1st of December 2005:
When I lost the… “chance of my life”

Part 2 (for part 1, please press here)

 Asian Bazaar…
      After I was convinced that they are a big serious company, we entered in the part of business. If there would be a camera to record the discussion, I think it could be used in tv comic shows. Me talking in English with few Romanian words, them talking in Romanian with some English words, all of us using our hands and faces so as to try to be understood. And the “rain of opportunities” started…
      “So you want lands around Bucharest with low prices, apartments and commercial spaces… I see…” one of the ladies summed up my explanation of 5 minutes for what I want. Then, she started proving to me her magic talents. She was able to redraw the right paper with the first attempt under a huge pile of documents. “This one is good?” “Where and how much?” “On the way to Urziceni” “And how much?” She was trying to read my expressions. When I was stating that I was not interested at all, the price was automatically very attractive. On the other hand, if I would say that I like an area, immediately the price was high “due to the area”. I was 30 years old, but I think that in their eyes I was between 7 - 8. “The price for this land is…” (looking to the other lady, so as to receive by her a signal) “… only 28 euro / sq.m.” “but it is a lot, I buy in the area with less than 10″. “You do? Ok, then 14″. “But how can you cut the price to half, without to ask the owner? In so many other cases you transmit to me very high prices, which you claim that you do not even want to negotiate. What happened here in this one?” “We try to provide you with the best prices, what is your problem?”
      I have friends who have visited Constantinoupolis and Egypt and they have described to me the rules of “asian negotiation in a bazaar”. I felt uncomfortable to arrive in the same situation, having to speak about prices and negotiate with the two ladies while in the same time I had to maintain the tone of my voice to the lowest levels. The husband proved to be upset because his team lost and he was ready for a fight, whenever someone was talking normal. As the discussion - negotiation continued for more than one hour, he thought of different ways to punish us. He started with a soft porn show on television (the only time he turned around, smiled to me - allowing me to view his few remaining teeth appear under unidentified food remainings - and signed to me to sit next to him and watch it together). As I was not interested, in the end he found a football game and rose the volume to the maximum.
      How could I complain about it? Is it nice for you to stay at your house, a foreigner to arrive in the middle of the night and tell you what to do with your television?

“Domnule, aveti fitze”
      After a long “property dropping” (like “name dropping”) game which lasted over an hour, we ended up talking about four cases. The two ladies were really upset on me, as I was too “difficult to be satisfied” as they tried to explain to me. (This is something that never changes… there are too many agents who talk to you about expensive properties and if you dare to tell them that you want something cheap, they consider you not serious and usually disappear, searching the next victim). “Again you don’t like it?” “Again it is expensive?” “So what if the opening is 32 meters and the land has a surface of 25.000 sq.m.? You will take advantage of 800 meters length” “What is the problem with this building, where the apartment is located? So what if you know it? Why you do not like it as it has red bullet? There will be no other earthquake in the Bucharest (sic) for the next 100 years”.
      “Domnule, aveti fitze” (Mister, you have vanity) was the conclusion of our discussion, with them telling me this, expecting me to feel ashamed because I did not agree to propose to my clients an endless number of bad properties. I was not paying attention to these words, but I was trying to identify something good, so as to buy from them. I was also curious how they had managed to create such a portfolio, with hundreds of properties included…

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