Chapter 40

Chapter 40

Finishing work, I headed for Fairfield West matching the time promised with Daisy.

"Hyung! Come in."

Dong-myeong was already waiting there with Daisy and the real-estate agent.

"Not here yet?"

"Yes. Almost here, she said."

I took off the fluorescent vest I was wearing and roughly shook off the dust on my body.

Then at the alley mouth one sleek silver-gray Benz sedan slid in and stopped in front of the house.

The door opened, and the person who got out was a typical Sydney sharp white man, hair combed neat with pomade, a slim-fit navy suit worn tight on the body.

"Jeong-su! Were you waiting?"

Daisy, who got out of the passenger seat, waved glad.

I laughed and waved toward her too.

Then the man twisted his face and said to Daisy.

"Daisy. You made a huge fuss on the phone, and honestly I still don't understand why you came even to an outer area like Fairfield West to invest. The price here is obvious?"

The man was even careful stepping the dirt with expensive leather shoes, scanned the old neighborhood's scenery, and shrugged.

A typical sharp arrogance was soaked.

Daisy grinned and said.

"No talk, for now come in and look. This side is Mr. Jeong-su who tore and fixed this house like magic, and Mr. Dong-myeong."

"Good to meet you. I'm Han Jeong-su, who took the remodel."

"Ah, master builders. Good to meet you. I'm Ryan."

Ryan lightly asked for a handshake for courtesy, then opened the front door with a face of no particular expectation and stepped inside.

And the moment he took the first step into the living room.

"······What the fuck?"

A winded curse jumped from his mouth.

The high-nosed agent's face he had shown in the yard a moment ago was nowhere, and his blue pupils began dyeing with shock.

"Th, this is a house in Fairfield West right now?"

Ryan walked into the living room as if possessed.

He stamped the floor with a shoe heel, occupational disease.

Not one of the creaking sounds peculiar to Australia's old timber houses came.

Because I had floated a laser level and caught the level perfect with concrete and wedges, without even 1 millimeter of error.

He went over to the kitchen, swept the finish of the marble top with a finger, opened and closed the folding door opening wide to the yard himself, and gave a hollow laugh.

The highlight was the bathroom.

Seeing the interior of the bathroom decorated hotel style, he turned sharp to me and asked.

"Mr. Jeong-su. Did you make this house's design?"

"Yes. I did it myself."

At my calm answer Ryan pressed his forehead and let out admiration.

"Good heavens... with a design like this, if it were in eastern Australia a house like this would have sold at two million dollars right away. And this is in Fairfield West... a shame to death!"

Ryan praised extreme.

After that the house tour continued.

He kept bursting admiration, and sat at the dining table in the middle of the living room and said with a face of deep regret soaked.

"Haa... really too much a shame. Mr. Jeong-su, Daisy. Do you know what I'm sorry enough to shed blood tears about?"

"What's that?"

When I asked, Ryan set the document bag down and said.

"Precisely overcapitalising. It means you fixed the house too well, beyond the neighborhood's level. Real estate, in the end location decides the upper line of the price."

Ryan took out a pen and began writing numbers on paper.

"Mr. Jeong-su, if you had fixed a house at this quality in Coogee in eastern Sydney or Strathfield in the inner west, how would it have been? Starting at least a million dollars tomorrow, buyers would have fought blood and shot bids to 1.5 million, 2 million dollars. A design Chinese rich or white old money would go crazy for."

A point when minimalism wasn't the trend yet.

I borrowed future Korean interior design in many parts.

He drew a big X on the paper.

"But this is Fairfield West. A neighborhood where working people and immigrants gather and live. However you build the house like a palace, the bank loan limit itself of the buyers looking for this neighborhood is low, so the limit of the price is clear. That's precisely overcapitalising. The current median house value of this neighborhood is the 300,000 to 350,000 dollar level."

Huh... I heard 400,000 dollars, and it seems lower than that price.

I looked at Ryan's mouth tense.

"Then did we work in vain? Fixed it all and because of the neighborhood limit we don't get the right price?"

"No, hear my words to the end."

Ryan shone his eyes and wrote a new number large on the paper.

"Though a two-million-dollar jackpot like eastern Sydney is impossible, this house will still trade at a price higher than the Fairfield West average. My target hammer price is between 450,000 and 480,000 dollars."

I flicked the abacus fast in my head.

When I bought this abandoned house with Daisy, we contracted the house itself at 180,000 dollars.

Including stamp duty it took 240,000 dollars, and the cost of Dong-myeong and me grinding labor and buying only second-hand materials and remodeling was about 20,000 dollars more.

Total investment around 260,000 dollars?

If it hammers at 480,000 dollars as Ryan said?

In only a month, fully 220,000 dollars, and even taking agent fees and lawyer costs generous, over 150,000 dollars of net profit sticks as cash.

By return on investment, a crazy trade, literally.

"Much more excellent than I thought."

When I grinned and nodded, Ryan began revealing an expert's sharp eyes proper.

"Right, then let's set a sales strategy. The sale method, no need to say twice, an auction no question."

"Isn't it safer to set an asking price by private treaty and sell leisurely?"

Daisy cut in.

Then Ryan shook his head firm.

"Selling a special listing like this by ordinary trade is a stupid act. On auction day you have to drive people in a crowd and stir competition and herd psychology for the price to jump. This neighborhood is a neighborhood big families of southern European, Italian, Greek, or Middle Eastern immigrants hold tight. Those people, rather than aesthetic sense of drinking wine like whites, fanatically prefer a wide living room a big family can gather in, a floor easy to clean, a sturdy house that absolutely doesn't break. This crazy openness and the details you made, the patriarchal fathers on that side will flip their eyes and hold a bid paddle no question even borrowing."

At the systematic analysis and sales strategy I stuck out my tongue.

So this is why you use a special agent even skimming thousands of dollars as a fee.

"The process is this. First tomorrow right away through a lawyer we write a legal sale contract, and go into home staging. In Australia without that document, putting the house on the market itself is illegal, right?"

"Home staging?"

When Dong-myeong tilted his head and asked, Daisy answered instead.

"Call a specialist company and set high-end furniture and props and pictures in this empty house and fill it like a model house. When prospective buyers open the door you have to sell a perfect illusion."

Ryan nodded and went on.

"Yes. Right. Take photos of the house with makeup done like that and spread them on real-estate sites, and from then the magic week starts. Every Saturday you run an open inspection opening the house to prospective buyers. People come and admire, and watch each other's mood, and burn the will to take this house somehow."

Ryan explained step by step about the rules of the interesting auction day too.

"Four weeks later, when people swarm in the front yard, we'll put on showmanship and float the price. The moment it passes the lowest acceptable price Daisy and Mr. Jeong-su set in your hearts, the reserve price, the auctioneer will shout like this. 'The property is now on the market!' From then, the person who calls even 1,000 dollars more becomes the owner of this house."

Strength gradually went into Ryan's voice.

"The moment the hammer is struck, the situation ends with that. Australia's auction is an unconditional contract with no cooling-off. Whether the bank loan doesn't come or lightning strikes, the winner has to put out 10 percent of the house price as a personal check on the spot without excuse. Pull back and the 10 percent deposit is confiscated whole."

"Wow... really no mercy."

Dong-myeong stuck out his tongue.

"That 10 percent money is tied safe in my trust account, and 42 days later on settlement, the moment both lawyers meet, pay the balance, and hand over the keys, it will stick as cash in Mr. Jeong-su and Daisy's accounts. How was it? My briefing, all right?"

Ryan smiled full of confidence and said square.

Until before I thought him a slippery sharp city person, and seeing him explain he's no different from a male fox spirit.

And recognizing we're foreigners, he spoke as clear as possible so it was easy to understand.

This man... overflowing charm.

Confirming a system set this well, confidence that wasn't there would rise too.

"Good, Mr. Ryan. Let's try it once."

I held out my hand to him.

"I'll leave the sale of our house to you."

A thin beast's smile spread at the mouth of Ryan, who took my rough hand with calluses.

"An excellent choice."

Like that our house went up on the sale queue.

* * *

When I finished a satisfying meeting with Ryan and returned to the share house.

The moment I opened the door and stepped in, the living-room air was felt strangely disordered and floating.

The eight new working-holiday people were gathered sitting in the living room, and all were seen exchanging only uneasy eyes with faces frozen full.

A look pressed by the blank of not knowing what to do from tomorrow, more than excitement about a strange foreign country, was plain.

I took off my shoes and whispered small to Dong-myeong beside.

"Hey, why is the mood like that?"

"They probably got OJT today and came back."

"Ah..."

At Dong-myeong's answer I clicked my tongue light.

OJT. Hearing that word, the memory of the day I first arrived in Australia passed clear through the head.

At the time opening even a securities account took a long while, and when I later returned to the share house a party was already happening in the living room.

That Park Ji-hun, only came a bit early on working holiday and acting the hyung, had seized the mood fierce saying he'd discipline the newcomers, and was running a drinking party.

Disliking that paltry armband and bluff, it was a day I drove in hard too.

Then everyone had been uneasy, and a time of trembling at an unknown tomorrow.

'The first night in Australia remaining as turf and unease like that shit, what's the use.'

Quietly watching the eight blood lumps sitting blank in the living room, I thought a moment, then tapped Dong-myeong's shoulder.

"Dong-myeong. Come out. Let's go buy alcohol."

At my short words Dong-myeong, quick of sense, grinned as if he caught it in one go and nodded.

"Keu, as expected our hyung! The first day in Australia, disinfect wide with alcohol and you're not uneasy. Let's go!"

We headed for the liquor shop on the corner near the share house.

We took Victoria Bitter and Tooheys New, Australia's national beers, by the box, and sweet moscato box wine, and snacks to eat with, chips and jerky, and came back heavy in both hands full.

Bang—!

When I set the cold beer box spirited on the living-room table, the newcomers who had been scared full startled and looked at me.

I opened a beer can first and shouted spirited toward the guys.

"Right right! Everyone attention! In name the first night of an Australian working holiday, why are the faces all like a funeral house? Youth have no romance! Everyone come here and take a glass!"

"Hyung is buying, so don't watch the mood and drink hard!"

When even Dong-myeong talked big beside and put a beer can in each hand, color gradually began turning on the frozen newcomers' faces too.

Clink—!

With the light sound of cans bumping, cool beer going down the throat, the strangely disordered living-room air loosened soft like snow melting.

Alcohol in and the mood much more comfortable, people then began pouring the unease and questions they had pressed in their hearts like a dam breaking.

"Hey... you said Mr. Jeong-su? The agency said if you go to a farm you earn ten million won a month, is that real?"

"Even if I can't do English, can I work at an Aussie café in the city?"

"I opened a phone and an account, and from tomorrow what to do is blank..."

From how to write a resume to how to avoid farm-broker scams, the knack of finding a room in the city. The questions had no end.

Instead of acting the elder like Park Ji-hun or throwing turf, Dong-myeong and I took seats in the middle of the table and answered sincere the real information we had got rolling and breaking with our bodies.

"Go to a farm and ten million won a month... possible. Probably if you become the god of farming it'll be enough? Haha. A joke. Farms, they say you earn as much as you do. So if you're good with your hands and stamina backs you, going to a farm isn't bad either. But real farms are case by case, I heard. And farms don't only have flaws either. Most farms are in the outback, so you mix with friends from several countries, and English grows fast, that advantage is clear too. But I heard it's very hard."

"If English doesn't work, an Aussie café will be hard. No, if English doesn't work, any job isn't easy to get. At least you have to be able to take orders and understand what the owner says. Going in as a restaurant assistant is one method too. Places like restaurants always look for people. But I don't recommend it. English grows fastest bumping locals. I could converse to some degree too, and the talk coming on the radio at the workplace, I couldn't hear any of it. Concentrating all the nerves there and listening, English proficiency grew tremendous fast. Use a lot and language grows soon."

Instead of a false fantasy, the cold but sure law of survival, and the method of bumping square without shrinking, and life gradually began returning to the newcomers' eyes.

Some even took out a memo pad and wrote my words.

"Wow... Mr. Jeong-su. We were really uneasy and scared continuous from yesterday. The agency staff only catch clouds... the lodging is like this too, but hearing your words, now it seems the angle of how to live catches a bit. Really thank you!"

"It's nothing. If there's hard work, we should help and live."

The man in horn-rimmed glasses pressed sincerity and bowed his head, and the other guys kept nodding and raised their beer cans.

"Wow! Mr. Jeong-su, Mr. Dong-myeong the best!"

We belonged to the young side even in this group.

But we not dropping speech, an atmosphere of respecting each other was made.

Fun, pleasant, and still not letting go of manners, an ideal relation.

"Haha! I was lucky. Because of Hyung Jeong-su I'm learning work and skill together part-time on a remodel site. Probably soon the house we made will sell!"

"Wow, tremendous. Already doing business in Australia?"

Dong-myeong was surrounded by people and receiving star treatment.

Once he had been really pitiful, and before I knew it Dong-myeong had grown this much.

The bitter, terrible memory of the first night felt under the shade of Park Ji-hun in the past was being covered perfect, washed in cool beer and pleasant laughter.

Eight youths just arrived in a strange foreign country, shrunk full.

Seeing their first night in Australia fill sturdy with romance and hope, I dumped the remaining beer refreshing and smiled pleasant.

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