Will Licencing All Singapore Real Estate Agents Ease Your Mind?

I was reading the article on Sunday Times today with regards to ‘Licence All Agents, Says Experts‘. It really sets me pondering on whether an accredition of all local property realtors in Singapore is going to help the situation of having unethical fellow mates weeded out;

After all, this would be an industry which has no boundaries in terms of its potential income yield, depending on how hardworking and street smart the realtor is.

Government Stepping In To Regulate Real Estate Industry a Boon or a Foe?

With the government stepping in to regulate this industry, that means there won’t be a freeplay or freedom which Realtors are enjoying now. I can’t think of any current job industries apart from the medical/ lawyer industries which require would-be doctors and lawyers to acquire a certain amount of academics before being able to practice their profession. If regulated, I would foresee older Realtors without proper education qualifications to be strike off from practicing their trades which would be really uncompassionate.

At the present moment, Singapore Realtors are not required to have any kind of academics; Basic 3 O’levels passes would suffice in almost all the Realty agencies. As long as you have a good basic command of English and understand the contract terms, you could be an agent.

The pro side of having a regulated industry would be systematic approaches in future real estate deals; again it doesn’t and probably won’t weed out totally of unethical agents.

I understand that both SAEA and IEA have their own set of rules for their accredited agents with a few strike rules and they’re out.

The Clash of IEA and SAEA

There has been always the clash of two titans of Singapore’s Real Estate groups on wanting to be the leader of regulating the industry, namely SAEA and the IEA, with both coming out their own accredition standards like CES (Common Examination for Salesperson) for SAEA and CEHA (Common Examination for Housing Agents) for IEA.

If the government would to step in and regulate the industry, who would it appoint to be the sole organisation to come out with the accredition? I for sure wouldn’t be bothered unless the Government or my agency supports me to get one of the accredition to show to my clients that I am accredited.

Bottom Line

I have passed my CEHA. So what does it do for me? As a Realtor, the reason why I did the tests was for more knowledge and to cover and learn as much as I can, and not for additional tagline advertising.

Whatever that would and must be delivered as a Realtor must be delivered from the heart. Being responsible for your actions, fair and just practices are all necessary in any industries, not just Real Estate. I would think the current law system in Singapore would suffice to protect unjust actions from buyers/ sellers or bad agents and we wouldn’t need the Government to step in to gung-ho the Singapore realtor’s realm.

I don’t think regulating the whole industry would be in any much help weed out all unfair or unscrupulous practices of the industry, but if the day comes, we’ll just have to get ready.

HDB Additional Housing Grant (AHG) Increase Firmed Up

The Additional Housing Grant (AHG) enhancement has been firmed up in Parliament by Minister of National Development Mr. Mah Bow Tan in his speech. The new AHG is as of the following new structure:-

The New HDB AHG for 6th February 2009 after Budget Day
The New HDB AHG for 6th February 2009 after Budget Day

As mentioned in my previous Singapore Budget blog entry, each level notch gets the upgrade of the old AHG with the correct estimation. The goodies are:-

  • Income ceiling has increased from $4,000 to $5,000, meaning more people will be eligible for AHG.
  • Maximum grant quantum has been increased from $30,000 to $40,000.
  • More people will benefit from a reduction of 2 years continuous employment to 1 year.

AHG can be used for sale of new flat/ DBSS as well as resale flats as of last time with no changes on this aspect.

PropGO Real Estate Social Portal Contest – List and Win $10,000

PropGO, the latest realtor social portal is starting an online competition for Property agents to use their services,

PropGO - A Realtor Social Media Portal

Singapore’s Top Agent Competition

Winner Gets $10,000 SGD, 4 Runner Up Agents Get $2,500 SGD. This Could Be YOU! Its FREE to Compete!

Details can be downloaded here.

Why PropGO?

It’s a neat way to drive traffic. If you don’t understand how PropGO works, I suggest you to register and add me to your list of friends if you’re a fellow agent *grin*.

Social portals of such are like Friendster and Facebook if you’re familiar with them; allowing you to build your network of agent friends, share news and information with all, do advertisements. As a social portal, the things you could do is limitless if their web traffic is good.

Traffic is Picking Up for PropGO

Traffic Details for PropGo from Alexa
Traffic Details for PropGo from Alexa

The traffic for PropGO is picking up, with most users coming from Hong Kong, and China just slightly behind. It should do well should they continue to market their portal right. I would suggest picking up an account and start building your network to avoid missing any type of opportunity.

The only thing that I worry is with the blogging function that they have which interferes with my own blog. Duplicate contents usually doesn’t work very well with search engines; Google hates them, nobody likes them anyway. So if you have to blog two places or more, make sure your contents are never duplicated anywhere else; aka unique to PropGO.

Win SGD$10,000 worth of advertising!

Remember to add me if you’re registering with them. Contests starts from 4th of February and ends on 28th of February. There’s a list of things you’ll have to do; and those are farely simple, and if you’re all out to win, remember to put your heart to it ;)

Good luck!

Couple Wins Difference, Agency Ordered to Compensate 275K

The verdict is out for the property flipping incident involving the marketing agent friend we’ve mentioned about few days ago.

REAL estate agency ERA has been ordered by the High Court to cough up $257,000 and other expenses to a married couple whose property agent had acted in conflict of interest.

…

When a property agent is engaged to sell or buy property, he has a responsibility to act in the interests of the person who hired him – not his own, or his friends’, or his relatives’ or his boss’, said the judge.

The Straits Times

This is a huge tarnish to the real estate brand name and I’m sure clients who engages the affected firm in the near future would be asking about this case and be more cautious. Again to be fair, one black sheep doesn’t mean the whole herd is of the same type.

ST Classifieds 2 For 2 Advertisement Promotions

Singapore Classified Ads

Business for CATS should be affected as Realtors hold back their spendings on marketing amidst the bad times.

I was pleasantly surprised when I was placing ad for both Grand Duchess at St Patrick’s to prospect for buyers and The River Place for tenants when the CATs girl mentioned that they’re having a 2 ads for 2 ads promotion till the end of the month.

Requirements are:-

  • Similar ad have to be posted word-for-word, no amendments for 2 days.
  • Within 7 days, the similar 2 free ads have to be posted.

That’s it. If you need some exposure be it for property agents or even owners, this might be a good time :) Call 1800-28999881. Offer ends this month.

Happy Lunar New Year!

To all fellow realtors and every readers of mine a very happy and prosperous new year! May The Year of Ox in 2009 bring you good health, fortune and luck! Here’s something to share from Matt’s Yahoo property group.


Flickr credit: Code N

  • Opening windows and/or doors is considered to bring in the good luck of the new year.
  • Switching on the lights for the night is considered good luck to ‘scare away’ ghosts and spirits of misfortune that may compromise the luck and fortune of the new year.
  • Sweets are eaten to ensure the consumer a “sweet” year.
  • It is important to have the house completely clean from top to bottom before New Year’s Day for good luck in the coming year. (however, cleaning the house after New Year’s Day is frowned upon)
  • Some believe that what happens on the first day of the new year reflects the rest of the year to come. Chinese people will often gamble at the beginning of the year, hoping to get luck and prosperity.
  • Wearing a new pair of slippers that is bought before the new year, because it means to step on the people who gossip about you.
  • The night before the new year, bathe yourself in pomelo leaves and some say that you will be healthy for the rest of the new year.

As the hokkien saying goes… HUAT AH!

Singapore Budget 2009 – What It Means To Us

Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam unveiled the Budget for the fiscal year 2009 two days ago at 3.30pm; Among are the highlights of it’s 20.5 billion dollar Resilience package.

Here’re the highlights and perks for the property segment:

Bigger HDB Grants for Buyers

Additional Housing Grant (AHG) has been raised from $30,000 to $40,000. And more new families will definitely qualify for AHG since the income ceiling has been raised from previously $4,000 to $5,000.

This is the government way of letting us know that ahead of tough times, they still want people to own their own HDB flats to start a family, though I wish that they could raise the income ceiling higher for AHG. Any families that earns $5,000 or lesser could get the grant, but that doesn’t mean a new family would be able to enjoy the full grant of $40,000 as AHG is being tiered to your income. The higher your income that qualifies you in the criterion, the lesser you get.

A typical $4,900 income family would probably get $5,000.00 in the new AHG grant (my estimation)

The current AHG grant is still not being updated with the new stats, but can be found here in HDB’s website.

40% Property Tax Rebates for Industrial and Commercial Properties

Nada for residential. The government hopes that some of these savings will be passed down from landlords to tenants to sustain businesses. We’ll see rounds of negotiations coughing up on rental after this budget I’m sure.

The sad part is for residential property investors; No savings.

15% Rental Rebate For Government Tenants

This is a strong sign that governments are trying to save as much businesses as they can to sustain jobs. Government boards tenants from National Environment Agency (NEA), Housing Development Board (HDB), JTC Corporation and Singapore Land Authority (SLA) tenants will get the rebates. Yes, hawker stalls too!

HDB has already put up press releases on the rental rebates of 15% to their existing commercial tenants. Again, I’m not sure whether they did enough since the price on rentals and properties has inflated drastically in 2006/2007.

Allowing One Year Of Project Completion Period For Developers

To assist property developers during this slowdown, the government is allowing Developers with Qualifying Certificate (QC) to delay their project completion, by allowing more flexibility for them to stage their construction and sales to the market condition, as well as easing their cashflow.

Usually, QC holders are allowed to hold their projects for 6 years and with the above mentioned measure, developers are allowed to write in to Controller of Residential Property (SLA).

Developers of uncompleted Government residential projects awarded before 22 January 2009 will be allowed to apply for extention of Project Completion without extention premium.

Developers are allowed to re-assign of Government sale sites and private land

Should the re-assignments be not of speculative nature, the Government will be allowing it on case to case basis. Developers who wish to re-assign their land will have to have a written approval from Controller of Residential Property.

Four Years, Not Two From TOP To Dispose All Private Residential Properties/ And Allowing Developers to Rent Out Unsold Units for Maximum of 4 Years

The previous 2 years rule for QC holders to dispose their residential properties have been eased. Developers can now stage according to the market conditions and that would ease them in terms of their planning and execution of marketing plans. 4 years would be a fair duration given that the property cycle might pick up from 2011 – 2012.

Developers Can Pay Tax Later For Land Approved Sites

The Government is allowing developers to defer their property tax for up to 2 years. The sites must come with a valid Provisional Permission (PP) or Written Permission (WP) to qualify for such deferment.

Well we couldn’t say that there’s nothing done to aid our market, given that there’s alot of consideration in all sectors apart from the property segment.

We’ll see if it helps in curbing the credit crunch with the Resilience Package this year (especially after Chinese New Year).

Couple Sues Agency Firm After Buyer Flips For Profit

Ethical issues?

WHEN a married couple sold their downtown apartment for $688,000 in 2007, they thought it was the best deal they were going to find.

But soon after they granted the buyer the right to purchase the property, the two-bedroom Keng Cheow Street apartment was re-sold for $945,000.

It was only later that Mr Yuen Chow Hin and Madam Wong Wai Fan found out about the second deal.

They also learnt that the woman who bought their flat – and flipped it for a healthy profit – was married to the boss of their real estate agent.

The couple cried foul, and are now suing ERA Realty Network in the High Court, seeking $257,000 – the difference between the two sale prices – and the return of about $7,300 in commission.

Source: The Straits Times

The first sellers didn’t know the second deal till CPF Board contacted them and asked about the disparity between the selling price and the new valuation submitted by the new banker’s buyer.

The Agent’s Responsibility

I wouldn’t think that there’s a problem between the agency and the first sellers’ stance since the agent involved is an independant contractor, as most agencies always have a clear standing on contracting their sales people.

If the sellers’ could prove that there’s not much initial effort was being made by the agent to advertise their unit and had already proved that there was a link between the agent and the current new buyer, be it even whether immediate family or just friends, the first sellers’ would have a much stronger case since the agent was not acting in all interest of the sellers’.

As of now, the case is still on-going and going through it’s 3rd day. Every fellow realtors are now watching this case closely and should again serve as a warning for unscrupulous agents who might try to secretly profit from property transactions.

More litigation cases of such will surface as we’re facing economic crisis. My only wish is for our kind to stay more prudent and make sure we stay afloat together amidst the bad times.

Singapore Budget Announcement 2009 Tomorrow

Finance Minister Mr. Thaman Shanmugaratnam will be announcing Budget for fiscal year 2009 tomorrow at 3.30pm.  You can get the updates on the budget by: –

  • Mailing List
  • Channel News Asia
  • 93.8 Live Radio
  • By SMS

New media reaches more people eh? ;)

So what’s on top of your list for this Budget? 100% off property tax? Hmm ;) Visit Singapore Budget 2009 site for more information.