Shall I bargain for service fee?

I was very exciting since the last week. It was not because we had a 7-day "Golden Week" National Day (Oct. 1) holiday, but because I did an very expensive shopping: shopped an apartment.

Congratulations, Grigo!

Rumor said the real estate bubble in Shanghai would break since the former Shanghai No.1 political figure Mr. Chen was broken. We consulted friends, read news online and offline brainstormed each other (with Grigo's Mr. Right) on the trend.

Our findings were: 1) people are more conservative on buying new apartments; 2) people are even more conservative on investing in real estates; 3) More used apartments were listed for sale (Later we found a plausible reason: start from Aug. 1 2006, new national tax regulation requires people to pay 20% tax of non-regular income, but this regulation hasn’t been effect in Shanghai. Rumor said it would be in very near future.) . Thus, our conclusion is: we didn't plan to buy a new apartment, nor as an investment. We should have more advantage to bargain in a buyer's market.


We contacted 4 real estate agencies, picked 10 apartments to check out, considered locations in 3 districts and closed to 4 metro stations, but turns out that we only visited 3 apartments since most landlords went out for vacations.

We made an offer within less than 24 hours and our agents helped us to bargin the deal to our offer also with 24 hours. The efficiency was amazing and unbelievable. (It is a Taiwanese company.)

Let's see what I need to pay besides the price of the apartment:

• 1% - service fee to my agent
• 1.5% - tax to house management department
• 2.5 rmb * the area of the apartment -forgot what kind of charge
• 0.05% - another tax to a government department

We signed the title transfer contact and I paid the 1% service charge to my agent afterwards but before I get the apartment title (of course before I pay for the apartment.)

My aunt, a Cantonese who lives in Shanghai longer than her stay in Guangdong, found out that we paid 100% service fee and felt very very upset. Her argument was: NEVER PAY BEFORE YOU GET THE STUFF! BE SURE TO BARGAIN FOR EVERYTHING.

It's a motto of living in China. People believe if you don't fight to bargain, you would get rip off. If you trust others too easily, you would be cheated. I agree/disagree!

My concern is shall I bargain for service fee? If I am buying some tangible stuff, I can see and feel the quality. But what if I am buying something called SERVICE? You can't tell the quality before you make the decision.

We read stories about people fighting too hard to bargain for the apartment renovation labor fee resulted in getting a very very bad quality renovation. So far, we were very satisfied about the service quality and we were evaluating the "trust-worth index" of the agent from the very beginning. The company is No.1 in my district and I can tell why they make the No.1.

We were labeled by my Shanghainese aunt that we have "a different way of thinking", i.e. "lack of Chinese experience". But, honestly, we really hope we can survive without being "defensive" every day!

Wish me good luck in the following transations.