Chapter 18

Chapter 18

"Daisy, can a working-holiday visa holder like me buy a house in Australia?"

"...Hm? A house?"

Daisy looked at me with an odd eye.

That furrowed brow was clearly asking, what on earth do you have to buy a house in Australia right now?

I honestly spilled what had happened on site today.

"The work foreman at the place I work has a detached house his parents left as inheritance. But he once rented wrong, and drug dealers made drugs in there, and the house was completely contaminated with chemical smell."

"Oh my god! My god!"

"The problem is I've rolled construction sites long in Korea, so I'm mastered at building and fixing houses. I can take the smell out and save it, but I have to tear all the carpet, and overturn the inside facilities from wallpaper to bathroom tile, so it seemed quite a lot of money would go."

Daisy fell into my story with her mouth open.

"I haven't drawn an exact repair estimate yet so it isn't sure, but anyway going in on rent and fixing someone else's house with my own money and skill is a loss, right? So I'm thinking now. Shall I buy that house, no different from a haunted house, whole from the foreman at a dirt price."

"Buy the house whole?"

"Yeah. Fix it all for investment, live comfortable myself, and later when the visa ends or I move to another region, sell it with a real-estate gain on top, how about that."

The moment my words ended, Daisy's eyes began to glitter like a beast that had found prey.

She was Commonwealth Bank, and a working banker to the bone who handled loans and financial products like eating rice.

"Jeong-su! You really found the right person. Real-estate regulation and home loans are my specialty!"

Daisy pulled her body tight over the table and began pouring an explanation, excited.

"To say the conclusion first, a temporary stayer like a working-holiday person can buy a house in Australia. Of course they can get a bank loan too!"

"Really? A foreigner, and a loan comes out?"

"Yeah! Instead the procedure and conditions are much stricter than ordinary Australians. First you're a foreigner, so you absolutely have to get approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board. A temporary visa holder like a working-holiday person can buy exactly one existing house, only for the purpose of living in it themselves."

She counted on her fingers and recited the exact rules.

"You'll live in it yourself, so getting approval is no problem. Only, later if your visa expires and you leave Australia for good, there's a rule you must sell that house within three months."

"If I end up leaving Australia I have to sell anyway, so that's okay too. Then the most important thing, the loan conditions, how are they?"

"You know the Australian real-estate market is in a tremendous boom now? So the banks are fairly generous with loans too. Ordinary Australian permanent residents or citizens can get a loan with only 5 to 10 percent cash of the house price, but you're a foreign temporary stayer with risk, so you'll take the LVR limit a bit hard. Probably you have to be holding at least 20 to 30 percent of the house price as a deposit for the loan approval to drop?"

"By any chance, stock collateral as a deposit doesn't work?"

"What? Stock?!"

Daisy nearly sprayed the tea she was drinking.

"Jeong-su, you really seem a person crazy for betting! If it were an Australian citizen tying up hundreds of thousands of shares of a widely known blue chip for asset proof and raising a secured loan, maybe, but you're a temporary visa holder. And a penny stock with no results like that Fortescue you mentioned earlier is no different from zero collateral value from the bank's side. The deposit that goes in when contracting real estate is only cash, without mercy. Don't even dream!"

At Daisy's firm fact-bombing I scratched my nose, awkward.

'Hm, as expected. However much a boom, would a bank be crazy and take an unidentified penny stock as deposit on a loan for a haunted house that smells of drugs.'

So buying with my money is hard?

However hard I work, bringing in that much money in a short time is too much.

And pulling the funds to put in Fortescue and running them in real estate did not sit well either.

That was the feeling of selling a future that returns thousands of times and buying a petty present.

While I was worrying what to do.

"And another important thing!"

Daisy cut my thought and brought me to reality.

"You have to prove to the bank that you can repay the loan interest every month. So you need at least a few months of stable payslips from the logistics plant you work at now. Even a casual worker, not permanent, if only steady income proof stands, you can get approval."

At Daisy's words I spun sums fast in my head.

Seeing Foreman Gary call the rent under half the market, there was ample room to beat the sale price too.

"If the house price really came out at a tremendous dirt price because of drug contamination, like you said, with your starting capital and the workplace income proof you're earning now, you could put a loan on enough. If you only agree an exact sale price with the foreman called Gary and come, I'll pull the best-rate loan product that fits your conditions at our Commonwealth Bank!"

"No. My funds have a separate place to use."

I quietly set down the tea I was drinking and stared at Daisy.

From my side, having to pour my whole fortune into Fortescue stock, I could not tie that much money as a real-estate deposit.

So I threw a reasonable proposal at Daisy.

"Daisy. How about a partnership with me?"

"······What? A partnership?"

"Right. We set up a real-estate company together. I'll provide the building skill and labor needed for the interior remodel. I'll invest 20,000 Australian dollars too. Instead you take the rest, the finance, the loan capital, and the complicated document side. The profit, later we sell the house and split exactly in half."

At my bomb declaration Daisy was thrown into confusion and stammered.

"You, are you crazy? A, a partnership! How long have we known each other to do a big thing like that together? And I'm a banker! However good the conditions, running two jobs······ no, before that you're a foreigner and I'm a local, do you know how complicated the tangled document procedure is? Don't say things that don't make sense!"

She even waved her hands and showed a flustered look plain.

But her words, shooting excited, began to shrink noticeably as time passed.

"······And even if we buy the drug-contaminated house at a dirt price, take the loan in my name, and fix it, material cost and······ no, you're a technician, so the biggest labor cost is saved? Buy at a dirt price, you repair it yourself, sell it back at a normal price······. Wait."

Before I knew it Daisy, the banker's own reason returned, stared at empty air and muttered.

The sound of a calculator spinning like mad, matching profit and loss in her head, seemed to reach my ears.

For a long while tilting her head and settling her thoughts, she at last looked at me with shaking serious eyes and said.

"Jeong-su. Honestly, looking only at the numbers, it's a proposal hard to refuse. But the risk is big, and the document work I have to bear is too vast. For now I can't make a decision right now. Give me a few days to think, and I'll answer."

"Of course. Think it over slow."

I laughed at ease and nodded.

That she had not refused in one cut itself already meant she was half over to my proposal.

And so I parted in a good mood from Daisy, the prospective partner sunk in deep thought.

* * *

The next morning, I went early to work and quietly asked to speak to Foreman Gary, drinking coffee in the outdoor rest area.

"Foreman. About the parents' house you showed yesterday."

"Oh, Jeong-su! Right, did you think? The rent, I'll match it shockingly as I said yesterday."

To Foreman Gary laughing swollen with expectation, I spilled only very dry, honest fact, without clumsy pushing and pulling or lies.

"Foreman, that house, rent isn't the problem. To take the smell out and make it livable, I have to tear all the living-room carpet, scrape the wallpaper, tear the bathroom tile, overturn the inside completely, leave only the frame, and build new. Ventilate and clean clumsily and no answer comes. To do that, material cost alone will break tremendously."

At my cold evaluation Foreman Gary's shoulders drooped.

Because the fact he too knew inwardly had been confirmed dead by my mouth. I threw the real point at him, discouraged.

"So, foreman. If you sell that house whole, how much would you sell it for?"

"Hm? Sell?"

Foreman Gary looked at me with a puzzled face.

"If you have a mind to sell at a reasonable price, I mean to bring a local investor I know, buy that house, and try a full remodel."

I explained the situation, hiding Daisy's name.

"For now I've only thrown a partnership offer at that investor, and if the foreman has a mind to dispose of it at a good price, I was thinking of buying the foreman's house as our first deal."

Foreman Gary's eyes shook fine.

A chance to dispose entirely of the haunted house that was a headache.

But it was also his parents' inheritance, and now that he would sell, his worry deepened in an instant, as if he could not gauge how much to call.

While he tore his beard and could not decide easily, a noisy siren announcing the start of work rang across the site.

"Ah, the time has already gone like this. Jeong-su, this is a really sudden proposal, so my head is a bit complicated. Let's talk again at lunch."

"Yes. Think it over slow."

After finishing that short talk, I got on the blue 6-ton forklift and poured sweat all morning carrying lumps of iron without rest.

The more the work grew familiar to the hand, the clearer the route the site turned, and at my clean handling the Australian workers raised thumbs again and again.

And noon.

When a light siren announcing lunchtime rang, Foreman Gary quietly came and sat beside me, chewing a sandwich in the outdoor rest area.

Whether he had suffered quite a headache all morning, his face was rather grim.

"Jeong-su. What I said in the morning, I'll sell."

At his decision I set the sandwich down and listened serious.

"Thinking of the stress I took because of that damned house, selling it off would be easier on the insides. Right now the Fairfield West neighborhood market is roughly about 350,000 to 450,000 dollars."

Seeing he knew the exact price, it seemed he had already tried putting it on the market to sell.

I listened to his words without a change of face.

"Call the average 400,000 dollars, and I'll sell at exactly a third, 270,000 dollars. This much is tremendously shocking, right?"

Foreman Gary presented a specific amount, as if he had spent a large favor in his way.

But hearing that number, I furrowed my brow without a single second of hesitation.

"No. At that price I absolutely cannot buy."

"What? No, I cut a third off the market?"

To the flustered Foreman Gary I shook my head firm.

"Foreman. I said earlier too, that house is a haunted house that has to have the inside completely overturned except the frame. Demolition cost, waste disposal, new material cost, and my labor and time that go in, at that price the profit and loss don't match at all. The investor and I will only suffer for nothing and end. The investor will say they won't do it too."

I looked straight at Foreman Gary's eyes and drove a nail in a heavy, cold tone.

"180,000 dollars. It has to be that much for me to take on that terrible chemical smell and risk and go into the remodel."

"What! That doesn't make sense! At that dirt price I'd rather not sell!"

Foreman Gary jumped as if dumbfounded.

Well, telling him to beat his own house under half and sell, there would be no one in a good mood.

But the more so, I had to stab colder with fact.

"It makes sense. Because the foreman's house, in its current state, is a house that absolutely does not make money. The foreman probably knows well too."

"..."

The face of Foreman Gary, stabbed in the sore spot, crumpled hard.

"You clearly would have called local contractors and drawn estimates to repair. But no one would have tried, right? Because the navel is bigger than the belly."

"...Right."

"Right now the foreman's building, knocking it down with a bulldozer and building new on empty land might even save more time and money. Ordinary Australians won't even have the thought of tearing and fixing while suffering like me. I, being a working-holiday person, am saying I'll endure that tremendous trouble. So the person who will give cash right now and buy even at that price, in Sydney now, is only me."

"Haa... do I really only get that dirt price?"

I nodded confident, as the senior party at the negotiation table.

"Yes. Thinking of the risk the investor and I have to take on, not doing more than that is better. The choice is the foreman's."

"...Right. Fine. I'll sell."

Somehow the face of the foreman saying those words was an expression of insides gone refreshing.

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