Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Real estate agents

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Real estate agents

There were 1,200 complaints against real estate agents for the first 9 months, or 5 each working day. The total fees paid for the transactions was $1.25 billion last year, or an average of $37,800 per registered agent (based on 33,000 registered agents, including those that are only partially active). http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1160085/1/.html

7 comments:

Anonymous said...: Greed, it is all about greed like the insurance agents who are willing to do ANYTHING to con their clients.
Is the regulator blind?; October 18, 2011 9:33 PM
Anonymous said...: Jokes - Changing Singapore (light bulbs)

How many Singapore Elites does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer:
Forget about it. Elites prefer to work in the dark. It also makes it easier for them to keep the rest of us in the dark.; October 18, 2011 10:39 PM
yujuan said...: There are 7 types of people you can't trust in Singapore.
1. Estate agents
2. Insurance agents
3. Bank Relationship Managers
4. Share brokers
5. Whole package promoters of
Services
6 Certain doctors in private
practice who push for money
making surgeries unnecessary
7 Foreign promoters of Investment
products.
Believe us, we've come across them and have seen them all.
The angels among them? Yes, they are, but you have to thank God to be able to find the piteous few, and when they are morally upright, they really are that.
No consumer protection at all here, else that GP Doctor who did the liposuction on that YTL Property CEO would not have died,
it' s really the greatest joke in the world for a Govt to allow a GP to do a dangerous procedure like liposuction on patients, outside the confines of a hospital some more.
Almighty God, nobody to trust here!
Singapore is really the wild, wild cowboy city of the East.; October 19, 2011 11:28 AM
Anonymous said...: Restrict real estate agents to above 30 year and citizen only.
Give older jobless citizen a chance, like the requirement for taxi driver.Now a day many PRs and some non citizens are getting in to this business.See their name on the flyer.; October 19, 2011 12:43 PM
yujuan said...: This is a real life story that happened 1 month ago.
A relative put up his house for rental, and an estate agent, who was from J.Bahru and working for one of the top Estate agencies in Singapore,
offered his services to look for a tenant. On the same day, he put up an ad in a property website, offering the house for rental at 28% lower than the prevailing market rate, against the owner's indication rate.
Then he got a tenant, then pestered the owner to accept the rental, using a lot of scare tactics to instill fear.
Unknown to the agent, the owner is IT savy, saw the ad and played along with him. Another Singapore born Agent finally closed the deal for the owner at the prevailing rental, and advised to be careful of foreign born agents in Singapore.
Told you already, sharks both local and foreign are cruising around. Open your your peppers wide wide, so said LKY.; October 19, 2011 2:44 PM
Anonymous said...: Wow i had seen real estate agent commute daily in and out of JB to ply his trade in Singapore. make money a lot here then head straight home laughing at our govt and people stupidity.side note a very large local developer are recruiting foreign real estate agent selling condos/private properties to their own country folks. like people said these rich are really greedy selling out the nation.; October 19, 2011 4:04 PM
mrmob said...: My real case with a real estate agent from propnex recently.
A team of agents actually gang up to cheat potential buyers by posing as seller agent and slotting in exclusive agreement documents for them to sign which binds the buyer for 6 months or more. By signing the document, even buyer chose to purchase another unit, they are required to pay the particular agent 1% commission fee.
For my case, the person posing as the seller agent makes me signed the document and later revealed to me that she is representing me and her brother (who is also her team leader) is actually the seller agent. So she will collect 1% commission from me since I signed on the agreement. All these happened after I paid for the option fee of $1000 which means I already confirmed I want to buy this unit and that was the first time I met the agent, so it really doesn't makes any sense for me to be bound exclusively by this agent.
I believe this agreement should be used when a buyer is looking for HDB units around the island and engaged an agent who searched for units and brought us to view the units. So this agreement is meant to protect the agent's interest so that the buyers will not go direct to the seller's agent or even owners after viewing the units.
So be careful of what you sign. I am still fighting this case and had engaged help from CEA and CASE, and planning to get help from my MP as both organization doesn't seem to be able to do much as the team of agents already got everything covered (since they are expert in this area).; January 16, 2012 1:42 PM