Needless to say, Jing'an District's status in Shanghai in later generations is one of the core districts, and housing prices often start at ten bucks.
However, it is true that the southwest corner of Jing'an District is really a wasteland and does not belong to the concession, but the roads in the concession have been built.
The road was able to be repaired partly because of Hartung's wife Luo Jialing. She believed in Buddhism very much and often went to Jing'an Temple.
In a few years, even if this land does not belong to it in name, it will basically become a de facto part of the concession.
Building a school in this kind of place, because it is not completely a concession, still has a certain degree of freedom, which can be regarded as a "grey" area.
But soon foreigners will also come to this land. After all, it is cheap, and not all foreigners are rich.
Even if the Japanese invaders launched the Songhu Battle decades later, the Japanese did not dare to blatantly disturb the concession in the past few years.
Those who know Sihang Warehouse will definitely know.
But during the war, some artillery shells actually fell into the concession.
After the Pearl Harbor incident in 1941, Japan and the United States completely broke up with each other and openly occupied the concession.
There is at least a lot of buffering time in between so that the transfer can be carried out.
Of course, in addition to this land, there are also places close to the concession and cheaper, such as the edge of the East District of the Shanghai Public Settlement.
The eastern part of the Public Settlement is today the area along Pingliang Road in Shanghai to the easternmost part, surrounded by the Huangpu River.
To the north of this road, in the area adjacent to the concession, especially in the northeast, there are only one or two hundred taels of land per acre.
But it is too far from the current center of Shanghai.
——Of course, after more than 100 years, that place will be in dire straits.
But Li Yu couldn't wait that long, he still had to consider the most urgent immediate issue.
Looking at it now, the place chosen by Li Yu is already the optimal solution. It is very close to the current center of Shanghai and is relatively convenient in all aspects. Moreover, in the next few years, the surrounding areas will be developed.
Hartung took a puff of his cigar: "Are you sure about this number?"
Li Yu said: "I'm sure."
Hartung pondered for a while. For him, that piece of land was just a free trade. It was indeed not part of the concession. Li Yu would be responsible for the risk of problems in the future, and he had no risk.
The leading agency of the concession is now called the Ministry of Industry and Commerce Bureau, which is equivalent to the concession government.
The Ministry of Industry and Industry Bureau is led by a board of directors. The board of directors generally has nine directors, which can be understood as the nine most powerful people in the concession.
Hartung is one of them.
In the future, there will be Chinese directors on the board of directors of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce Bureau, also known as Chinese directors.
One of the more famous Chinese directors is Shanghai Bund Du Yuesheng.
Hartung is a real estate developer and is most familiar with matters related to real estate.
He understood that there were not many procedures to go through to sell the land. It was not a concession anyway, which saved a lot of trouble. Otherwise, it would have taken a long time for the Board of Directors of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce to review such a large deal.
The most important thing is that it can be used to test the attitude of the Qing court again.
After thinking about this, Ha Tong's thoughts became clear: "The amount you want is not small. Although I can lower the price appropriately for you, considering the management cost, I can only give you a minimum of 460 taels, and this is only the land price."
, there are also land tax, deed tax, income tax, and in the future there will be stamp tax, value-added tax, business tax, etc. on a regular basis.”
After all, it is a concession, and the tax system is actually not much different from that of later generations.
If you do the math, the complete tax will account for 40 to 50%. This is the initial stage, and the regular taxes in the future will still be quite a lot.
And going forward, there will be many kinds of taxes in the concession, such as surcharges, education taxes, local teacher taxes, board of directors funds, self-government fees, middle-level fees...
Anyway, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce Bureau of the Concession will not engage in loss-making transactions. If the value-added tax, which is the largest item, is placed there, it will not worry about how the land price will rise in the future. The minimum part of the price increase can be charged at least 20% of the value-added tax. However, this tax is in
At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, it was collected once every ten years.
So 20 acres is almost Li Yu’s upper limit.
Li Yu knew that he couldn't bargain too much with him, so he said: "I accept this price."
Of course, Li Yu must know that this land will rise sharply in the near future, and Hartong said 460 taels. As for how he divides it with the directors of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce Bureau, it is his own business, and he should be given some room for maneuver.
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Hartong didn't expect Li Yu to be so happy. After all, buying the land itself was a risky investment, and Li Yu didn't want to invest. Who knows how much money he could make from building a school?
But as a Jew, what Hartung wants to do is not what his customers want to consider. Making money is the first priority.
Hartung said: "In this case, we can sign a contract, and you don't need to handle the subsequent procedures. I will handle it myself. But if water and electricity are to be passed through, the money will have to be calculated separately."
Li Yu knew that this was the advantage of Hartong setting up the project. Anyway, he was not familiar with how the Ministry of Industry and Industry Bureau operated, so he could only leave the matter to Hartong, so he said: "No problem, of course we need water and electricity. You can pay according to the market price."
It must be."
Unexpectedly, he casually facilitated a big deal today. Hartung said happily: "Sir, you are really generous. You are worthy of being a person who shocked the West. You can say that you shocked me today. Do you want to buy a house as well? You are so generous."
I'm afraid it will take a while to develop a piece of land, and it will require a few more trips to Shanghai."
Li Yu asked casually: "What are the housing prices in Shanghai now?"
Hartung said: "If you want to buy a house near Nanjing Road, it costs about 10,000 yuan to 2 yuan per house."
Li Yugan was almost frightened. This was just a house. According to the current construction model, this kind of house is usually three to four hundred square meters, which means that one house is equivalent to 20 acres of land near the concession!
What a joke!
So Li Yu held back and said: "Actually, I don't come here much, so renting a house is also great!"
Hartung added: "That's no problem. The best house rental company in the surrounding area is my Hartung & Co."
Well, it turns out that it takes both sides.
In fact, many years ago, Hartung identified the current imbalance in the rental-to-sale ratio in Shanghai. Most of the houses built were only for rent but not for sale.
Anyway, the rent in Shanghai is very high nowadays.
Subsequently, people such as Lu Xun suffered from the high rents and housing prices in Shanghai. Lu Xun said in his diary that renting a house with a yard costs 160 oceans a month, which is much more expensive than in Beijing.
Regarding rent, many friends who rent houses in Shanghai in the 21st century actually feel that they are not much different from those 100 years ago...
So if we start to wait and see the Shanghai property market from now - no, we can push it forward another 20 years - after the Sino-French War, we will not see the day when prices drop after more than 100 years of waiting.
In later generations, housing prices in Beijing and Shanghai were similar, but now the gap is really several times higher.
As for the reason why housing prices in Shanghai (concession) are so high, it is the same as in later generations, of course it is speculation.
Today, 50% to 60% of the UK's investment in Shanghai is in real estate. How can it not be speculated on?
Although Li Yu knew that if he really spent 10,000 taels to buy a house, it would rise to about 40,000 taels in twenty years, the buyers were basically foreigners.
It won't even take that long. In just five years, Nanjing Road will usher in a major development, and housing prices will almost rise to 20,000 to 30,000 taels.
But he really doesn’t have the spare money now. Moreover, he has already bought the land. Wouldn’t it be nice to build an apartment building by himself?
Hartung quickly brought a contract: "Look at it, the specific land area has not been written in it, but other terms are fine. As for the land, we can go and take a look at it tomorrow. I am still familiar with the area around Jing'an Temple.
Yeah, I've run through them all."
As a second-generation real estate developer in Shanghai, he is really familiar with the land conditions in the concessions.
After deciding on the meeting place for the next day, Li Yu took his leave and went to Zhang Yuanji's office at the Commercial Press.
Zhang Yuanji was in a good mood after seeing the manuscript of Li Yu's lecture notes: "Your efficiency is so high! With such depth, I feel that the teaching can be divided into three to four years."
Li Yu took out a supplement to the mathematics lecture notes: "Here is my introduction to Western mathematical symbols. It is very necessary as an introductory material."
"Sir, you are really considerate!" Zhang Yuanji said, "Fortunately, the new school now teaches English, so I think the acceptance level will be better."
Li Yu said: "At present, they can only be promoted in some new schools that also teach English."
Li Shanlan's set of heavenly stems and earthly branches that replace mathematical numerical symbols is really too troublesome. The key point is that it is very unfriendly to the subsequent teaching of mathematics, especially those who are interested in studying abroad. Foreigners do not need this set of text symbols.
Zhang Yuanji said: "I took a look during this period and found that your mathematics lectures can also be taught in two to three years."
Li Yu said: "I will continue to add more in the future, and strive to compile all the mathematics and physics content until high school, oh, and before college."
If you can now complete the nine-year compulsory content for future generations, it will be enough to go to college!
Zhang Yuanji added: "Don't forget there is chemistry."
"Don't worry," Li Yu said, "I will sort it out for you."
As long as the most basic content can be produced in a short period of time, after all, the students of the new school will have to study for several years.
The next day, Li Yu went directly to the outside of Jing'an Temple to wait for Hartong as agreed.
Jing'an Temple may be most famous in later generations for its incompatibility with the surrounding bustling city and its title of the most expensive temple in the country - the surrounding housing prices are around 150,000, and the land of Jing'an Temple is worth close to 3 billion.
Between the vast world of mortals when the door is open and the mountains and rivers when the door is closed, there is a feeling like a lonely lotus blooming alone in the bustling city.
Anyway, the Jing'an Temple in later generations was very luxurious and looked resplendent. It is said that the guardrails were all made of white marble.
Of course, although the roof of Jing'an Temple is shining with gold, it is not made of gold. It is called copper tile gold roof, which is copper alloy. The advantage is that it will not rust and will last forever.
Not long after, Hartung and his wife, Luo Jialing, drove over in a car. This was also a rare thing. There were only a few of them in Shanghai, and it was an absolute top-notch luxury product.
And just this year, the Shanghai Public Settlement Bureau of Industry and Commerce has just issued an official car license.
"Mr. Li Yu, I didn't expect you to be faster than me." Hartong said after getting off the car.
Li Yu said: "I just arrived too."
"Let's go take a look," Hartung pointed forward, "it's over there."
Hartung's wife Luo Jialing said: "You go and see, I want to go in and recite sutras to the Buddha."
Although the Jews did not believe in Buddhism, Hartung still respected his wife's belief and said in a decent manner: "My Buddha is compassionate and willing to save all living beings, Amitabha."
Of course Li Yu didn't believe that Buddha could really save people. Even all Buddhas are not equal, so how can we talk about the equality of all living beings?
He feels that the best effect of this kind of faith is to make people feel calm and have an effect on personal cultivation. As for the so-called "Mahayana Buddhism" that can save the world, I am afraid it only exists in "Journey to the West".
Anyway, when Li Yu saw Luo Jialing dressed in gold and silver, he could only sigh, Buddha saved a rich man.
In his eyes, it is better to seek the Buddha than to seek oneself. Only hard work can prosper a country.
After walking around the land he bought, Li Yu found that it was as deserted as he imagined.
Although 20 acres of land sounds like a lot, it’s actually not that big. It’s about the size of an ordinary middle school, and it’s still not that big.
However, with Li Yu's current financial resources, he can only buy so much first, so that he can have a foothold, and then continue to buy in the future.
Moreover, the enrollment scale of current schools cannot be too large, and there is no need to buy too much land right away.
The key is that even if you have money, buying too much at once will attract too much attention from the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.
The long-term plan for the future is naturally to start with at least two hundred acres.
In addition, Li Yu thought that it was almost time for the United States to return the Boxer Indemnity, and it would be great if he could get part of it.
The United States did not account for the bulk of the Boxer reparations, but it was still a lot of money.
In short, Li Yu still has a lot of ideas, so it is always necessary to take a seat in advance.
Hartung said: "Yesterday, I arranged for surveyors to measure it. The entire land is twenty-two and a half acres."
Li Yu glanced at both sides. It was almost a 100×150 lot, but quite square. "It looks pretty good."
"Of course it's good," Hartung said. "I heard a Chinese saying called morning bells and evening drums. This place is so close to Jing'an Temple. It's really a good place."
Hartung naturally wanted to praise him more, but Li Yu had something different in mind, so he followed suit and said, "Mr. Hartung also knows Chinese idioms."
Hartung said: "I have lived in China for so many years, and if I still can't speak idioms, it would be a shame for my wisdom."
After seeing the land, Hartong could fill out the contract completely. Li Yu looked at it again:
The price of 22.5 acres of land is 10,350 taels;
The tax is 3600 taels,
The cost of connecting water and electricity is 3,000 taels.
A total of 16,950 taels.
But this time, you only need to pay half of the land price and water and electricity bills first. Hartung still has to go through the relevant procedures, which will take two or three months at best.
So Li Yu actually only delivered 8,175 taels and got the contract.
After all, it was a large-scale transaction. If the procedures were not complete, Li Yu would not dare to use this piece of land.
This "southern tour" really cost a lot. Of the 10,000 taels previously deposited in Huzhou, 5,000 taels were paid by Li Yu. Including today, more than 13,000 taels were spent at once.
Nearly half of Li Yu's savings were wiped out in an instant. He was really spending money like water. He couldn't find a way to make money.