Here's a brief introduction to the process of buying a home in the U.S.

When you take a fancy to a listed house, although the other party generally has a listing price, this price is only used as a reference.

You can ask the agent to write an offer and send it to the seller's agent, and if the other party accepts, sign the contract for the sale and purchase of the house. If there is a big difference with the other party's psychological expectations, or there are many people who have made an offer, it may not follow, then it is over, of course you can write a new quote.

If your offer is close to the other party's psychological expectations, or if you are the only one, the other party may give a counter-offer. If you accept, the contract will be established, and if you don't accept it, you can also make a reverse offer. And so on and so forth, until both parties accept and come to a contract.

The terms of the quotation are standard, generally fill in the amount, payment method, delivery time, etc. The most important is the contingency, which is that if these conditions are not met, the buyer has the right to withdraw at any time without any liability.

After both parties accept the offer, they go to a third party to open an escrow account (open_escrow), and the buyer has to put a 3% deposit on the account. The money will not necessarily go to the homeowner, because the buyer can cancel the transaction at any time in the next 1 to 2 months and get back the entire deposit. However, the seller cannot offer to cancel the transaction.

There are at least two things to do: issuing a home inspection report and issuing a termite report. The former is paid by the buyer and the latter by the seller. After the inspection, if the buyer is not satisfied with the condition of the house, he can ask the seller to be responsible for repairs or pay compensation, and if the seller refuses, the buyer can leave the house.

The seller should ask a professional company to inspect the termites, and if a hazard is found, it will be responsible for killing and repairing the ants.

The confrontation between the two sides is only really beginning at this time. Since the initiative lies with the buyer, the seller is more passive, and generally ends with a compromise with the seller. There are also many transactions, busy for 1 or 2 months, and in the end there is no deal, and everyone does not get anything, which is very frustrating for sellers and intermediaries, so sellers are very careful when choosing quotations at the beginning.

Henry and Concubine Yue reacted the fastest, as they immediately thought of commissions.

As long as they convince the Monterrey winery to sell and complete the deal, the 10% commission is exclusive to their firm. (Not a clerical error, see below.) ）

According to the transaction price of the Monterena winery that broke last year, the commission is as high as tens of millions. You must know that the largest number of real estate transactions in their firm is hundreds of thousands, millions, and occasionally tens of millions of luxury real estate transactions, which are facing competition from many brokers, and in the end they can only get half of the commission. Now there is a transaction of hundreds of millions of dollars directly sent to the door.

Concubine Yue was surprised when she reacted, and Henry was depressed after she reacted, and he began to strongly recommend that Concubine Yue also had some bad intentions.

It is true that Chinese billionaires are generous in their spending, but basically more than half of Chinese billionaires have no idea about the rules and laws here in the United States. For example, when trading, the agent asks him to ask a third party to conduct a house inspection, and he thinks that you are cheating on his money; The agent recommends a cheap insurance company to buy more insurance, and he also thinks that you are cheating on his money. When the transaction was over and the house encountered a little problem, he did not look for an insurance company, but called the agent, and every complaint was light, and he often hurt people. In the end, he had to have an agent to help him run the insurance business.

Only a few Chinese know that finding someone to inspect the house is a must, and the insurance of the house is as full as possible, and these people will know the role of the broker in the transaction.

Slowly, people don't like to receive Chinese guests, so his first thought is to push Xiao's business out.

But who knew that it was such a big business, I knew that Henry himself would have done it himself, and the tens of millions of commissions were basically all his own, but now it was Concubine Yue who took the lion's share.

The contracts signed by intermediary brokers and firms in the United States are all commission contracts, which means that they do not have a guaranteed salary, and they directly make a single business, the firm takes 20%, and the remaining 80% is the intermediary itself. If this business is negotiated, then Concubine Yue will be able to get millions and become a rich man, and it will be no problem to open her own office.

Ryan, the lawyer, was simply surprised. Southby's Jensen has his own work ethic, and he can't say that Xiao Yifei is going to auction hundreds of millions of dollars of oil paintings from them and the news that he still has more than 300 million dollars of oil paintings in his hands leaked, he can only tell his brother that this is a young rich man from China. But the billionaire that Ryan guessed thought that Dingtian was a billionaire, which was converted into tens of millions of dollars, and who knew that he was actually a billionaire.

Moreover, he thought that Xiao Yifei came here to buy a house, not to buy a winery. He hurriedly pulled the corner of Xiao Yifei's clothes with his hand covertly, but unfortunately Xiao Yifei didn't notice his movements.

Concubine Yue asked cautiously, "That Monterena winery in Napa?" ”

"Yes."

Concubine Yue asked in a calm tone as much as possible: "This Mr. Xiao, can I ask, do you probably know his price?" ”

"I know that last year the French bid $110 million."

Concubine Yue was a little relieved, and then asked, "Then can I know what Mr. Xiao's psychological price is?" ”

"No more than $120 million."

Concubine Yue immediately had a happy smile on her face, while Henry of the real estate office was depressed, and he decided to leave as soon as possible.

"Mr. Xiao, then you can sign the cooperation agreement with our firm. Our entire office will fully cooperate with you in this business. ”

Lawyer Ryan had to speak out at this time:

"Let's talk privately first."

Waiting for the two to leave, Ryan said hurriedly:

"Mr. Xiao, what do you say about buying a winery?"

Xiao Yifei is very strange:

"Didn't I tell you just in your office?"

Ryan shook his head and could only explain to Xiao Yifei in detail.

It turned out that what Xiao Yifei saw was real estate transactions, but for commercial acquisitions, it was not the same thing at all.

A commercial intermediary is different from buying a house, it is all a seller's agent, serving the seller, and the buyer does not need his own intermediary. If the buyer doesn't understand it at all, you can find your own consultant. In addition, the agency fee is also different, the property is 6% of the agency fee, but the commercial agent is 10% of the agency fee.

The most important thing for the buyer is to find a lawyer who specializes in business transactions and takes care of all documents. Documents that have not been reviewed by a lawyer should never be signed.

Only then did Xiao Yifei know that he had almost given away tens of millions of dollars by accident. He couldn't help but be afraid for a while, and said to Ryan gratefully:

"Thank you so much, thank you for saving me a lot of money."

Ryan smiled and said:

"Protecting your interests from loss is what I should do."

"Then can you teach me how this business generally works?"

Ryan smiled and said:

"I have also been in charge of business negotiations for small and medium-sized enterprises, but generally it is only tens of millions, and the top is 10 million or 20 million, and it is not hundreds of millions like you."

"It's okay, tell me, they should all be the same."

After Ryan's introduction, Xiao Yifei learned that if the buyer is initially interested in a business that has been listed, he can contact the broker who released the information, and the other party will ask to sign a confidentiality agreement and fill out a buyer's information form.

If the other party thinks it is possible, it will provide a copy of the information of the company to be sold, including the real name and address of the company, as well as a financial profile, for the buyer to consider whether to buy again. At this time, the buyer can go to the enterprise as a customer, but he cannot directly ask the owner or employee about the situation. Because the sale of a company is a trade secret and cannot be carried out with great fanfare.

If the buyer is still interested after an unannounced visit, ask the broker to arrange a formal visit and talk to the landlord. Inspections are usually scheduled after the employee has left work to avoid causing uneasiness to the employee and not disrupting the normal business. Next, the buyer can request a detailed financial statement from the broker and can also request a tax return. Some companies will be reluctant to offer these, but most will.

If the buyer still decides to buy, he can make an offer and give it to the broker with a copy of the 10% deposit check. Now the due diligence stage begins, and the buyer can check the company's core documents and thoroughly understand what kind of company it is buying.

If something is wrong during the investigation phase, you can withdraw at any time and get back the deposit from the escrow without paying a penny to the broker or the owner.

Finally, if no problems are found, the contract can be signed.

Ryan has repeatedly emphasized that this is only applicable to small businesses, and it is definitely different from a transaction of hundreds of millions of dollars like Xiao Yifei.

Xiao Yifei thought about it carefully, and his current winery acquisition was indeed different from this.

First of all, the Monterena winery is not listed, and there is no seller's economy.

Second, because it is not listed, the other party will definitely not provide any financial statements or even tax returns, and it is up to them to find out during the due diligence stage.

Thirdly, it is a 10% deposit. This deposit should not be necessary, because when those tens of billions of large companies merge and acquisition, 10% of the deposit is billions, but not any company can get such a large amount of cash as a deposit. Therefore, mergers and acquisitions are often made by way of share exchange, and of course, there are also cash or cash and shares.

Now Xiao Yifei's problem, he and Ryan are not very clear about the specific process of this business, but he thinks that doing business must be improvised, and I believe that the other party will not be too rigid in this process.

The first priority now is to get in touch with the CEO of Monterena Winery and the owner of Bobaret and tell them that someone wants to buy their winery. And this one is definitely not suitable for me to come forward, this Ryan in front of me is suitable, but Xiao Yifei still needs him to deal with other things, think about the Chinese female agent just now, didn't she say that she could hire a consultant, just her.

So in the slightly disappointed eyes of Henry and Concubine Yue, Xiao Yifei signed an agreement to hire Concubine Yue of the firm as a consultant, and even more agreed, Xiao Yifei would pay $600,000 after acquiring the winery, and as for the distribution between Concubine Yue and the firm, Xiao Yifei didn't care.

The 600,000 yuan is not so easy to earn, they have to be responsible for contacting the winery, if the other party refuses, but also persuade the other party, if the other party resolutely does not sell, then they have to find Xiao Yifei's approval to replace the winery, and then continue the above work until the acquisition is completed. And in the negotiation process, the experts who are needed also need them to come forward to find contacts.

After the agreement was signed, Henry stood up:

"Mr. Xiao, Yue will take over below, you can rest assured, our firm will fully cooperate with her to do a good job in this acquisition."

With that, he left the conference room. Seeing that tens of millions have become 600,000, his heart is really cold, and now Henry urgently needs to find a place to lick his wounds.

"Thank you Mr. Xiao for your trust, I will definitely work hard to complete this job."

Concubine Yue took out a pen and paper and began to work:

"I would like to ask whether Mr. Xiao is ready for a cash transaction or a loan transaction."

Xiao Yifei really hasn't thought about this question yet.

It is true that this sale of paintings will definitely be able to make up the acquisition costs, maintenance costs, and operating expenses of the winery, but after all this is done, it is estimated that he will not have much operating capital and less free money. If you come across something that he particularly wants to buy, he will have to take out a loan. In addition, didn't someone say that it is best to use the bank's money to make money for yourself, and use the profit to pay the principal and interest. Xiao Yifei estimated that this deal would take several months to complete, and he had time to understand the policies in detail before considering the decision.

"I really haven't thought about it yet."

"Then Mr. Xiao, if you use a loan to acquire, which bank do you open an account in now, and has the advance loan been approved?"

"Huh?"

Concubine Yue rubbed her brows, although she didn't know much about the steps of commercial acquisition, but according to her understanding of being a real estate agent, the general process should be similar.

After some teaching by Concubine Yue, Xiao Yifei raised his posture again. It turns out that in the United States, if you want to take out a loan to buy a property, you have to go to the bank to get a pre-loan approval before looking at the house or even looking for an agent.

There are two types of pre-loan approval, one is pre-loan qualification, which means that the lender calculates the amount of loan you may receive based on the income and liabilities you provide. Lenders will not check your information and will not ask for proof of income. Just to let you know how much you can approximately borrow. In the actual loan process, strict approval is also required. And just because you have a prepayment doesn't mean you're guaranteed to get a loan.

Another type of advance loan approval is much stricter, which requires not only personal financial information, but also a certain amount of verification, including analysis of the credit report, and then a fairly accurate loan amount according to the purpose of the loan. In the future, as long as there is no significant change in the financial situation, the loan can be obtained smoothly.

Xiao Yifei thought for a while, he only has more than 2 million euros on his account now, and he has no other property, and if he wants to borrow from the bank, the possibility of approval is too slim, and even if he passes, the cycle must be very long, maybe the money for the auction will be in the account at that time, and there is no need for a loan at all.

"Forget it, it's too much trouble, I'll still cash it."

"It's easy to buy with cash, and now this should be enough."

"Let me ask, how long will this transaction take?"

"The house may be tossed for a month or two, and this kind of big deal should take half a year, and one year is not too long. Mr. Xiao's financial ......"

"My funds won't arrive until November. But if I want a deposit, I might be able to get a deposit somewhere else. ”

This is to blame Xiao Yifei's own negligence, he thought that the London autumn auction, the autumn auction, must be held in autumn, he thought it should be in September, but it turned out to be held on October 20, if the buyer's payment is delayed for a few days, the money will arrive in November. If you have to pay a 10% deposit to negotiate the investigation, it is quite troublesome. If he sees Jensen tomorrow, he will discuss this matter carefully with him. Didn't Jensen say at the time that art financial services could get a sum of money, and it should be no problem to get 10 million as a deposit.

Xiao Yifei explained his current situation. Concubine Yue rubbed her head, thought for a while and said:

"Mr. Xiao, although this is my first contact with commercial real estate trading, according to my previous practice of buying and selling houses. When we make an offer, we must attach proof of funds or pre-loan approval to prove that you have enough funds to buy the house so that the other party will accept our offer. ”

"Your situation is a bit peculiar, and we are not sure about the deposit percentage at this time. I went to Napa in the afternoon to meet with the owner of the winery, Beaubarrete, to express our interest in the acquisition, and then we considered other issues according to his request. ”

Xiao Yifei can't do anything, and now the whole process is messed up by him, and he can only see the moves.

After check_in at the Four Seasons Hotel in San Francisco, Xiao Yifei contacted Southby's vice president, Jensen.

"Hi, Jensen, I'm already in San Francisco."

"Xiao, you are welcome to the United States, then I will bring someone over tomorrow."

"Okay, besides, I chose your brother as my lawyer."

"A wise choice."

"Okay, see you tomorrow."

Looking at the sky outside, such a good sunshine, it was too boring to nest in the hotel, Xiao Yifei decided to go to the nearby Union Square for an afternoon.

Union Square is small, just a block in size, with only 2.6 acres, or 10,000 square meters, and is said to be the world's first underground garage. Surrounded by tall buildings, Union Square looks like a depression. The square is lush with palms, yews and flowers.

At the center of the square is the Statue of Victory, built in honor of Admiral Dewey, who won victory in Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War.

Unlike the goddess of victory in the Louvre, who stretches her wings, the goddess of victory on the top of the pillar has no wings at all, and she is seen standing on one foot, and the other foot is playfully cocked back, holding a scepter in one hand and a garland in the other, giving people the feeling that a cute girl is running freely. This is the style of the New World, which is completely different from the solemn and elegant statues of victory in Europe.

Union Square is located in the center of the city, is a place of commercial concentration, surrounded by Macy's, Nordstrom, Fifth Avenue Department Store and other 6 major department stores, as well as a series of specialty stores, Xiao Yifei saw Victoria's Secret and PInK's lingerie stores. (The model on the poster is too tempting to see.) ）

After strolling around for a while, Xiao Yifei, who was tired of walking, sat comfortably on the open-air café, enjoying the sunshine, coffee and leisure time.