Tuesday, September 13, 2011

R$300,000 Plus Your Wife


Negotiations in other countries can be different from what you are used to. Take Rio de Janeiro for example, it's totally Kosher for someone to ask you to throw in your car.

I heard about someone who made an offer on an apartment and the people basically accepted it on one condition: they wanted their car. Seriously!

So now that I am selling my place, I am wondering how far this negotiation strategy can stretch. Such as, would it be inappropriate to accept someone's offer as long as they include 200 hrs of free babysitting? Or what if you wanted to purchase someone's place but their price was higher than you think the apartment is worth. Would it be ok to request ownership of their dog to make up the difference? Lastly, is it immature to demand their left flip flop just to see if they'd do it?

If you think about it, things could get pretty indecent proposal on you in these situations. Say you just don't have the last R$30,000 but your wife is pretty damn cute and just got a new rack (reason why you don't have the money in the first place). Is it tacky to offer her up or are you just getting your money's worth out of the new hardware?

That's why I personally prefer to play it clean. I'm very much a 'do you have the money because I have the stuff ' kind of girl. I mean, buying shoes here is a paperwork nightmare. Could you imagine buying an apartment, giving away your car, and offering up your wife?! That is going to kill you in lawyer fees!

Though I have to say that I am a bit offended with our negotiation proceedings. No one has asked me to throw in my Havaiana collection nor my children. Don't even get me started on poor Mr. Rant. If he doesn't get propositioned soon I may end up having to pay for therapy!

Oh well, I've never been the world's best sharer anyway.

Have negotiations ever gone weird on you?

9 comments:

  1. why buying shoes here is a paperwork nightmare??

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  2. I was being dramatic. Although most places do ask for your CPF and other info. I always tell them that I am a foreigner so don't have one. Weirds me out that they want it

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  3. Totally true. I don't mind giving away information, I guess you grow up doing it and it just seems to be the way things go. But it's one of my husband's biggest pet peeves -- and he's not a guy of many.

    I've told him to give them a fake cell phone number if he doesn't want them to have his (because they keep calling when new collections arrive, etc), but he's so terrible about telling lies that he flat says "I don't want to give you my number". Seriously! I could just leave when he does that, LOL.

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  4. we say our CPF in SP because we get money back on everything we buy. Last year we got over R$300 back. retail purchases get you the most, but i say it with everything even groceries over R$10 :P

    henrique's aunts and uncles just sold a property + house that they built (simply to sell) and the people who paid gave them less money than they asked for as well as a really shitty truck. will never understand....i guess my mother in law bought her house by throwing in a Gol back in the day. so it seems like a thing that happens all over brazil. but i agree with you, when i buy it will be a lot more formal :)

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  5. My family and I are from Minas Gerais's countryside and a few years ago, my mom was trying to sell our house and one guy offered 60% of the asking price in money and also his car to make it up for the other 40%. lol Obviously, my mom turned it down and instead put the house up for rent.
    But she said she would've have considered if it was a BMW.

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  6. My parents once sold a house in the U.S. and the down payment offered was a Mercedes Benz. As kids, we were like "wow!" but when it arrived, it was one of those older diesel models and it was canary yellow. Here, we've sold two apartments and it's always a long and stressful process, especially with the last one. Part of the sale involved cash money, and we had to go down with our Realtor to the buyer's office in Centro and pick-up R$30,000.00 in CASH! My son was a baby at the time and we put it all into his diaper bag. Imagine how stressed out we were that day walking thru Centro, me holding my baby and my husband carrying the diaper bag stuffed with bills, just praying we made it back to the parking lot without issue!? Seeing all of that cash, it felt like we were in the middle of some drug transaction or something. Crazy.

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