“Right, there used to be only three rooms in this courtyard, but last year I felt that my son was getting to be old enough so I went ahead and built a fourth room. In the end, he didn’t stay in it for very long though, so the room is like new.” The owner of the two shops Su Tang had looked at, a man surnamed Lin, added in from the side.
In fact, the owner decided to personally say a few words this time because, although the shops on East Street were few in number and hard to buy, they were also very expensive and not easy to sell once you bought them. Right now the owner urgently needed money, but because the New Year was coming up soon not many people had much money on hand, so it was hard for him to find a buyer.
If not for the pressing circumstances, he wouldn’t have wanted to sell either of his shops, especially the bigger one that had such a good location, in the first place. After all, that bigger shop was being rented now and generating income for him. However, his son was sick, so he desperately needed money immediately. However, after looking into selling his assets, he found that selling his small shop was actually quite troublesome and it seemed that there was almost no hope of selling it, so he had gritted his teeth and prepared himself to sell the larger shop. But now a potential buyer for the small shop had popped up, he was very active in trying to convince her.
After taking a look around, Su Tang surmised that this courtyard behind the shop wasn’t too different from the courtyard that she was currently living in, the one that Luo Xingchen had rented. On the downside, the land it was on was overall a bit smaller, but on the plus side, there were four rooms. Although the main room seemed a bit run down, with a bit of tidying up it would easily be livable.
“The location is a bit…” Su Tang trailed off as if she were hesitating.
Seeing Su Tang’s expression, Zhang Zheng quickly chimed in, “The shops here on East Street are all expensive, and they don’t often come up for sale. At present, only the two shops that Mr. Lin is selling are on the market. And although this shop is indeed a little far, it has the advantage that not too far behind it there is a back entrance to the academy, which is very convenient if you have any family members studying there. And, of course, out front is the food alley that serves the academy, which is an undeniable plus. But most importantly, the price of this shop is relatively cheaper.”
Zhang Zheng knew that Su Tang really wanted to buy, but these two shops were the only ones he had on hand at the moment, so if he wanted to make money he naturally had to talk them up a little.
Of course, truth be told, there really weren’t many people who were willing to sell their shops on East Street in the first place. After all, instead of selling they could easily just rent instead, which was more profitable in the long run. It was rare for two of them to be selling at once, and if not for an emergency happening in the owner’s family then it would definitely never happen.
“How much does it cost?” Secretly, Su Tang was actually quite satisfied. She didn’t care for a noisy location like those bigger shops on the main part of East Street because she didn’t like places that were too noisy. And the shop being a bit small and quiet was actually an advantage for her purposes. In the future, she would be able to limit the number of seats and sell her milk tea and desserts in a quieter atmosphere to create a sort of cafe, which should be a good place for students or housewives to sit down and chat in.
Also, it was close to one of the entrances to the academy, so it would be convenient for Su Nuo to attend classes there. Although the courtyard was a bit smaller than the one they were currently using, it could still be considered barely enough. After all, although there was a great demand for soap, it wasn’t something that was affordable enough for everyone to use and the total number of people living in this country was nowhere close to the amount in her previous life, so there was probably no need to worry about lacking production capability because of the small size.
Zhang Cuilan and Baohe could already make more than 10,000 bars of soap a month, and they should be able to maintain that output indefinitely. In the first place, hadn’t she never dared to put the recipe in Luo Xingxing’s hands because the creation process for her soap was so simple? Just having two or three people working full-time would be enough to supply soap for the entire northern market. With the current market, no matter how big the soap orders became she would probably be able to fill them all with another two workers at most.
When Zhang Zheng heard her question, he said, “The price is seventy taels of silver.”
“Hrm, is that so?” Su Tang’s eyes narrowed. The price was acceptable, but she definitely needed to negotiate here.
Seeing her expression, Zhang Zheng tried to knock any such thoughts out of her head, “Miss Su, you’ve seen the shops now, so you should have an idea of its worth. To tell you the truth, there aren’t many shops being sold on East Street in the first place, only the two that you’ve seen. And for a good location, the price is correspondingly a little higher. For instance, a few months ago there was a shop in this area that was about the same size as the one that was sold for a hundred taels. If you don’t like the price that Mr. Lin has set then I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait to find a different seller.”
Zhang Zheng’s words seemed a bit exaggerated, but in fact, they were more or less the truth. East Street could basically be considered the commercial center of Qinghe Town, so the shops there were naturally easy to sell at high prices.
“Mr. Lin’s stated price is seventy silver taels. If you don’t like the price we can try to discuss.” Zhang Zheng truly wanted to close this deal, so he didn’t tell any lies. After all, this was truly a good shop. Although he had talked it up a bit, it really was on East Street and was a good place to start a business so long as you had a little luck.
tl begging corner:
