SINGAPORE: A property agent’s flyer about executive apartments selling for about S$1 million in Serangoon North unleashed a torrent of reactions that confirmed housing agents won’t win any popularity contest in Singapore.
Commenters on the Subreddit r/singapore swapped complaints against and horror stories about the agents and opined that the middlemen, sorry, persons, could be cut out of any property deal. The post, headlined “The current state of the Sg property market,’ was transformed by the readers’ reactions and comments into ‘the current straits of the Sg realtors’.
The current state of the SG property market 😖
byu/itsmeIsaacRay insingapore
A sceptic resident voiced disbelief about the property agent’s claims: “As one who stays in Serangoon North, I didn’t there was a $1 million resale here since the area is accessible only by bus and there’s nothing over here.”
Said another: “My estate was brand new. TOP was Dec 2014. Needless to say, all these property agents swarmed my estate like rats once Dec 2019 came. (5 year MOP achieved.) At one point, one agent rang the doorbell at 10 pm, just after my baby had fallen asleep after 2 hours of non-stop wailing. I answered the door with the crying baby. I told the agent, ‘You woke her up. YOU TAKE HER.’ The agent mumbled sorry and ran off.”
Grumbled another: “Most of the property agents face to face look very different from their profile photo. Many of them gain weight after taking the photo. I met one who with 20 years different from the photo.”
Another netizen was unhappy about the misaligned text in the table highlighting the high prices (S$980,000 and up) fetched by the Serangoon North executive apartments. “You can afford to make a flier but you can’t align the word ‘executive’ in the cell.”
Oops, the table critic overlooked the spelling mistake! “Executive” was printed ‘excutive” – the “e” missing – in the flyer. As a sharper-eyed Redditor pointed out, “And the executive spell wrong also.” “Doesn’t have time for proof-reading, has to seal deals,” a fellow Redditor explained, speaking for the spelling-be-damned realtor.
Another netizen asked why the male and female property agents smiling in the flyer had their eyes blacked out in the picture posted on Reddit. “They put their names out in public with that ad, not sure why you bothered to cover it up,” said DistributorRwok.
The poster itsmelsaacRay explained, “Sadly Reddit has doxxing rules in place so much as I would have to name and shame…’
No such inhibitions restrained frocodile191: “Announcing to everyone that the owner of Blk 542 North Ave 4, #…., bought their house for $1.03 million.”
The Redditor spelt out the unit number in full, which we can neither confirm nor print because we respect privacy.
Million-dollar HDB flats in Serangoon North
However, the HDB website shows a 152 sq m maisonette located on the fourth, fifth or sixth floor of Block 542 in Serangoon North Avenue 4 sold for S$1.03 million in March 2023. (Lease remaining: 68 years and eight months.)
The HDB website also shows:
A 154 sq m maisonette located on the seventh, eighth or ninth floor of Block 418 in Serangoon Central fetched S$1.1 million in March. (Lease remaining: 65 years. )
A 146 sq m maisonette located on the seventh, eighth or ninth floor of Block 423 in Serangoon Central also sold for S$1.1 million in September. (Lease remaining: 64 years and four months.)
A 140 sq m apartment located on the seventh, eighth or ninth floor of Block 236A on Serangoon Avenue 2 also went for S$1.1 million. (Lease remaining: 73 years and 10 months.)
Property agents have it easy, a netizen implied, saying: “Once again, property agents in this climate basically earn their fat commission because the market is hot.”
“Low barrier with ton of competition when the market is not,” retorted another. “Only those who put in effort can close the deal.”
A third chimed in: “Property agent pay is good. My friend managed to buy a second property from the commission and drive Merc.”
“Sometimes I feel these guys are responsible for the insane prices,” mourned another.
One blamed the agents also for high rents. “If you engage an agent to help you find a place to rent, their commission is based on the monthly rental. So they are not incentivised to help their client find cheaper places. It’s a weird system.”
Said a Redditor who goes by the moniker gentlemansincebirth: “In my experience renting and buying property in Singapore, I have learned two things:
No need agent when renting
No need agent when buying
Replied bumballboo: “For renting as the tenant, you definitely do not need an agent.
For buying, for condo, the buyer don’t pay any commission anyway. For HDB, in a hot market as we seen in 2022, some seller’s agent do not even entertain those without agent. If anything, they want to avoid co-broke and be the agent for both buying and selling.”
But fellow Redditor spilksch2 pointed out: “Isn’t it against the rules now to be the agent for both parties at the same time?
Edit: yep. Gov.sg says agent cannot act for both sides (buyer/seller, tenant/landlord) in one transaction.”
“It is apparent that one thing that unifies r/SG is the abject hate for property agents LOL,” said fellow Redditor stockapeco.
But a kind Redditor put in several paragraphs of good words for property agents. As LeftCarpet3520 kindly noted: “Despite all the hate on property agents going around nowadays, I still believe that agents have an important role to play in certain transactions.
My mum’s investment property being leased out is managed by her cousin who is her agent.
When a prospective tenant wants a viewing of the unit, the agent is the one who will head down to meet the tenant at the unit to open the door and show them around.
So my mum does not need to travel down herself from Bedok to Balestier and back everytime a prospect wants a viewing.
The tenancy agreement is also drafted by her agent for my mum to sign.
After the tenant moves in, you may get complaints from the neighbours or the tenants themselves about pipe leaking, aircon not working etc. Again its the agent who will head down to inspect and arrange for contracters to repair if need be then claim from my mum so she does not need to do down and deal with it.
There are tenants who rented her unit for at least 2 years where my mum does not even know how they look like.
These services rendered is the reason you are paying them the 1 month of rent as commision. When my mum decided to flip her property, naturally her cousin will commision the sale for her.
The problem with the agents nowadays is they are too blind sighted by the quick riches they can get from commisioning a sale and seem to be straying away from the rental market because 2% of sales price is usually a lot more than 1 month’s rent.”