“You don’t give me the price I want? You are not serious, you don’t have money”
Part 1
“So, this is the commercial space. You can see here the bank and from here you can see the rest of the available surfaces”. “Nice, but I am only interested in the bank”. “But the rest is very nice as well, I have invested a lot of money here, so as to be a state of art for an office”. “I believe you” I said, while walking the stairs up. I was not able to avoid watching the empty area anyway, so I followed the owner and the agent (”when you can not avoid a rape, at least try to enjoy it…”). The other surfaces were really impressive, with expensive finishings. “Why did you invest all this money here?” “So as to be the best in the city”.
“But you can not be paid accordingly, it is not a good investment” “Probably, but I want to have the best in all I am doing. I have the best car, the best women, the best in all…” “I am glad that you like to have a high profile like this, but I can not pay the price you ask, as I can never take my money back” “Yes, but you will have the best property of the city?” “Does the city give any award for the best property? Any medal, the golden key or something?” “I don’t know” “Too bad, you should have applied for one” “Good idea”.
This was more or less the first discussion with the owner of a nice commercial space, in the centre of a big Romanian city. He tried to sell to me also the empty upper areas. Initially with the price of the ground floor, which was rented to a bank. Then with a lower (always very high) price, until I explained to him that I don’t intend to buy expensive empty properties. Mistake, very big mistake… “So you don’t have a lot of money” he commented…
How can a young guy from Katerini deal with someone who was born and raised in tremendous wealth?
Romania has many problems nowadays, but one of the biggest ones is the wrong perception of what business is. Unfortunately a big part of people consider successful the ones who show off, spread money around without sense, buying expensive stuff. This role model goes together with the idea that the clever ones are the ones who have tricked everyone else, preferably foreigners, the “easy targets” in the eyes of many. (Ofcourse this idea is very popular all around the world, but I am here in Romania and I see it everywhere around me in this country, since I first came, back in 2004).
So, I had a problem of communication with the owner of the space. Plus I was the perfect victim in his eyes, a stupid foreigner who wants to buy a property = he has to pay a lot… It was difficult to understand his lifestyle, including the most expensive cars, the most fabulous women etc, “the most” in everything. In the end of the day, I am just a (still) young guy from Katerini, Greece. How can I compare myself to all these people who were born and raised in tremendous wealth? (what? They were not grown up like this? Impossible… they have almost believed this themselves too)
(the second part on Monday)
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Unfortunately I have to agree with you here. Even after such a shock that the one we’re experiencing, only few people in this country are willing to learn from their own mistakes and prepare themselves for the real way of doing business. I recently came back home and couldn’t help noticing the huge gaps amongst - first of all - the professionals. I have had several meetings with all kind of realtors, from brokers to developpers, marketers, valuers, and so on, and - believe it or not - with few exceptions, people still do not know what is the right price of a property and why. The only thing that has changed indeed is that almost all of them are now ‘consultants’ instead of agents. Oh, and they do use indeed some fancy terms like yield, returns, analysis, studies. What good if their portfolio only includes 4-5pct offers as top producers in 2009??? Some of them being even advertised as distressed or BMV or however the hell they heard on Bloomberg or wherever. So, do not blame only the owners for being stupid yet extremely cocky, they had good teachers… The “smecheri” with diploma :))