“I count only up to 20” “Then how will you count 280.000 euro?”
Article published on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
* You can find this story and many more in the "Through the Real Estate Labyrinth" book, written by Ilias Papageorgiadis, CEO MORE Group. For more information, click here.
Many people doubt about the work of a Real Estate consultant. They do not realize that a serious one works endless hours, tries to bring in balance many different factors and in the end he reaches the result (which will pay him) only in 20 – 30% of the cases he gets involved. This is even clearer here in Romania, where the owners who have "opportunities" for sale usually do not have their papers in order, or many of them simply have absolutely no idea about business, Real Estate and properties. They want money and they want it now. While the clients have their own approach too…
"Romania, a beautiful country…"
The gypsy lady across the table was teaching me… "Romania, a beautiful country with nice, intelligent and serious people. If you invest here, you will make a lot of money, you will change your luck, your destiny! And this property that you want…" "… I don't {C}
want, I just ask to find out more details" (I tried to correct, but…) "…is a very good property. The best one in this city. The owners are nice people, serious, devoted to their families. They have children, they work and produce money for the society". I guess she had realized that I was just learning Romanian by myself and she wanted to increase my ability to understand… her "sweet" Moldavian accent. This is why she refused to wait the translator to translate…
"All the papers are ready" = unidentified language and a cross under it
It took me 60 days to find the property. It was excellent, but there were 9 owners – families involved. Some of them belonging to the gypsy community, some of them not. There was this lady who represented them and she presented to me empowerments by all of them, so as to discuss with me. "All the papers are ready" she screamed, happy. And handed to me one of the empowerments. I asked to see the rest too, I thought there was a mistake. But all of them were like this… Some papers with a text close to the ancient Greek "Grammiki A" language, still unidentified by scientists, and a cross down representing the signature. "We can go and sign any time you like, "you Greek" (Grecule).
Transforming the mess into "property ready to be sold"
I needed almost 6 months to finish with the papers and transform this "raw piece of land" with 17 missing documents, potential legal problems and inexistent urbanistic parameters into a property with its file complete, new approved initial building parameters, without any problem at all. My colleague in charge of the procedure was really proud to hear the notar saying "incredible, you really cleaned up this mess!". A notary, a lawyer and an architect verified that now this property was ready to be sold…
The… committee of owners accepted our offer
Many people find clients even for properties without any document at all. So for an excellent asset, located at a strategic point of the city and with all its papers ready, it was not so difficult for me to find several ones. The client who really wanted to move on was the one who finally stepped in the café, together with me. He happened to be also Greek. He asked to meet all the owners and I think that it was a pity we didn't take a picture, to remember the moment, this… spectacle. I would like to show to my… children the photo with my client, my colleague (translating) and me having across the table about 45 – 50 people. Men, women, children, older, younger… a "committee" of owners! When my client asked them with who he should deal with so as to finalize the investment, a… hollow sound was heard. All of them informed us that they trust the lady to represent them, each of them using his own arguments, which I did not really manage to follow. But there was no problem. The price was set, the deal was ready to be signed…
"What is this? A bank note of 5 millions? These are Satan's things"
The Romanian law is clear. A transaction can be legally concluded only if you pay using the local currency and this is RON. It was just few weeks after the National Bank had cut 4 numbers from the currency and "10.000 lei" became "1 RON". So, having agreed on the price of 280.000 euro, we should pay the people using RON. And as 1 EURO was about 3,5 RON at that time, you can guess that the whole amount was almost 1.000.000 RON. Usually this amount is paid via bank transfer, to the accounts of each and every one of the owners. Well, not in this case…
"We want the money cash, in our hands, this is not negotiable". "But this means higher costs for us and also trouble… to drive around the country with money in our car". "This is not our business, you saw all the serious people,{C}
they have families, they need the money CASH". "Ok, we will bring you the money, in notes of 500 RON" (my client proposed). "500 RON? What is this? 500.000 lei?" It took us 5 minutes to explain that the old lei was now RON and that there would be a new note, of 500 RON… "What is this? A bank note of 5 millions? You printed it by yourself? I don't know anything about these… no, no these are Satan's things… bring us euro, or the deal is off" the gypsy woman decided.
"I know how to count only up to 20″ "Then how will you count 280.000 euro?"
There is a legal procedure to do this. You just lose some money, exchanging currencies twice, plus redrawing the amount so as to carry it on you. My client was really patient plus he was actually having fun with all these… "I know how to count only up to 20, so you will bring us bank notes of 20 euro each". "And then how will you count 280.000 euro?" "You will see"… We left from Bucharest carrying some 14.000 bank notes of 20 euro each, special order to BNR. (I can imagine the guy who executed the order, freaking out with all these…)
The meeting point
The meeting was set at 13.00. We delayed and arrived at 13.07. We went to the meeting point, an "office" in the back of a groceries wholesaler. Thank God I was an ex semi professional dancer, I used all the pirouettes I know so as to avoid the boxes of fruits and vegetables. I opened the old aluminum door with the broken glass and the old stickers on it. I saw in front of me four plastic chairs, a plastic table and an old desk. How old? I think I saw something similar to a photo of my grand father's office…
The gypsy woman was ready to leave, her hands were sweating, as she was sitting behind the old desk. She was together with a younger woman, probably her daughter. "Hello, hello. Sit down, you are late. Did you bring the money?" My client opened his sack. The "bricks" of bank notes were protected in white transparent plastic bags. She did not like it. "Let's see how she will count" the translator whispered to my ear…
Counting the money…
She really meant it. She knew counting up to 20. She didn't want to accept the packs prepared by the bank. "But they are measured and sealed by BNR" "What is BNR?" "Where Isarescu is the Governor" "and he knows how to count?" "A bit better than you, trust me" I commented, feeling the need to protect the country's symbol of seriousness and stability…
They unpacked all the notes. Placed them on the plastic table and started counting. They were counting until 20, creating a small pack. Then they created 20 packs of 20 notes each. Then they created 20 lines of 20 packs of 20 notes each. There were 4 chairs for 5 people, so I was standing and enjoying the counting… They were sweating a lot, trying to place everything in order. "Do you need some help?" "No, you Greek (Grecule). This hand, that you see, has counted millions and millions" she replied showing to me her hand.
Beware of the Greeks…
Finally she found the solution. She invited a cousin of hers, "who went to the lyceum for 2 years" to come over and help. Thank God, this guy knew how to use a calculator. At 15.20 we had finished counting. And the next issue was how to carry the money until the notary's office (who was calling every 30 minutes to ask what is going on, with the lady replying – shouting "we count, mister, we count"). The lady proposed to take the bag with the money and bring it there. The same did my client. "No no no… no no no… Beware of the Greeks, even when they bring you gifts or something like this" she stated (it was not relevant with our discussion, but I noticed that many Romanians use it without a reason, they think they say something "clever").
Carrying the money…
I found the solution, becoming ready to apply for… United Nations negotiator! So, we agreed to enter in OUR car, with
the lady's cousin next to the driver (me). In the back there would be the client keeping his bag and the lady touching it (softly I guess, massaging and caressing) so as to make sure that we will not remove any bank note out of it. Another car followed us, having inside the translator, her daughter and a "back up help" she asked.
Spreading 280.000 euro to hundreds of people, out of the notary's office…
At 16.00 we entered into the notary's office. He is the best one in his city, thus people respect him too much. We sat on the chairs around his desk. I looked around the photos and the trophies… But he was also funny and bored as he was waiting for hours ("Ilia, if I wouldn't have done so many deals with you, now I would have been already eating with friends"). The procedure was simplified: He was screaming the names of the people, who were coming to sign the paper, thanking him and then leaving. A second round followed, with each family entering in the room and the client (under the surveillance of the gypsy lady) paying them their share.
After the first 2 – 3 payments, I heard a noise and I excused myself, walking out of the room. What I saw is something I will never forget in my life… There were about 100 – 150 people out of the notary's office, closing completely the street. Whenever someone was getting out carrying the money, his relatives (probably) were reaching him fast, screaming, laughing, shouting… He was spreading money to everyone around him and sometimes this money was changing more hands…
"Fresh money in hand = many ways to spend it fast"
Maybe this is one of Communism's versions that everyone would like to exist… money to appear out of the blue and to be spread automatically to hundreds of hands, without "why", "how", "if", "how much" etc… In less than one hour there was noone left on the street. "Fresh money in hand = many ways to spend it fast" commented the gypsy lady, as she noticed the same with me.
Everyone was happy in the end…
The client bought an excellent property, which he resold in the future. The next buyer developed a project there, which was really successful. The owners took their money, couple of them managed to save some and buy an apartment, as I was informed. The gypsy lady is considered one of the cities "top deal makers" after "she managed to sell to the Greeks". Since then we are like friends, I call her each time I enter in her city. Especially when I bring her Greek sweets, she tries to kiss me so as to thank me, an adventure which I managed to avoid experiencing so far…
PS. After all these and hundreds of hours of work, wouldn't it be a pity to hear a client telling you "and what did you do? You are just a broker. You just told me about a land"?