Posted by
pacificexpat
I want to relate a very unhappy, and I would say almost unethical
home buying experience of ours in Singapore which just happened today.
We as buyers in Singapore and I am sure we are not alone here feeling
this way; are frustrated that there is no real regulatory body in
Singapore to change legislature or effectively regulate the real estate
industry here to protect buyers.
Basically, I want all home buyers in Singapore especially expatriates to
beware, Singapore is not a buyer friendly country under the current
real estate law here. I came from Hong Kong and my husband came from
USA, in both countries, general real estate practice is such that buyers
pay their agents a commission for getting them a property and sellers
pay their agents a commission for selling their property.
Under this arrangement, it's a healthy transaction and competition
between buyer and seller's agents. Of course buyer's agent will work
very hard to get you the listings to view and negotiate for you the
property you want to purchase, while the seller's agent would do the
same for their seller to earn the commission.
However in Singapore, Buyer's agent actually gets the commission from
the seller's agent's own commission. So the sellers give their agent a
lum sum commission and that agent will have to share it with buyer's
agent if the property was sold to the buyer through his or her agent.
They call it co-brokering here. But anyone can tell you how flawed this
practice is and how it puts the buyer in a very disadvantage position.
The seller's agent may not be so forthcoming about a listing, he or she
would rather deal with a buyer who approaches them directly to save the
commission. For potential buyer, unless you are willing to pour through
lots of property websites and drive around looking for a developer's
unit that you can deal with directly, you will be vulnerable to selfish
and unscrupulous seller's agents, or missed out a lot of good listings
and a potential dream home by being at the mercy of seller’s agent.
This is exactly what happened to me and my husband today, not to mention
a very unscrupulous developer operating in a very unprofessional
manner. I want to share this story with everyone here, and please pass
the message around especially among expats communities, beware when you
want to purchase property developed by VicLand Pte Ltd and if
developer's agent is ECG property.
Doesn't matter what the developer and ECG may want to sugar coat this
whole property deal that fell apart, the real truth is this:
I was shown by our agent at the time Serennia on 16 Pulasan Road in
Katong district 2 weeks ago. It's a VicLand property, boutique
development with only five floors.
There was only one unit left for sale by developer, 03-09, a 3 bedroom
flat. At the time my husband was out of town, and initially I liked what
I saw so I told the developer's agent and my agent we will have to come
back with my husband in two weeks to view it again and make a decision
after ward.
Yesterday, my agent still told me it was available for viewing and we
went to view it again. The developer's agent from ECG let us view it and
gave us the impression it was still available and co-broking would be
okay. There were a couple other people viewing that same unit but
nothing seems to indicate it would have been sold right there.
So we were prepared to arrange for loan approval today and if that goes
through, we will hand in our check for the initial point of purchase
procedure.
However, last night my own agent called me and informed me suddenly that
ECG told them a buyer is going to hand them a check in the morning, so
we better act fast or we could lose the property.
We really like it so our agent suggested perhaps we should try hand in a
check last night and she would deliver to ECG. We were just debating if
we should do that or not, our agent suddenly called back and now
informed us, she got some inside source within ECG that even if we had
hand in the check last night, they would not honor it, because they
prefer to let their own in house agent make the sale and some buyer was
about to hand in a check next day to the in house ECG agent directly.
Even if we beat them that night, it wouldn’t matter, ECG didn’t want to
take our check. In short, ECG did not want to split the commission from
developer with my agent!
My agent told me at the time this is a hopeless deal, we will never get
the condo because we went through her and ECG agent basically wants to
cut her out of the deal! What kind of professional practice is this?
This would never have happened in HK or NY because there is no loss of
profit for the agent from each side. We buyer now are being caught in
the middle of a very stupid and unhealthy practice in real estate
industry here.
This story gets better: as a buyer, I had to take matter in my own hand.
Maybe I shouldn't have contacted the developer's agent directly without
going through my own agent but at this point, if they want to be
unethical about it, we buyer have to protect our interest and do
whatever as long as it's legal to get the condo too. And I need to find
out if my agent was lying or if ECG agent was playing games with us by
presenting a fake offer to hike up the price or speed up the sale.
So I contacted the manager of ECG, the IC of the ECG agent that showed
us and our agent the unit in Serennia, I asked her point blank if it's
true you would prefer to sell that unit to your own in house agent. She
implied that's the case and then I offered her a scenario what if I now
approached ECG directly as a buyer for that unit and give her a check
for it, would she accept our offer? She told me she would think about it
and call me back. Half an hour later, she called me back and said yes,
if we hand her a check by noon today, she would take our offer. So now
the unit is available again!?
As we explained we need to go to our bank to get a quick loan approval
assessment and valuation of the unit in the morning, so by noon we could
produce a check for her. So at this point, it clearly indicated already
how screw up the whole real estate transaction process is in Singapore.
Basically everyone has to be unethical to get the deal done! If the
buyer wants to do the right thing and let his or her own agent to go
through the purchase offer, the buyer would have lost that condo from
day one, a waste of buyer’s time right from the beginning.
I was also told by this one ECG agent, it was our own agent just walk
into check out Serennia and the unit and asked about it so he let her
see it but at the time, he didn’t realize she was an agent. Otherwise,
he would have not been keen to show her the unit as they are in house
agent for Serennia and would prefer direct sale to buyer.
By the way, there is also no real regulatory body to screen out
inexperienced agents here. For instance, when I asked my own agent what
documents I would need to apply for loan, she couldn't tell me, she
could only recommend a banker I could consult with. But that's like
basic knowledge real estate agents should know and be able to advise
their clients. That's when we sort of lost confidence in property agents
in Singapore overall and their ability to get us a good condo in a good
price too. And we have encounter quite a few incompetent agents in
recent past months.
In HK, my own agent there would be able to recommend banker but also
tell me what I need to prepare for loan application, and could even get
me a lawyer to process paper and inform me every procedure required to
close the deal. They are more proactive too because we pay them a
commission, not from the seller's agent.
To continue my nightmarish experience of property purchase in Singapore.
This morning at 10am I still received a message from this ECG manager
agent that please call her when we are ready to produce a check and she
will meet us somewhere to get it.
But then later in an hour, while we were at the bank informing the
banker we want to get a loan for the Serennia, she text me and just told
me sorry, that unit is no longer available. I suspect later it was
perhaps our agent phoned them to insist she would bring us to the condo
with the check at noon, and they have to accept our offer because she
was so concerned to get her commission from the seller's agent. That
probably annoyed the ECG agent and wanted to call off our deal.
So all this time we as buyer are the real victims in this unscrupulous
scam and unregulated practice among real estate agents in Singapore. We
have to resort to desperate measures to get our property because we
can’t always rely on our own agent to get the property if the seller’s
agent shut co-broking out.
And why co-broking is not welcomed by agents in Singapore? Simply
because of that stupid rule allowing buyer’s agent to share commission
with seller’s agent!
To make matter worse, I confronted ECG later, they tried to cover up
their mistake by saying it was the developer's fault. The developer has
neglected to inform their own in house agent, that last unit was sold
internally already. ECG claimed they don't know when exactly it was
sold, but only this morning the developed told them and apologized to
ECG for that oversight!
What about an apology to us buyers, especially if we might have given
them a check already! The ECG manager I dealt with, told me her IC (
superior ) would call me to explain what happened. But that IC gave me
an even more convoluted story, claiming he also got a check from another
buyer from that unit at 9am and he had to return the check to him later
too. If he was already accepting a check from another buyer at 9am, why
did the ECG manager would still text me at 10a to remind me to let her
know when we' re ready to give her the check???!!!!
And this is how real estate business is conducted in Singapore, a so
called metropolitan city in par with other urban metropolitan cities
like Hong Kong.
I know a lot of people complained about HK property market is just as
cut throat and there are a lot of greedy agents too and unscrupulous
practice, but at least they are efficient, they are knowledgeable and
they will work very hard to get your dream home because they get a
commission from you, not sharing with seller's agent. And at least
through my own dealings with property agents in HK and in my job as a
journalist reporting about property biz there, I have never encountered
such a blatant display of incompetence, stupidity and unethical dealings
with buyers. We buyers are basically held hostage in some hostile take
over situation and caught in squabbles between agents.
In the end, whose fault is it really? I believe it is ultimately the
government's fault, for not coming up with better legislature to
regulate the industry, the people who work in the industry and the
developers. They should change the law so that buyers pay their own
agents and sellers pay their own agents to create a healthy and fair
business environment. Of course VicLand is also responsible for being so
callous about not informing their own in house agents that unit was no
longer available. Probably was not available even when we went to view
it yesterday. And ECG also has to take blame for being so unprofessional
and almost unethical by resorting to what equivalent to a black mail
tactics to make a sale.
As my husband and I are also Singapore PR, we plan to take our complaint
to our MP as well, hopefully the government will become aware of this
problem or perhaps they knew about it already, but it's time to take
some action to correct this long standing complaint among buyers, and
even among agents who got shunned out from deals like my poor agent. She
lost a sale for sure and unbeknownst to her, she probably never had a
chance with that property right from the beginning! I feel sorry for
her, and appreciated her effort in alerting us about this unit and
trying to get us the property; yet I am a little annoyed or perhaps a
bit resentful that we lost that condo basically because we were attached
to her or any co-broke agent?
As I could tell from complaint left in other forums and expat forums as
well about unethical standard practiced by estate agents in Singapore,
this is not the first time and we are not the only buyers or even
renters being screwed by the flawed system here. If Singapore really
values foreign investment and wants to entice expatriates to call this
place home and settle down here long term, it should really do something
about its real estate practice here so we buyers will be protected.
Right now, we have lost all confidence in obtaining our dream home and
at a good deal through agents here unless we want to go through this
very frustrating and stressful home buying process in Singapore again.
WE would probably just buy in Hong Kong or back home in New York where
real estate agents were more professionally trained and operated.
Of course dealing with unscrupulous landlord as a renter is whole other
frustrating experience but at least we pay our agent a commission for
rentals so he or she will work hard for us to get a good rental.
Hopefully that login will also apply to home purchases soon.
Black
sheep in the real estate industry who think that they can get away with
bad customer service, errant advertising and other misconduct will be
taken to task sooner or later by the Council for Estate Agents (CEA).
A second property agent was charged in court yesterday for allegedly
working as a property salesman without being registered with the Council
for Estate Agencies (CEA).
