HLM -Chapter 1188 Helping to Get a Court-Auctioned House

After learning that Eva was pregnant, Zhang Rui felt a bit embarrassed. After that, he urged them, saying, “Alright, brothers, you should head back now. Don’t stay here anymore. I still have to keep you company—this is really holding up my work.”

Wang Bo laughed. “Work my ass. Your top priority right now is hiring a translator, isn’t it?”

Zhang Rui said, “Don’t worry about that. The translator I hired will be here soon. Once she arrives, my work here can fully get underway.”

“Who?” Na Qingyang asked. “From the way you’re talking, it sounds like we should know this person.”

Zhang Rui’s expression changed. “Holy crap, what kind of ears do you have? You can even pick that up?”

Wang Bo immediately caught on. “Oh? Xiaohui from your place is coming too?”

Zhao Xiaohui had been one of the top students in their class back in university. She hadn’t won many scholarships, and she never got the national scholarship even once. The reason she was called a top student was that she earned a double degree.

One was in their main major—computer science—and the other was an English degree.

Plenty of people got double degrees in college, but Zhao Xiaohui was someone who truly treated her second degree seriously. After graduating, she joined New Oriental—of course, the New Oriental that prepares students for studying abroad, not the one for learning how to be a chef.

Hearing Wang Bo’s words, Zhang Rui chuckled awkwardly. “Can you guys not look at me like that? Long-distance relationships aren’t reliable, and cross-border ones are even worse. I figured I might as well transfer her over—after all, the company needs me to hire a translator anyway.”

“Then why hasn’t she come yet?” someone asked.

Zhang Rui replied, “She needs to resign and do the handover at her job—that takes two months. I couldn’t wait on my side, and I was eager to come see you guys, so I came ahead of time.”

“Since when did Brother Rui become so smooth-talking?” Li Xing said. “This isn’t the Brother Rui I remember.”

Zhang Rui looked utterly aggrieved. “I’m speaking from the bottom of my heart!”

“To hell with your ‘bottom of the heart,’” Na Qingyang said sourly. “Brother Rui hasn’t been the same for a long time—otherwise, how could he have sweet-talked Xiaohui into it? I’m still single here.”

Wang Bo patted his face and said, “I’ll sort out your marriage issues later. There are so many girls in my territory—haven’t you found anyone you like?”

Li Xing laughed. “He’s found plenty he likes. Just none he can actually get.”

They joked around as they passed by the courthouse entrance. Suddenly, Wang Bo noticed a line of text scrolling across the large LED screen: January New Year court-auction housing event starts tomorrow.

Seeing this, something stirred in his mind. He told Li Xing to stop the car and pointed at the display. “I completely forgot about this. Brother Rui, since you’ve decided to immigrate, you’ll definitely need to buy a house.”

Zhang Rui said, “I’ve thought about it, but I’m not in a rush. Houses in Auckland aren’t any cheaper than those in our coastal city back home. I’ll need to save for another couple of years before I can afford one.”

Housing prices in New Zealand are relatively low by international standards. Even with the recent immigration boom, prices have been fairly well maintained.

However, Auckland and Wellington are exceptions. These two cities monopolize education, politics, healthcare, and economic resources, so housing prices are higher—and they’ve risen sharply over the past couple of years.

Local houses aren’t sold by square meter like in China. That’s one major difference. Many houses are sold as complete units, with a fixed price per house. Banks and real estate agencies already have valuations in place.

Wang Bo asked, “How much can you put together right now?”

“Five or six hundred thousand, maybe,” Zhang Rui said.

Na Qingyang looked at him in surprise. “Not bad, kid—five or six hundred thousand? Among our classmates, that makes you a small tycoon. I’ve been working myself to the bone under Wang Bo for the past two years and I’ve only made about that much.”

“Mine is in RMB, not New Zealand dollars,” Zhang Rui said.

Na Qingyang immediately fell silent.

Wang Bo did a quick calculation. “That’s a bit over a hundred thousand NZD. You’ll need to keep at least half of it as emergency funds. How about this—we’ll come over here tomorrow to check out the court-auction houses. You might just be able to get one.”

Court-auction houses, as the name suggests, are properties auctioned off by the courts.

This usually happens when the borrower loses the ability to repay their mortgage. The lender then resorts to legal action, forcing the sale of the house through a court auction to recover funds and make up for or reduce their losses.

The most common lenders are banks. New Zealanders almost never buy houses outright. If they can get a loan, they definitely will. Or rather, once they have enough for a down payment, they’ll buy a house or a piece of land.

In the past few years, the global economy had been booming, and New Zealand’s economy was doing well too. It seemed like everyone dared to walk into a bank and ask for a loan, and banks were more than happy to lend money.

But when the economy declines, many people lose their jobs—and then they can’t repay the bank.

If a borrower merely forgets to make a payment or is temporarily short on cash, it’s no big deal. At most, the bank will impose a small fine.

However, when the bank discovers that the borrower hasn’t made payments for a long time and communication has failed, it will inevitably go through legal procedures. No matter where the debtor is, the bank will have a lawyer deliver the notice to the homeowner through legal channels.

If, for certain reasons, the homeowner can’t be located, the bank will announce it publicly through the court.

Once it reaches this stage, it means the property has officially entered the “court auction” process.

If, during the notice period, the homeowner still can’t repay the loan, the bank will contact a real estate agency and the court to list the property for auction. No matter how much it sells for, the bank just wants a quick sale.

Wang Bo had some involvement in the real estate industry, so he was familiar with court-auction properties. Buying a house this way can be a real bargain—prices are often only half of what they were when the property was first purchased.

Some houses even have extremely low starting bids; you might buy a house for just a few thousand dollars.

Don’t think the bank is losing out in these cases. These properties have usually already had a portion of their loans repaid, so the bank has recovered some money. Adding the auction proceeds on top, breaking even is basically guaranteed.

Hearing about such a good deal, Zhang Rui became excited. “That’s really great—but is this kind of thing reliable?”

Wang Bo said, “There can be a lot of hassles, but we can handle them. If you’re not in a hurry to buy a house, you could always wait until you earn more and buy a better one. But if you’re eager to build a love nest with Xiaohui, then you’ll need to buy a place here.”

Zhang Rui immediately said, “Then we’ll buy here. Building a love nest is definitely better. The two of us can get the company to reimburse our rent—this way we can save that money.”

“How much can that really save?” Wang Bo said.

Zhang Rui sighed. “Come on, Wang Bo—not everyone is a tycoon like you. We scrape together our money penny by penny.”

Li Xing asked, “What kind of problems come with buying these houses?”

Wang Bo said, “For example, the original owner might refuse to hand over the house peacefully. That’s the most common issue.”

Na Qingyang nodded. “Yeah. If it were me, and my home was forcibly taken away, there’s no way I’d smile at the new buyer and say, ‘Dear, this house is yours now.’ I’d make sure that even if he got the house, he’d be disgusted every single day living in it.”