Commission Structure for Real Estate Agents – Is It a Sin to Ask For More?

Most Singapore realtors (real estate agents) works on the recommendations from Institute of Estate Agents (IEA) to quote their service fees on a successful closure. You can download a copy of their guideline from IEA’s website here.

There’s this grey line which most agents when comes to co-broking may face if its a small rental deal. The guideline is as such, should the rental per month be lesser than SGD $2,500, the Realtors in charged can collect commission from the tenant as well. To make it easy, co broking agents will collect from their own client (aka, the Realtor acting for tenant will take his share and the other Realtor acting for owner doing vice versa)

But have you ever met agents who don’t wish to co broke and even if they do, asks you to take your service fees from your tenant even if it is more than $2,500?

Plenty of agents out there mind sharing their commission and wishes for a direct client to come connect to their ads, but realizing that they can’t do it fast, asks for the tenant Realtor to work for free. While it seems fine and feels right, it’s not at all! When we’re talking about acting ethically for your owner, you should not in any way reject co-broking cases or even ask for the other side to collect commission if it is not under the guidelines. For all you know, you’re rejecting tenants that are willing to pay even a higher commission that your direct cases.

Its never ethical to collect more than you should. And we wouldn’t want our customers to complain that we aren’t professional when it comes to our fees. Why worry about having not enough commission when you spoil your reputation and risk customer satisfaction on your performance?