Bresser is a German company that is associated with Chinese manufacturer Jinghua Optical Electronics Co. (who also now own Meade), so that probably gives where they are actually made.
One thing that’s not clear from your post, Bob, is whether you are looking to purchase a whole package: mount and telescope. If you are, we should be talking about the mount at least as much as the telescope. The mount of the Messier AR-102 looks too small for the telescope to me, judging by the picture on the tringastro site. If the telescope and mount are separate, for a manual mount, I recommend spending at least ⅓ the budget on the mount. For a GOTO mount, at least ½.
A separate 102mm f/11 OTA is sold by Altair Astro: their Starwave 102mm f/11. This looks different to the Bresser offering, and got a good review from Sky at Night magazine. I’d say a telescope of this size should not go on a smaller mount than the Skywatcher EQ5, or similar. Unfortunately, we may be getting to the point here that you would have difficulty getting this setup up and down stairs to your first floor flat, unless you disassembled it into several pieces each time.
A 150mm SCT or Maksutov would have similar image quality to a long 100mm refractor, but work with a lighter mounting, and the setup would be more stair-capable.