Ravi Chandran
The Singapore Estate Agents Association (SEAA), announced today (March 26) that is has proposed an acquisition of a 51 per cent stake in proptech platform SoReal Prop. The proptech platform SoReal Prop is jointly developed by ERA Realty, Huttons Asia and PropNex Realty.
Calling the acquisition of the proptech platform a “timely” one which would strengthen the capabilities of its stakeholders, SEAA said that the proptech platform would be able to provide quick information in a transparent manner to member agencies and sales persons. SEAA is a grouping of real estate players consisting of nearly 4,700 real estate agencies and salesperson members.
The proptech platform SoReal Prop was touted to counter the dominance of major online portals when it was launched in March last year.
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The proptech platform SoReal Prop was a response to the feedback the real estate agencies which developed the app received from its property agents, and the idea for the portal was first mooted in 2016. The portal was developed to provide real-time information for agents and buyers.
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Second Minister in the Ministry of National Development, Desmond Lee, who spoke at the launch of the proptech platform SoReal Prop last year, said that the Singapore Government will will do its part to support property agents, and the rest of the industry, in their innovation efforts.
In referring to the Real Estate Industry Transformation, the Minister said that there were a number of grants and programmes to help property agents to develop new products and new services. The Minister further promised to help property agents to better access HDB, Singapore Land Authority and Ministry of Manpower property-related data in the later part of the year. Mr Lee hopes that with this, property agencies and listing portals can automate the many administrative processes that make up a property transaction.
Thomas Tan, president of SEAA, said: “Some of the challenges faced by agents today include duplicated listings, high marketing costs to advertise on multiple platforms, high subscription fees and outdated information that is not refreshed in real time.”
He added that the association hopes to create an effective platform that can provide “transparent and fast information” that would be beneficial for consumers, salespersons and even property developers.
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Paul Ho, the chief mortgage consultant at iCompareLoan, said, “some market sources pointed out that the agencies got together to share transactional data so as to be in better control of the caveat data so as to have an alternative to SRX. This was the main driver of the proptech platform SoReal Prop portal.”
He added: “It is hoped that SoReal will also willing share these data with URA, SLA in turn to be used by portals so that the portals as well as agencies can jointly propel greater efficiencies in the property market. It is believed that in the longer term, the SoReal Prop can provide some of the functionalities of the major portals.”
The landscape for property agencies and real estate agents is quickly changing, and in keeping with the changing environment, “property agents “must upgrade or die,” said Mr Ho.
He added: “It is a challenge that many property agents struggle to keep up with all the regulatory changes the the financial calculations of acquiring a property. Hence the modern Property Agent must move beyond simply being a “walking google”, where they hardly know anything.
“The common thing that the Property Agent says is, “Let me get a banker to help you”. “Let me get this, get that to help you.” It is high time that Proeprty agents master the basics in property financing and refinancing and taxations, CPF and so on.
“If they do not want to take a full 2 to 3 days course on it, they could use iCompareLoan’s Home Loan Report (TM) to run these reports for their customers. That is the bare minimum. Everyone wants to make easy money and Propery agent work is a place where you can make a lot of money as a 1% or 2% of a property worth $1m is already $10,000 to $20,000, but the easier days are no longer there.
“Buyers, sellers expect higher professionalism. And mind you, a $1800/year subscription to PropertyGuru that gets you 30 to 50 enquiries a year is only $25 to $50 an enquiry. If you do not believe that this is cheap, go try do your own Facebook or Google Search Engine Marketing yourself, you will know what I am saying. So learning about blogging and knowledge sharing is equally important to brand yourself and acquire leads.”
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