What if people fought to purchase an apartment in the condominium once they heard that Zhou Nanling had designed it?
Of course, Pei Qian could not afford to hire such a famous designer. Yet, he could not pick a random designer either.
That was mainly because Pei Qian himself was intending to live there!
If they engaged a rubbish designer who made a mess of the apartments, Pei Qian would eventually become frustrated and be forced to spend more money fixing the problems.
Thus, after much consideration, Pei Qian made a special request to Gaoling Construction and Design: he wanted a designer under thirty years old.
Designers like that would have far less experience, and their designs would be far less expensive and noteworthy. Pei Qian could be assured that he would not attract unnecessary attention.
At the same time, a designer who was recommended by Zhou Nanling could not be that bad. He would probably not make a mess of the apartments, and so Pei Qian would not have to worry. On the whole, Liang Qingfan fit the bill!
At the same time, Liang Qingfan was shocked at Boss Pei’s age. He could tell that Boss Pei was genuinely welcoming and appreciating him from the look in his eyes. There was no contempt or dissatisfaction.
That made Liang Qingfan like Boss Pei even more!
As an extremely young designer, Liang Qingfan often felt like his clients doubted his capabilities because of his age. Although none of his clients had vocalized those worries, Liang Qingfan was still well aware of them.
Yet, Boss Pei’s attitude was refreshing.
They exchanged a couple of pleasantries before Pei Qian led Liang Qingfan to the elevator. They arrived at the showroom of the building.
The moment they entered, Liang Qingfan saw that one-fourth of the unit was taken up by the living room, which was shaped like a quadrant. There was a sofa, a coffee table, a television, a round dining table, a piano, and two seats meant for sipping tea by the window.
On the whole, the place conformed to societal norms.
Obviously, the developer had not hired an elite designer to design the showroom. However, from the looks of the room in front of him, Liang Qingfan guessed that the designer had not been that bad. He had clearly done his best.
Liang Qingfan scanned the entire room and then asked, “Boss Pei, have all of the apartments in this building been exquisitely renovated?”
Pei Qian nodded. “That’s right.”
Liang Qingfan looked sorrowful. Since they had all been individually designed, he could not make broad changes across the board. He could not possibly ask to change all of the floors and walls, knock down the useless walls, and then redo everything from scratch, right?
The renovations were very nicely done. There was no need to undo everything—that would only delay the completion date. Liang Qingfan studied the furniture in the showroom once again. “Boss Pei, the furniture…”
Pei Qian waved his hand. “Change them all!
“I invited you here this time because I wanted you to redo all the soft renovations. I’ve allocated at least five hundred thousand yuan for the soft renovations on each level.
“We’ll pay you a designer fee of thirty percent.
“As for the style… it’ll be good if you could make it minimalistic to suit the young people’s taste. Don’t do fancy renovations suited for ballers.
“Install as much smart furniture as you can. The sofa has to be comfortable, and there must be custom gaming facilities. The television has to be huge, and there should be a projector, a game machine, game discs, a soundbar, a high-end massage chair, and the like.
“All in all, the apartment should live up to the name ‘Sloth Apartments’. It means that, once young people move in, they would become like sloths and not want to move again!”
Pei Qian listed all of his requirements at one go. At the end of the day, satisfying himself was his number one goal.
As for the other tenants…
It would be best if they didn’t fancy the apartments!
Liang Qingfan could not help but feel emotional upon hearing Boss Pei’s requests. Boss Pei was clear about what he wanted, but Sloth Apartments did not sound very desirable!
Gaoling Construction and Design had conducted a couple of soft renovations before, but they were all showrooms for huge real estate companies. The overall style had always been luxurious and high-end.
One could also refer to those houses as ‘garden villas’. Only whales and rich people would have been able to purchase huge apartments like that. Most rich people did not fancy minimalistic and European styles.Minimalism was meant for small apartments and young people. However, young people ordinarily would not be able to afford huge apartments.
In addition, Boss Pei’s requests went a little further. Not only did he want the apartment to be minimalistic and look outstanding, but he also wanted the renovations to cost more than five hundred thousand yuan per floor and for there to be all kinds of entertainment facilities inside.
The apartments would be targeting an extremely small group, wouldn’t they?
Still, on further thought, Liang Qingfan realized that Sloth Apartments were meant to be rented and not sold.
If the rent was reasonable, young people would likely try to rent an apartment for themselves. At the moment, renting a slightly better apartment with two rooms and a living room in Jingzhou would cost about 2,300 yuan.
An apartment in Sloth Apartments would probably be able to accommodate three to five young people. Based on the above standardas long as Boss Pei charged about six thousand yuan for each apartment and the groups of young people split it among themselves, there would still be significant demand.
Thus, Liang Qingfan held back his comments and silently wrote down Boss Pei’s requests. Then, he began to think about how to conduct the soft renovations to fulfill Boss Pei’s requests.
At the same time, Pei Qian thought about how to turn as many tenants away as possible by raising the rent of this place above eight thousand yuan and yet not be stopped by the System.
Chapter 485 - Additional Services for Sloth Apartments
After surveying the building, Pei Qian instructed Little Sun to send Liang Qingfan back to the hotel for some rest while he returned to his office at Shenhua View. Until now, Pei Qian had already taken a lot of precautions with Sloth Apartments.
The apartment looked too fancy for those who preferred practicality.
To prevent ballers from taking a liking to the condominium, the apartments would take on a minimalistic style, so that it would not look too much like ‘garden villas’.
What’s more, Pei Qian had purchased the building and was planning to rent the apartments out. That meant no matter whether he could rent them out or not, for the next few cycles-or even tens of cycles after this; he would not get to recover his capital.
The soft renovations for each apartment would cost about 3.5 million yuan. If he fixed rent at eight or nine thousand yuan per month, even if people consistently rented the apartments, after accounting for expenses like cleaning and maintenance; he still wouldn’t be able to do so.
Based on what Pei Qian could remember, the price-to-rent ratio in the country had always been unimpressive. Many people liked buying houses because of the advantages like registered residence, schools in the vicinity, and the potential for property prices to rise. Of course, houses could retain their value well and were even likely to increase in value. Still, as long as Pei Qian refused to sell the apartments, he would not be able to cash out.
To Pei Qian, the fact that the condominium could appreciate in value was not a good thing. Still, no matter how much its value appreciated, the System would only include ten percent of the total value of fixed assets into the System Funds. Pei Qian just had to prevent himself from being greedy and keep the total value of his fixed assets less than half of the starting sum in the System Funds. Then, he could limit the impact of the value of his fixed assets.
Thus, whether Sloth Apar
tments succeeded or not and whether it became popular or not, Pei Qian thought that the project was worth investing in. Obviously, it would be best if it did not become popular. That way, he would incur over a hundred thousand yuan less in rent each month.
To Pei Qian, all of those things combined were not enough. He still had to think of a way to dissuade the target audience-young people who liked to act like yuppies—from renting the apartments.
He had one simple method: increase the prices aggressively.
At the moment, an apartment like that would reasonably cost about six thousand yuan per month to rent based on market standards. If it was split among four to six people, each would only be paying about a thousand yuan.
That was slightly higher compared to the average rent in the market. However, considering the exquisite renovations and the fact that the apartment would be fully-furnished, that price was reasonable.
That meant that if Pei Qian priced the rent at six thousand yuan, many people from the huge city of Jingzhou would be attracted.
At the same time, the System restricted Pei Qian from setting a price outside of an acceptable range and too far from reasonable standards. If he insisted on raising the price, he would have to throw in goods and services of approximately the same value, whether the customers wanted it or not.
Thus, Pei Qian decided to provide additional services to tenants of these apartments!
Cleaning: cleaning services would be provided for all of the units in Sloth Apartments. Tenants could reject the cleaning services, but they would still have to pay.
Pei Qian would hire a fixed number of cleaners to conduct a minor cleaning every three days and a full cleaning every week. It would be just like hotel services.
A butler: every building would have a dedicated butler, who would be prepared to handle all problems. The butler would also hold all the information about various tenants and prevent all unauthorized personnel from entering. He would also work hard to protect the tenants’ rights.
If something was wrong with the house, the manager could use Sloth Apartments’ funds to conduct repair and maintenance. Boss Pei would be very happy.
Regular upgrading: every now and then, the smart facilities would be upgraded. For instance, the smart appliances would be upgraded; the newest gaming facilities would be installed; and tenants would get the newest games and accounts for the newest video websites.
Of course, all of those things would belong to Sloth Apartments. The tenants would have no right to take them away.
After adding all of those things, Pei Qian would try asking the System if the entire packageincluding rent-could be set at nine thousand
yuan!
The apartments had five rooms. One of the rooms was slightly smaller and was not suitable for anyone to sleep in. Thus, Pei Qian intended to turn it into a study.
That way, the apartment would only have four bedrooms. Assuming that there were thirty days in a month, the daily rent of every room would be about eighty yuan. Although that would be cheaper than most high-end hotels in Jingzhou, it would already be more expensive than 99% of the rooms available for rent in the city.
That meant that, if he rented the apartments out short-term, the price-quality ratio would still be pegged at a certain standard.
However, Pei Qian still had a final trick on top of that.
He would not allow co-renting or short-term tenancy! They would only accept entire tenancies. Every tenant and visitor’s details would have to be registered with the butler.
They could pay rent monthly, and they would not have to pay a deposit. However, there would only be six-month and one-year contracts. They had to finish the entire term of the contract.
They could change their minds within a fixed period in the beginning without having to pay a penalty. The remainder of their rent would also be refunded back to them. However, the tenants would not be allowed to rent any other apartment in Sloth Apartments for a year after that.
That way, those who wanted to treat Sloth Apartments like a hotel would think twice before doing so.
According to the income levels in Jingzhou at the moment, those who would be able to afford to rent an apartment in Sloth Apartments had to be very rich. However, if rich people could afford to buy apartments, why would they have to rent them?
As for ordinary working adults, perhaps only Tengda’s employees would be able to afford an apartment in the condominium. Yet, would Tengda’s employees be allowed to pay for an apartment in Sloth Apartments? Of course not! Pei Qian considered prohibiting Tengda’s employees from renting units in Sloth Apartments in the beginning. Once he was sure that Sloth Apartments could not generate profits, he would build more buildings and arrange for Tengda’s employees to move in. Then, they would be allowed to use their employee benefits to pay for the rent.
That would allow Pei Qian to kill two birds with one stone!
Of course, the System limited Pei Qian to converting only a small portion of Sloth Apartments’ units into employee accommodations. That was probably to ensure that the project’s character remained roughly the same and that it had a chance of generating profits.
However, Pei Qian would only have to build enough Sloth Apartments to accommodate all of his employees.
Then, a small portion of the apartments would be used for employee accommodations while the remaining would be left unrented. Wouldn’t Pei Qian surely incur losses, then?
Lastly, Pei Qian had to select someone to head the Sloth Apartments project.
Before this, he had selected employees from the other departments to head the new projects. This time, Pei Qian decided to go down a different path.
It did not seem like a bad idea to make Liang Qingfan, the architect, in charge of Sloth Apartments.
Of course, he was still an employee of Gaoling Construction and Design at the moment. However, Pei Qian firmly believed that-as long as he wielded his hammer correctly–he would be able to crack the wall.
It seemed unfitting to make a young architect in charge of managing a condominium, right?
Still, Pei Qian had to consider carefully whether he would ultimately poach him or not. If Sloth Apartments developed exactly as Pei Qian imagined and Liang Qingfan obeyed Pei Qian throughout the process without showing any talent in management or sales, then Pei Qian could think about poaching him.
April 14th, Thursday…
At Deposit Fitness… The trainers were either sitting or standing in the resting area. Obviously, they were at a loss as to what to do.
There were a total of twenty trainersfourteen males and six females. All of them had passed Guo Licheng’s analysis and tests and were ultimately hired.
Jingzhou’s fitness industry was not big, and Guo Licheng had a couple of friends. After introductions, Guo Licheng had briefly explained Deposit Fitness’s payment structure. At once, he had gathered this group of employees.
Guo Licheng had followed Boss Pei’s instructions carefully as he selected those employees. He had chosen trainers who seemed excessively professional. All of them were honest people who did not like making sales, just like Guo Licheng.
“Boss Ye, shouldn’t we be distributing flyers or something?” A well-shaped and sweet-looking female trainer asked.
The female trainer’s name was Li Yaling. For now, one could only see part of her appearance. Once she took off her jacket, one would be able to see her bulging biceps and four distinct pecs at her abdominal area. They seemed to be saying ‘you could die with just one punch from me’.
Other trainers turned to face Guo Licheng, waiting for him to make the call.
Guo Licheng nodded. “The boss says we don’t have to do anything. We just have to wait for customers to visit our gym.”
Li Yaling sighed softly. “Can we trust the boss? Which gym in the country doesn’t distribute flyers, sell memberships, or sell training sessions? “Everyone’s doing the same thing. We might be reluctant, but we still have to suck it up and work. I think that, no matt
er what the boss says, we should take the initiative to do some work.”
Guo Licheng hesitated for a moment but quickly made up his mind. “No, Boss Pei seems different from other bosses.”
Li Yaling was frustrated. “The bosses only look different on the surface. Some are strict, some are easy-going, and some look approachable. However, they’re all the same inside. They all want their employees to take the initiative and work.
“We don’t have to sell memberships here, and we’re being treated much better than in other gyms. We can’t just sit around and wait. That’ll be inappropriate.”
ners
Guo Licheng shook his head, insistent. “So what if we distribute flyers and rope customers in? Just think about our gym’s membership system.
“They have to come for a certain number of times each week. What’s more, the package comes with fitness meals.
“Even if we distribute flyers, how many people would sign up for such a strict plan?”
Li Yaling was stumped. “Well… what should we do, then?”
Guo Licheng scanned the group of trainers and said, “If we can’t tell what the boss is trying to do, we should just follow his instructions closely. Boss Pei must have his own reasons for giving these instructions. We aren’t good at sales to begin with, and so we shouldn’t blindly interfere.
“At the end of the day, we shouldn’t overthink. If Boss Pei finds fault with us, I will bear all the consequences.
“We don’t have any customers now. Everyone, go and warm up. This gym is filled with good equipment. Let’s not waste them.
“Remember to try out the fitness meals as well.”
Since there were no customers in the gym, the trainers had nothing to do. Thus, they split up and warmed up.
All the fitness equipment had just been purchased. They were not the most expensive, but they were from world-standard, top-grade, commercial fitness equipment brands. They were long-lasting, modern, and ergonomically updated. At the moment, such equipment could only be found in very few gyms in high-end hotels. Ordinarily, people would not get to try them out.
Losing Money to Be a Tycoon c1-883 Page 304