not have invested most of the company's human and material resources into this matter.

Although they received less commission from Mao Xiaoyu, they received just as much commission from the homeowners. Without Mao Xiaoyu's business, their agency wouldn't even have received commissions from the homeowners.

So Guo Xiaoyan had mixed feelings about Mao Xiaoyu's business. She loved it because the more houses the agency sold, the more she earned. But she hated it because she feared Mao Xiaoyu would mess things up and drag her down with her.

Of course, it's definitely more about love; otherwise, they wouldn't have devoted so much manpower and resources to this, even personally handling the property certificate process.

Seeing that Guo Xiaoyan remained silent, Mao Xiaoyu didn't intend to provoke her further. After all, they were business partners, and it was best to let her have some leeway in order to do business in the long run.

"The agency's business license will be ready in a couple of days. Go pick it up when you have time," Mao Xiaoyu said tactfully.

"I know, I've calculated the time. When it's time, I'll call them to ask first, and then I'll go pick up the business license," Guo Xiaoyan nodded and said.

"Once we get the business license, let's prepare to open our second store in the middle of next month. I plan to open it on Fengxiang Road, between Qufang Road and Fengxiang Road. It's about 3 kilometers away from our current store, which isn't too far. If we open it there, it can complement our current store," Mao Xiaoyu said.

The Fengxiang Road and Qufang Road that Mao Xiaoyu mentioned are the areas that will be demolished the year after next. They are about four streets away from Mao Xiaoyu's real estate agency. As for why she opened there so early...

The main purpose is to familiarize the employees with the environment there and prepare for Mao Xiaoyu's house purchase in June or July next year. This time, Mao Xiaoyu plans to buy a house a year in advance.

Another reason is that if we open a real estate agency there in the middle of next month, the area will be demolished in July and the storefront will be taken over. This way, all the employees here can go to work at once, saving everyone from being resting without work.

"There's no need to open so fast. For our store, it will take at least two or three months to stabilize. Actually, it would be best to open a second branch after our store has stabilized." Guo Xiaoyan frowned and retorted when she heard Mao Xiaoyu's request.

Upon hearing the other party's rebuttal, Mao Xiaoyu quickly analyzed, "Actually, our store mainly relies on my sales to support it, but you need to know one thing: my sales can't go on forever; it will eventually come to an end."

Once I stop buying, how many customers do you think our store will have in a day? Will we be able to make any money in a month? With our current turnover, we definitely won't be able to support so many people. If we don't want to lay off staff, we'll eventually have to reassign them.

But we only have one store, so where can we divert customers? Won't we just have to rush to open another store anyway? In that case, why not start working on opening the second store in the middle of next month, and after all that work, the second store should be open by around July?

By then, I won't buy a house for this store anymore. With more staff, we'll divert them to the second branch, eventually reducing the number of staff to three or four per store. With fewer staff, we'll need to pay less in wages, and at that point, the store's profits should be at least acceptable.

Honestly, the second store is actually a normal new real estate agency store. The store we're working with now is more for my benefit, which is why I need a lot of people there to help me investigate various information about the house.

However, this store can't operate like this for long. Eventually, because I stopped buying from this store, it will definitely have to hire more staff. So this store is not comparable to a new store at all. The reason we opened the second store was to open a new store and experience how difficult it is to open a new store.

"Besides, with subsidies from our store, even if the second or new store loses a little money each month, it's not that unacceptable." Mao Xiaoyu earnestly persuaded him, seemingly making a lot of sense, but there was actually one more point she didn't mention.

That is because he has bought too many houses here and is afraid that when the demolition notice comes out, the previous owners of the houses will come back to cause trouble for his shop. So he plans to arrange for some of his employees to go out after the demolition notice comes out. Even if the previous owners come to cause trouble, the shop is full of new people and they will have no way to find them.

Hearing Mao Xiaoyu's words, Guo Xiaoyan felt that it made sense. After all, the store was mainly built up thanks to Mao Xiaoyu's business. If Mao Xiaoyu really didn't buy the house, the store wouldn't need so many people.

Then there will only be two options: either fire the extra people, or find a way to relocate them elsewhere.

The first option, firing them, is definitely not an option. After spending more than a month raising them, it would be a waste of both money and resources for the real estate agent to fire them.

From this perspective, it seems that opening a second store and relocating the extra employees there is the best approach.

But when Mao Xiaoyu said this method, Guo Xiaoyan felt that something was wrong, but she couldn't figure out what it was, so she could only laugh at herself for thinking nonsense.

"Okay, I'll open the second store according to your schedule." Guo Xiaoyan felt that she was following Mao Xiaoyu's plan. If Mao Xiaoyu didn't have any further plans, she would open the second store and relocate the staff there.

"And..." Just as Mao Xiaoyu was about to say something, her phone suddenly rang, so she had to take it out and look at it.

dong dong dong, dong dong dong!

Mao Xiaoyu's heart skipped a beat; it was her own father calling.

Just as Li Yong and his two companions arrived, Dad called. It seems Dad must have contacted Grandpa and Grandma at home and found out that Li Yong had brought things over.

Thinking of this, Mao Xiaoyu could only give Guo Xiaoyan an apologetic look, then took her phone and went outside, preparing to have a good talk with her father.

"Hey, Dad, what's up?" Mao Xiaoyu asked with a look of envy as soon as the call connected.

"You've done something big, kid. If your grandparents hadn't called me, I wouldn't have known you were involved in something this big," Mao Jun said bluntly over the phone.

"What's the big deal? I didn't do anything." Although Mao Xiaoyu guessed what her father meant, she still pretended to be confused on the phone.

"You've got it all set up. I'm asking you what's going on with Li Yong? And what about your classmates and friends? You actually dared to bring three people over to work from your home. Aren't you afraid they'll cause problems if they don't do a good job?" Mao Jun said bluntly.

Seeing that her father had brought things up, Mao Xiaoyu could only pretend and say, "I'm out there making a living every day, and a boss next door happened to be short-staffed. He wanted to find some out-of-towners who were cheaper to work, so I called two people from home for him. After all, you know Li Yong and I have a good relationship. His job as a gatekeeper at home is nothing to him. He might as well quit his job and come to Shanghai to try his luck. Who knows, he might even make a name for himself."

"Do you think it's so easy to get out there? If you make a mistake or something goes wrong, can you take responsibility?" Mao Jun said bluntly.

"What responsibility should I bear for this? Everyone chooses their own path. I just asked him if he was satisfied with working at home, and he said he wasn't. He wanted to go out and try his luck. How can you blame me for that?"

If you have a friend who needs you to introduce them to a job, would you do it if you could? So it's hard to say.

Also, this matter has been resolved. They've settled in, and now it's up to them to do their own thing. It's not really my concern anymore.

"If you're really so heartless as to make me send him back, then I'll go find their boss right now and have them fire them," Mao Xiaoyu said shamelessly.

When Mao Jun heard his son's words, he was at a loss for words on the other end of the phone.

Hearing her father remain silent, Mao Xiaoyu felt a surge of pride, then said in a gentler tone, "I've received the salted goods that Grandpa and Grandma sent. I'll return them to you tomorrow morning. As for things here, that's the end of it."

"You brat, I won't bring this up anymore. Also, if you have nothing to do at night and come back twice, look at you this time, you haven't been back for many days. Do you even recognize this family anymore?" Mao Jun felt that Mao Xiaoyu was being a bit unreasonable, but he couldn't argue with him, so he could only complain from another angle.

"I'd be fine going back. I might as well sleep here. After all, I don't need to drive back and forth for an hour or two. How about this: whenever Mom makes something delicious, you can call me a day in advance, and I'll go back the next day to make something to eat. What do you think?" Mao Xiaoyu asked rhetorically.

"Alright, I'll talk to your mom about it later and see what she says." Mao Jun wasn't sure about the timing and planned to leave the matter to his wife to decide later.

"Alright, that's enough. I'm busy right now, bye." After saying that, Mao Xiaoyu hung up the phone and patted her chest, finally letting out a sigh of relief.

"Russians,..."

After finishing her call, Mao Xiaoyu planned to go back to the shop and talk to Guo Xiaoyan again. However, Li Yong and the other two, who had just finished their work in the dormitory, came over and saw Mao Xiaoyu finish her call from afar. They greeted Mao Xiaoyu warmly.

Hearing the shouts and seeing Li Yong and the other two approaching, Mao Xiaoyu abandoned her plan to talk and stood at the entrance of the real estate agency, waiting for them to arrive. Once they were at the door, the four of them started chatting.

About half an hour later, the store's employees returned one after another.

Once all the employees returned, Mao Xiaoyu didn't bother with waiting for the designated time to leave work; she simply told Guo Xiaoyan to close the door and go home.

Then the two of them took their employees to a restaurant not far away and spent four or five hundred yuan on a team-building activity.

After two hours of eating, everyone finally left the restaurant.