The ongoing saga of house buying in Shanghai

With the initial "framework" in place, we are diving into the nitty gritty things. Firstly, taxes. With a price of RMB 4.5M, the buyer will pay about RMB 175,000 and the seller will pay about RMB 365,000. Who said the Commie is not Capitalist? The buyer's tax includes but not limited to: transaction tax, deed tax, map tax, several service taxes, sale tax and two stamp taxes; then the seller, the major one is the profit tax; it varies up to 20% of the profit. Then, there are the transaction tax, stamp duties, land appreciation tax. So these all have to factored in to the final sale number. I certainly for one not willing to pay for the seller's taxes.

Mortgage, as mentioned before or did I?, old houses, banks only provide 60% of the sale price; the sale price is based on the bank's appraiser. At current, the applying amount of RMB 3 M is in line with the spread for the bank. We shall see.

Iron-wife saw another house at the same area that we verbally agreed to buy. Click here. It's totally renovated and is in move in condition. The asking price is RMB 4.3M; and the owner agrees to pay his own sale taxes; well.... Not having to do renovation right off the bat will immediate free up about RMB 650,000 renovation cost. And provide many years of maintenance free housing; however, the contractor is unknown and we cannot see the "underlying original" condition of the house. Chinese is famous of just cover things up and ignore it. So, for all I know, behind the wall in the living room, it could be moldy and leaking water. Those are not tiles; they are plastic ceiling sheets.

O don't let the Commie fools you. There is a power shortage in Shanghai. With a house this big with all those fancy lights, one will need to apply for higher power consumption allocation. You pay a lump sum. The same goes to new apartments these days if you need more. Always have a backup plan in case there is a power outage; so a mixed of gas-powered cooking and/or heating is recommended.

Well, the bank's appraiser will head to Audrey's friend's house for an evaluation. That will give us an indication as to how much it is in the eyes of the bank rather than the "general impression".