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Singapore Property AGENT: An agent’s confession

November 13, 2008 by property
Filed under Compare Singapore Home loans

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AN AGENT’S CONFESSION
A true story re-told about John the Property Agent. (Not his real name and gender)
www.PropertyBUYER.com.sg (your independent Mortgage Advisor)
(YOU CAN BOOKMARK OUR SITE INTO FACEBOOK, or MYSPACE or TWITTER or elsewhere)

ABOUT US

Hi John, how are you today?

I am fine. Thank you for asking, but the market has started to slow down a lot.

Good good (that you are fine). You have had such a success as an agent and have managed to make no less than S$100,000 a year, even in really low economic cycles. What is the secret of your success?

There is a lot of hard work and effort. Untold thousands of dollars are spent on advertising, leg work, meeting countless of viewers and sellers, many times leading to nought.

Though the money looks good, huge amount of money is spent on the "Classifieds".

During the early years of my career, I placed a lot of flyers, knocked on doors (literally) going door to door to ask if people are selling their Properties to get listing. In the subsequent years, I mostly rely on my friends and ex-customer’s referrals to get businesses.

So what would be your proudest moments?

When I managed to sell a property for my client at double quick time and at a really good price. The price was better than most units being sold at that time. It was a lot of hard work and of course Luck played a big part. The Client was very very grateful.

Do you have any regrets?

erm… "Face frowning"… ye…yeah… I do have some regrets.

You know, banks pay us property agents a referral fee on successful loan disbursement/completion.

I’m listening… Go On…

There were some companies out there that offered to pay a much higher referral fee for referral customers to them for loans.

Oh I see… So that’s good for you, right?

Yes. It was very good money. They pay us 200 to 500 on top of what the banks can afford to pay us for each successful referral.

If a property was S$1m, the loan was S$800,000, I would get S$10,000 just based on 1% commission for property, on top of that I would get S$1000+ on mortgage loans, just to refer a client to the companies that help people to find a loan.

So how do these companies or people manage to pay property agents more than what the banks pay?

I have no idea. For me I was lured into the higher referral fee. And frankly I couldn’t care what the client choose for their loans. I just wanted to move the properties quickly.

Later a client called me, he asked, "Hey John, how come my lawyer fees are so expensive? My friend told me his was some 800 dollars cheaper and we lived in the same development."

So what did you tell your client?

I told him, erm.. I don’t know, why don’t he check with the company handling sourcing the loan for him? I was really starting to get worried. I couldn’t sleep

I know I could always hit and run and nobody would know about it. But my clientele was becoming more like a close knitted community of friends, family and business associates, it is really risky.

I am not sure what the outcome was and I don’t dare to ask. But anyway I got my commission from that company. It was very good money.

From what you are telling me, it sounds like the company is fleecing the customer to pay you.

Those were just my suspicions. And I continued to deal with these companies still a bit more. But the doubts were really starting to Nibble and BITE me, I couldn’t sleep at night worrying, what if they found out. I stopped referring to them.

I am very glad you are honest and you have a conscience. And we applaud you for walking the Straight path. There is a chinese saying that the wool always come from the sheep. ç¾Šæ¯›å‡ºè‡ªç¾Šèº«ä¸Šã€‚Nothing comes for free. Our service is free to you because the banks pay us a fee on successful loan disbursement, we have to eat too . But we do a lot of hard work and knowledge work to make that money.

(END OF DISCUSSION with the said agent)

________________________________________________________________________________

There are always BLACK SHEEPS in any industry, property agency business is not immune to black sheeps. In a way we compete with Agents because we provide independent mortgage advice to clients and we make the same commission (Sadly same, not more) than they make from the banks.

But we do all the work and research: -

1) Interview with you to know your financial needs and loan servicing ability

2) Understand what kind of banking and loan features you require.

3) Research and source from 100 over packages of loans.

4) Present you with the Shortlist of loans

5) Upon your agreement that we understand your needs correctly, proceed to do a report.

6) The report will cover loan comparisons, features comparison, etc. There will be highlight of PROs and CONs of each package and a Macro and Micro economic summary (Which is what and where we think the market is headed).

7) Then you make the decision whether to proceed.

If you do proceed to take up the loan, we will get a referral fee from the bank, else we get nothing. We do not charge you anything.

CALL US: +65 6100 0608

or EMAIL us:   info@propertyBUYER.com.sg

ABOUT US    Contact us

Tel: 6100 – 0608       sms: 9782 – 8606

Email: loans@propertyBUYER.com.sg

Contact us

http://www.propertybuyer.com.sg/contactus.php

http://www.propertyBUYER.com.sg/articlesnews.php

Understand Property Investing and Sub-prime

http://astore.amazon.com/httpwwwpro0ad-20?%5Fencoding=UTF8&node=55

Refinance and Mortgages DIY steps

http://www.squidoo.com/Singapore-homeloan

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