Some of my experiences to be shared with New Agents are best illustrated with real cases.

Rental/Sales Trends from 1998
Growing your business
Co-broking and Internet adverts

Associates wanted.
to focus on rentals to American and European Expatriates,
PLEASE CONTACT drsing@asiahomes.com

Some of the tips which may help you compete against the big boys with large advertising budgets are:

1. Be easily contactable. Use your handphone so that you will not miss any calls. Most agents are still using pagers.
2. If you use pagers, return calls by handphone within 5 minutes. Many agents simply do not return calls probably because the handphone battery has gone flat.
3. Qualify Sellers and prospective landlords so as to know whether they are bona fide (genuine).
4. Do not advertise in newspapers for Sellers who are using too many agents in cases where you don’t get exclusive marketing rights. You will lose money for taking unnecessary risks unless you have lots of money.
5. HDB and private apartment sales are almost non-existent and take months to close; my advice is to represent Owners who agree to sell at or below valuation, preferably below. If not, you are throwing away your hard-earned monies in paying for the HDB valuation report and Straits Times Advertisements.
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7. Co-broking in rentals/sales is not as common as in past years due to the fact that Owners of properties are advertising direct. In such cases, you will be silly to advertise their properties unless you assess that it is a most "rentable" unit such as The Regency Park Condos. Your fellow realtors do not need your listing as they will have to share 50% of the commission with you.
8. Be ethical. There are realtors who masquerade as "Owner" in the newspaper advertisements hoping to co-broke with agents and for some unknown reasons.
9. Faster closing by not being greedy. Give 100% of the commission to other realtors if you represent your valued clients or friends and if you want to close within a short period of time. In this case, you can advertise as "Owner" and will disclose to realtors who view the property that full commission will be payable.
10. There appears to be a trend from 1998 in which co-broking is no more effective as before. We have encountered realtors who pay full commission to realtors to rent out their own properties. Also a realtor who did that for his friend/valued client’s properties in the brand new UE Square Condo. They advertised as "Owners" to lure all realtors and do get fast closings because they attract all the realtors in Singapore.

    Realtors do not co-broke and will go straight to Owners’s advertisement. You will find that no or only one realtor contact you when you advertise co-broking of rental properties of new projects. We impart to you our experiences to save you money.

    If you insist on co-broking for your valued clients in brand new massive condos such as the UE Square (345 units) or Pebble Bay (510 units), Costa Rhu (737 units), you may lose the confidence of your client due to the fact that no agents want to co-broke with you and you still have not rented out their units by 3 months. By valued clients, I presume you have other income from them and you want to rent out their units fast.

    We know of a case of a realtor acting for his relative for a 4-bedroom Maplewoods Condo (697 units) and to this date (8 months later), the unit is still available. He should have advertised under "Owners" or just tell his relative to do it himself or pay for the advertisement and his time. Better not to deal for relatives in new projects because there are 2,289 units in just the 4 new developments mentioned above and much fewer tenants available.

    There are the new Palm Springs, Makena, 19 Shelford, Harbourlights and Oleander Towers Condo and you will visualise that other realtors with prospective Tenants do not really need your listing because Owners are more sophisticated and advertise directly nowadays, except for the busy dentists and doctors. We did encounter a lawyer and a top Computer Company investment strategist advertising the rental of their own Pebble Bay Condo. They rented them out within 3 weeks unlike others as they had a stream of realtors approaching him. Of course, the units must be "rentable" and reasonably priced. Owners have lost confidence in realtors who ask for exclusives.

    Many clever ones or their wives do focus and keep in contact with those who "really have clients" and have rented out their units faster. They will always ask you if you have "clients" and if you are bona fide rental agent, they will contact you to list their properties. After all, Owners have to be selective and need to service the bank payments fast too.

11. Internet advertisement will help you list your own exclusives cheaply compared to newspaper advertisements. Other realtors and prospects can view what you have or do not have and contact you direct. We find this especially helpful and time-saving in the expatriate rental market in which we focus on.
12. Our Agency can help you start and if you are interested in Internet, within a year, you should be able to have your own domain. Very few Singapore realtors have their websites and this is the right time to start. If the going is tough, you may need to be an employee rather than go bankrupt.

please email to webmaster@asiahomes.com.
Our agency’s rates are most affordable.

Hope above tips help you survive in 1998. Wishing first-timers a most happy if not prosperous New Year. If you wish to be our Associate, please contact webmaster@asiahomes.com.

1. I nearly forgot. To grow any business, you should retain your existing clients who will give you referrals as they know you better than new ones. To do that, whether you are a first-time realtor or landlord, you have to be contactable and respond fast to problems. We had this Australian who discovered his bread roll shifted in his UE Square apartment which is actually occupied by less than 10 families presently.

The surprised rat jumped over the bar counter and he quickly closed the door of the guest bathroom to trap the rat. He was most distressed as the new development has had minor plumbing and other problems. The fact that he was locked out of his master bedroom and had to climb out of the bathroom window to enter the guest bathroom had aggravated the situation. In addition, the Landlady still had not rectified the problem of the door knobs. The rat and the black ants (he showed the agent the trail of black ants on the kitchen floor) were the last straws.

Our agent visited him in response to his midnight call for advice. He brought him the rat poison by getting it from somebody. By the way, the rat did not take the bait and the Australian opened the door to let it escape the next day. We could have referred him to the Owner but the Owner was a calculating type and it was nearly midnight. Would you say "take 2 sleeping tablets and call the Owner in the morning" and get back to bed?

Anne Brocklebank.