The Apartment Hunt: The Big Deal: Money Matters: Traveler’s Journal: Things February 12th, 2010 Mérida -- In this installment in The Hunt, we look at the Deal of the Week, and learn some lessons from the Money Man to record in our Traveler’s Journal. Last we heard from our Hunter-Dealer-Man-Traveler, he had been in the thick of negotiations for a new property-adventure-home. After some hairy experiences and excursions and confabs he had decided on the place of his dreams/budget. When we left him off, he was working through the tangle of paying someone a few hundred dollars, and struggling with new complexities like talking, writing emails, and receiving any kind of response. All of these things can pose new challenges to someone new to the world of financio-real-adventure-talks. We caught up with him in the wilds of the markets and found a lot of things had changed. In response to the volatile worlds of these various mythologized market segments that we present as digestible power narratives, Nick had to make some tough decisions and have some tough conversations. First he had to write another email in Spanish to the lady with the apartment and await a response, and then ask the lady with his current apartment if he could stay on, and how much that would cost. After lengthy ten-minute negotiations they agreed on a ridiculously equitable price and then started drinking rum listening to everyone else discuss politics. Then Nick had to break off talks with the other lady, which first meant a long discovery process of how to even get in touch with her. That ultimately came to fruition when she walked into his school one day. After a tense series of exchanges over how to say things in Spanish, the lady figured out what he was saying and was mildly disappointed. Lessons Learned: In today’s market you have to be aggressive, and you can’t be afraid to push the limits of the words you know how to say. Forces may buffet from every direction, but most important is that you set a location and a price and stick to it, unless something changes and you don’t really want to any more.