Ep 5: How to Find the Right Agent? – Matthew Lam from PropNex

Matthew: All right. So yeah, this is the question that has been always floating around, whether is it in the consumers or even amongst agents themselves.

So I always say and keep this close to my heart, at least I would recommend agents to keep this close to their hearts, is the commission will always work out on its own, but most importantly, it’s the client’s interest. And definitely, I believe that agents can be unbiased and they should be, all right.

Main reason why I say this is because I think this has got to do with the moral ethics of the agent, that person himself versus the work and the value he provides, versus the commission.  I think it should be viewed independently, right? Because consumers, I mean, depending on who you represent, if you’re representing a seller, naturally when the seller pays more, the agent would naturally work in the interests of the seller. 

And in fact, just like every other corporate job, we take commission out of the context, just like every other job, if you’re paid a higher salary, naturally you will be more motivated as a person to work harder for the company or for your boss or for whoever it is that you’re working for. 

So if you’re working based on the buyer’s context, then of course your job is to obviously get a better price for him. But naturally the commission may come from somewhere, whether is it from the buyer or from the co-broking itself. And that one would obviously, and would naturally fall into the context of what is the moral ethics of this agent.

And naturally these agents’ moral ethics will be in question and naturally he needs to uphold a certain set of values, which I believe everybody should have. So, well I always have this saying, you pay peanuts, you get monkeys, you pay a good amount of money, you get the Kings and Queens and the best of services that you can ever get.

So I think there should be a balance between both moral ethics as well as the commission, the salary, which is what the agents are currently receiving. 

Troy: Yeah. Understood. So let’s say if I want to buy a property now, and then I do not know anyone who’s an agent among my friends. How do I go about finding an agent that, you know, they will think in my best interests instead of their own best interest.

Matthew: Right. So from here actually, I think now information and details are all in abundance in this time and era. So most importantly, I think you should be looking for agents that actually bother to take the effort to empower you. I always believe in something called empowerment. And from there you will actually realize what kind of value is this particular agent adding for you. 

Troy: But what do you mean by empowerment?

Matthew: Right. So what I mean by empowerment is, is he adding value to you with insights that can not be found on internet or anywhere on the ground? So, because agents themselves have a particular skill set. So with empowerment, they will have a general understanding, in fact, a very in-depth understanding, of the market analysis.

And if they are able to add to you a different insight and a different perspective, which is logically sound and which is logically in line with the market direction moving forward, I think with the abundance of information online, you’ll be able to make a judgment and an assessment for yourself as a consumer.

So what I mean by empowerment is what kind of value is the agent adding for you. And this is what we always seek and what I always pledge as my mantra is to empower my consumers, which I believe not just myself, many other agents who can do so and who are willing to do so should hold this by their heart as well.

Troy: Understood. But let’s say, you know, I go out, I have friends telling me, they go to find one agent, one agent tells them one story, and then they go and find the other agent, the other agent also tell them another story. And then after maybe three or four agents, he’s getting very confused because everyone is having a very congruent and very logical recommendation.

But then who is he going to choose when he has so many logical recommendations? 

Matthew: From here, actually, I would say, if you are already talking to so many different agents, then probably I would also suggest you to find one that really connects well with you and actually feels very genuine to you in that sense.

And if we are looking at that and if you realize that you are starting to get confused, I would always ask you to take a step back and really ask, what is your main objective that you are trying to achieve. 

There are certain sets of frameworks that the current market follows. And if you are starting to see that everybody is going very congruent, like what you say, then probably you are also on the right track because it’s a market consensus. So what you should be looking out for in fact will be the exit plan. Because from there you will be able to see whether does this guy really have your or interests in this art because that would actually mean that this agent will put himself in your shoes because in future, he will need to sell your unit as well. You will need to sell your unit as well. 

And if he’s able to provide you a very sound and logical exit plan provided with steps, statistics, and figures, provided with a very concrete exit plan plus a very concrete marketing plan, and you see the exit of it, I think you actually found yourself a very good agent. 

Troy: What I understand is in order to differentiate between all the, let’s say, four different agents selling you four different projects, you ask them further down the line, what is your marketing plan if I want to sell my property, or when is the time to exit? So that’s a better indicator, whether the agent has your best interest. 

Matthew: Correct. I think that will be one of the best indicators. In fact, he should be able to tell you what will be the demand and supply by that time. And like what you said just now, the timing of the exit, and most importantly, the projected figures that he believes that he will be able to achieve for you. And definitely being in such an era now where the information and the details are so transparent online, you will be able to also tell whether what figures he’s telling you , is it really achievable? Or is it too farfetched in that sense. 

Troy: So you mean, we can double check some facts and maybe on URA website.

Matthew: Yes. Correct. URA website, you get your transactions available, transparent online. You can see surrounding transactions, how are they going. And of course they are trend lines that you can plot using certain tools, which your agents will have, that would actually show you and give you some evidence that this area will be able to command such an appreciation.

So another thing that you may look out for will be, of course, whether this agent uses a different graph trend lines or what to compare with the past trends on how the trend actually went ahead. And from there, what I like to always do is to compare the past compared to the present and deduce my own analysis and insights from there.

Troy: So even though we know that maybe the past doesn’t decide the future, but it’s a good indicator of what the future will be like. 

Matthew: Yes, that’s right. 

Troy: Regarding any telltale signs, let’s say, you know, I meet an agent outside, and he doesn’t have my best interests, but sort of fake until he got my best interest, how do I know? You know, what are the telltale signs that this guy is just wanting to push me to buy a home right now. 

Matthew: All right. I think, for this, you can feel. That’s why I said you would find somebody that’s genuine to you, all right. And most importantly, if he is blatantly pushing a project, you can really feel it.

If your salesmanship is starting, and you can feel that he’s being very salesy and trying to push you into committing into something, keep creating urgency without any factual evidence. I mean, sometimes we need to create urgency. It’s our responsibility as agents to do so as well, because we do not want you to miss out on the best deals, right, because I mean, the market is always moving there’s volume, right? It’s rapid. 

But if you feel that the entry price is actually really too high comparing to the surrounding developments or launches, and he’s blatantly pushing you without any facts and figures or statistical evidence, and most importantly with no exit plan in sight, then I think that’s a very big telltale sign because in the future he’s probably, I mean, no offense, but he’s probably going to wash his hands off after you buy. 

A responsible agent would actually walk you through this so that you have clear certainty what to do three years down the road, five years down the road, ten years down the road, and even until your next property. And from there, you can really tell whether, is he really pushing you or blatantly pushing you a product that is just because of its commission or because of whatever benefits that the agent may receive.

Troy: I get you. Yeah. 

Matthew: Yeah. So definitely it should be a win-win situation between both consumer as well as the agent himself. Naturally one is providing a service. The other one is receiving a service. 

Troy: What you’re saying is, you know, the qualities that an agent must possess is really empathy and patience to go through the whole process with the client. Assuming that the client doesn’t know anything at all about properties. 

Matthew: Correct. And whether does this agent really puts in the effort to understand and project how the market direction is going to go ahead. And is his information relevant to the sentiments of the consumers on the ground. 

Troy: Let’s say, recently I also have a few friends who talk to me about property. They see that, wah, this property  can go up, that property can go up. So I have my doubts. Is it true that, you know, if Singapore’s property prices will go up in the long run and I buy into any condo, I will earn money? 

Matthew: Hmm, that is entirely not true.

Of course, the trend in Singapore, if you look at real estate, it’s on a perpetual upward trend. But of course there are more micro factors that will affect the capital appreciation of each development and property, all right. There are a few factors such as the land size. 

The number of units within the development itself, the transformation that goes on within the surroundings. And most importantly the entry price. And last but not least, when you have entry, you have exit. So these are the few main factors that you will have to look out for, but I will always advise everybody to go ahead and understand the general market first, in terms of the macro aspects, demand and supply, the on the ground sentiments, such as why today, despite the crisis, people are still purchasing. What is the number of unsold inventory right now, and most importantly, other things like the new launch versus resales, the advantages and the disadvantages.

And of course, an understanding of why some people choose to buy 99 or freehold. This will be the macro factors. When we talk about the micro factors will be what I mentioned just now. 

Troy: So there are also quite a number of factors to look out for. That’s why an agent is there to provide you that clarity.

Matthew: Yes, definitely. In terms of the micro factors you can see from there. I just give you for an example, the number of units, why some developments despite being bought at a very low entry price 5-10 years ago, today they still don’t earn money — but they have the MRT, they have the eateries, they have everything around them? Because number one, land size is not big enough. 

There’s no value sustainability in the land itself. Number two, because of the limited land size, there is very little units in that particular project and with very little stock in place, all right. Very little inventory in place, that will mean that there’ll be the volume of transactions to drive prices up.

And that would also affect the confidence of your future buyer, because imagine within the transactions itself, maybe probably the last transaction was about two years ago. How confident is your future buyer is also going to determine the current value of your property. And most importantly, this buyer is also going to think of his exit plan.

And if he can’t even have a pinpoint or a reference to it, because there is very little transactions within the past two years, does he have the confidence to pay you a higher price? 

Troy: Okay. Okay. So we can’t just say that there’s MRT here, so the price will go up, or there’s good schools, the price will go up. We also need to look at other factors, no matter how small, they also play a part into the capital appreciation quality. 

Matthew: Yes, that’s right.

Troy: So I’m still confused, man. You know? Let’s say, if I really want to buy a property and I go online. And then I see all different agents, they’re throwing so many advertisements at me. I don’t know who to choose from. And some of these agents that I keep seeing them online, but I don’t think that means they are good.

Is there an objective way or is there a place that they can measure their past record? 

Matthew: So I think with in this time and era, in fact I think having a social presence and a social media branding itself for the agent is very important. I think it’s all available online. As a consumer yourself, the first thing that you can actually check out will be his Facebook profile, what kind of personality he has, and most importantly, of course, whether does he engage himself in company activities, what is his exposure like, is he a trainer or does he actually provide classes of empowerment to maybe agents themselves or even consumers themselves. 

So all these are very strong telltale signs of whether can you choose the right agent or not. And secondly, another way you can check out will be through SRX itself, the SRX profile of these agents, because we actually list out the transactions that this agent has actually transacted.

All the past transaction. So it’s very transparent because of this SRX profiling. In fact, if you go up and then you type in the name of the agent, all his past transactions will actually be listed out and you will be able to know what kind of focus this agent actually has. Last but not least we’ll be of course, the governing body of the agents, which is the CEA. So CEA’s site would have actually the profile of these agents as well.

Any past track records, any disciplinary actions taken against this agent, and most importantly,  any testimonials from clients that actually commence this agent himself. In fact, moving forward CEA is putting a more concentrated effort into this because I think they recognize that it is difficult to actually pinpoint a good agent.

So they are actually pushing for agents review, a public registry, as well as a more transparent reflection of their transactions, because right now they are only showing HDB transactions. From what I understand, they are also going to be adding condo transactions in the long run , private transactions in the long run.

Troy: Yeah. Cause I don’t really trust Facebook or Instagram because the agent can lie or just, you know, inflate his activities. But what you mentioned about SRX and CEA I think those are good options too, to check for an agent’s character and his past track record. 

Matthew: Right. But I mean, to be fair, of course the inflating of activities, you can really tell whether is it genuine or not from there, because if he is always appearing on company level activities, then I think that is rather genuine, right.

Because, and you can see maybe endorsements from the CEO himself or the KEO himself, then we would know that may not be inflated because that is a really a true endorsement from the company itself. And it is the company’s interest to provide the best for the client anyway. 

Troy: One more question, Matt. You are from PropNex next yourself. So I think it would be biased to ask you this question, but I still want to ask. Is there any difference between agents across different agencies? Let’s say ERA, OrangeTee, PromNex itself. 

Matthew: All right. So, for me, I’ll take a neutral stance with this one. I would say that each company will have its on pros and cons, right. But of course, naturally, different companies would train their sales person differently. And it really depends on what kind of objective you’re trying to achieve and what kind of value that you are looking for because in PropNex itself, we are actually going for a more about the empowerment of the market sentiments, right? So that you would know how this market works. 

So in PropNex, we seek to empower people in this manner and in this direction. We want consumers to be able to make their own decisions because of our empowerment. We want consumers to be educated with how the market works, all right. So, because by empowering trust is being built.

By empowering, you will be able to know that yes, I’m getting value from this person. And I really learned a lot from this person and our values align, our thinking align, our information align and this where we really strike a very strong partnership or transaction with both parties, a consumer and an agent.  

Troy:  And then they are also clear about their own decision, why they want to buy or why do they want to sell it. 

Matthew: Yes. Yes. So I mean, gone are the days where product selling is very rampant in the market, right? In the past, it used to be always about the product. It’s always all about sales, sales, sales, and product, product, product. You just pushing the product, how beautiful this swimming pool is or how beautiful this building is, right. But consumers are getting smarter. So they start to realize that it’s not just the beauty of the product itself, but of course, the micro and the macro economical factors that surround this project, this development, and Singapore itself. 

Troy: I see. Understood. Do you think that, you know, if I want to find a good agent, the agent being a generalist or specialist, does it matter to me?

Matthew: To me, I think with the evolution of the real estate dynamics right now, I think things have changed quite a fair bit. In the past, we were always required to become a specialist of a certain target area or a certain development or a certain segment of real estate, let’s say industrial or commercial or residential.

I think for the past 11 years of experience, I’ve seen the evolution in this market. In fact, I would say, be the specialist of the generalist. 

Troy: Wow, what does that mean? 

Matthew: All right. Because if you’re able to find this agent who is well versed with all aspects of things, whether is it the commercial, industrial office or rental even, inside the residential aspect, you’ll be able to get very, very insightful aspects. And of course we can’t expect him to be a master of everything, but at least he knows what’s going on. He knows what’s the dynamics that surrounds each segment of real estate. And from there, he’s able to provide you a different perspective and an additional perspective to things for your real estate. 

So I’ve seen  many agents evolve along the way over this past 10 years from being only focused in a certain area to opening up and broadening their scope, to really understand what’s going on in the different aspects of real estate. 

So for example, I’ll give myself as an example. So last time people will only use to focus on project sales and residential sales. But for me, I have an additional focus, which is rental. All right, so these people who only focus on sales or project sales may provide different figures for rental, which may or may not mislead the consumers themselves, but for myself, I’m able to provide something more accurate and a different insight and a more genuine insight of how, um, the projection of your ROI may turn out after it TOPs.

Troy: Because you are in the market itself. So, you know what’s happening inside. So you can provide better guidance for them as well. 

Matthew: Correct, and the next thing is the consumers themselves, I mean, it’s already become so diluted already. I mean, I have an owner in Punggol area owning a unit in Orchard. I have an owner in Jurong owning a unit in Tampines. I have a Tampines owner, in fact, owning another unit in Orchard itself. 

So you can see it has already been so mixed up and diluted that you got to be a specialist generalist, right? You’ve got to know what are the prices in Orchard, you got to know what are the prices in Jurong. You’ve got to be sensitive to that Tampines side as well, because why? Anytime your owner or your consumer decides to sell this property or decides to purchase a property in a different area, you’re going to have all this information on your fingertips.

And so that’s how the real estate market has actually evolved over the past 11 years. And it actually pushes the standards of real estate agents up as well. So from there, that’s why, that’s what I mean by specialist generalist, because after all, because of how it evolved along the way you are required to know and be specialized eventually in all different areas of Singapore.

Troy: Yeah. Understood. I think it’s very eye opening sharing by you. So thank you for your time.

Hey, thanks for taking time to tune in. I hope you have learned a little bit more about property investing today. If you feel that you have benefited from this podcast, do share this with your loved ones and also do follow us on all our socials and join our community Telegram group. And tell us what you’re interested to know about next. Everything is in the description below. Have a great day ahead guys. And always remember: when we are better prepared, the next opportunity is just around the corner. See you next time. 

Personally, you know, I don’t think anyone with a sales incentives based commission can ever be totally unbiased. I mean, they can say that they’re unbiased, but come on. That’s how the business model works. They need to close something to earn. And if they have debts, they have family obligations, people need to earn. So can they ever be unbiased? I just don’t think so. I think it’s the same for real estate agents, insurance agents, or any sales job that is in a business model of a sales incentives. 

But does it mean that they are bad people, that they are unethical? No, of course not. I mean, there are unethical people everywhere in our lives, even in the nine to five job, even if you are having a fixed salary. There are unethical,  there are bad people, but that doesn’t mean that all of them are bad. And it’s the same for real estate agent job, it’s the same for any sales incentives job.

I’m sure there are good ones out there, but they are just rare. And it’s hard to find one that looks out for our best interests. And so earlier, I think Matt talked about how we can do our due diligence as well, how we can do our parts to be a better buyer. You know, I believe we can do our part in differentiating between the agents that looked out for our best interests and agents that don’t, you know. 

Do they listen to your real needs and go through all the choices meticulously with you? Do they care about your exit plan or do they want to help you rent your home? Do they tell you about the different micro and macro factors that you should know when you are considering your property purchase? Do they care to tell you not to overstretch your budget, otherwise it might affect your quality of life?

And do they tell you to buffer just in case something bad happens, the economy falls and you know, you have a salary cut or you’re out of a job? Are you still able to pay for your mortgage? Or are they creating urgency to sort of cajole you to buy without any statistics to back it up? Or are they saying that, oh, this project is good, that project is good? Whichever project you are inclined to, they will tell you that it’s good, you can make money, you sure can make money. 

So I think there are different pointers to look out for, for ourselves. One, we need to really prepare ourselves for property purchase. It’s not to start to arm yourself with the knowledge when you want to buy. Because then you feel that there’s an urgency to buy and sometimes you act based on impulse. 

Now one way is to listen to a property podcast like this and just see different perspectives and see different things that you can learn way before the time that you’re prepared to buy, because then you will be so much more prepared, so much more clear minded and you know what you want. You will not be cajoled at easily. 

When you rush and make decisions based on impulse, you will be liable to trust whatever the agent say, because most often they are the only source of market information we have. And I think Matthew also mentioned that there are websites, which we can do our own research. Example, on SRX and as well as on the CEA. The CEA is coming up with reviews for property agents soon, so we can look at that, like a review system, like very objective review systems. 

I’m pretty excited about that because then we can really see, okay, is this agent good or not? Or does this agent have a lot of bad comments in the past? And so, yeah, I think the default business model of a sales incentive, commission based incentives, will really create a different dynamic of a customer and agent relationship, but as consumers, we can’t just scold them and don’t do our part, you know, because maybe if we are in the same situation, we might do the same. If we have family obligations, we have kids to send to school, we have debt obligations. 

But as consumers, we can do our part to protect ourselves and only work with those that we have filtered, work with those that we know they have the best interests at heart. And I think we have a part to play la, we have a part to play in this whole dynamic. And yes, the next time you are looking for property, remember, don’t just go in when you feel that you are ready to buy, but even maybe one year or two years before you’re ready, start to learn more things.

Start to do more research on yourself because it’s a big ticket decision, you know? Property prices are going up and if you are going into a private property, at the minimum, I think it’s above 6-700 or even $800,000. So I think it really pays to do our own due diligence way before the time that we are prepared to buy.

And that’s my takeaway from this episode, how to find your superstar agent, and hope you learned something out of it. See you guys next week.