The manual covers many duties and responsibilities of a Salesperson in general and have very comprehensive case scenarios on how a Salesperson could be disciplined. Some snippets on the official introduction of PSM:-

The Practice Guidelines on the PSM aims to promote professionalism and ethical service in the real estate agency industry. It sets out the dos and don’ts to guide real estate salespersons in their work, and the professional practices expected of them. When the PSM is adopted by the industry, consumers will benefit as salespersons are expected to serve their clients in the latter’s interest.

A Work Group, led by CEA, was formed in November 2011 to develop the PSM. The Work Group comprised representatives from the industry associations – The Institute of Estate Agents, Singapore (IEA), the Singapore Accredited Estate Agencies (SAEA) and the Singapore Institute of Surveyors and Valuers (SISV), estate agencies, the Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE) and relevant government agencies such as the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and the Housing & Development Board (HDB). The Work roup completed an initial draft of the PSM in September 2012. Further consultations with a wider group of industry stakeholders were carried out subsequently to finalise the PSM.

The practice guidelines in the manual will officially take effect on 1st of January 2014 and is going to be read with reference to the Estate Agents Act.

This is a great piece of work done by CEA as they show that they understood more of our line of business as compared to when they form up 2 years ago. I strongly recommend the public to go through this manual to understand the heavy responsibilities coming from a professional licensed Realtor in Singapore.

Just right by Punggol Reservoir, this is probably the drawing point for UOL’s new nature enclave residential project in the vicinity.

District 28 seems to have quite a fair bit of sales activity, especially pertaining to first time buyers. H2O Residences (a CDL project) has recently sold over 90% of their units and have also revised their pricing after the winning land bid.

Stricter Showroom Construction

Building to scale has already been enforced as to the amendment before, but the bill will require developers to even have all the structural walls to be erected as oppose to having any forms of substitutions (ie, glass or thinner partition) that could mislead buyers.

Ceiling height of the show flat is to be he the same as that approved in the building plan. This bill introduced will empower the Comptroller of Housing to investigate and penalise instances of non-compliance.

Sales Transactions

Developers are now all required to disclose and publish all rebates, discounts and other benefits offered or extended to home-buyers. This also includes any form of reimbursement of any stamp duty or tax granted to home-buyers.

As with disclosures, this would be affecting buyers in terms of their loan applications as well since any rebates or benefits should be factored into the valuation of the sale property.

Comptroller of Housing is also given legal power to collect and publish information on building projects, unit sold and made available for sale by developers. Data collected would be published frequently to aid home-buyer in decision making.

Stricter Enforcements on Developers

Comptroller of Housing has enhancements on their power as well on grounds which they can revoke or suspend a licence.

With all these bill amendments happening, this should reassure home buyers on the transparency of the market. It should at the same time pose some difficulties to some developers as their sales model might have to change.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) will restrict the tenure of loans granted by financial institutions for the purchase of residential properties. MAS’ move is part of the Government’s broader aim of avoiding a price bubble and fostering long term stability in the property market.

2 The maximum tenure of all new residential property loans will be capped at 35 years. In addition, loans exceeding 30 years tenure will face significantly tighter loan-to-value (LTV) limits. This will apply to both private properties and HDB flats. The new rules will take effect from 6 October 2012.

These measures are somewhat expected and mirrored what Hong Kong has done after QE3 was announced by the Feds. Traditionally tenures over 30 years are not too popular, and shouldn’t affect the current property prices. This is especially a good move for home buyers whom might overestimate their affordability as well as investors who tend to stretch the loan tenures in case any volatility will to happen in the market.

Interesting Data

Shoebox yo?

Under market watch, you would be able to check out the trends on the shoebox units (definition: units less than 500sqft) in the market which is of interest to many property investors as of late on how they are doing, prior and after the TOP status on their annualized gains. You have interesting details such as returned units in the market, where such data is rarely available. This would give a more accurate forecast of the actual units which is being sold in a primary market as depicting whether the units are fully sold out (whether phases of their marketing is really doing well since you can get a good picture of how many units are returned back)

Innovative Way of Presenting Data

Square Foot has many variety of presenting transaction prices, trends in different angles. The ones which I highlight below are those which I find them very exciting to present,

Tower View

Prices in PSF are blurred, but you can see the trend with a bird’s eye view within the development.

A glimpse of what’s going on in Ascentia Sky, where its a single block and the prices are depicted with the size in a tower format. This is great for presentation as well as making investing decision when it comes to a particular development.

Street Drive By

Street Drive By mode by Squarefoot

If you’re keen in a particular road when you’re driving along to know what prices is done in each projects when you are passing by them on your left or right, this presents a very interesting way to look at the prices, last done as well as how much does it cost comparing neighbor to neighbor. The above shows what happens when you are driving by Bukit Timah Road.

Here’s a full range sample report from Square Foot which you might be able to understand the data which it crunches and present. They’re extremely useful for investors who needs delicate numbers to make investing decision in a particular property. There are a lot more interesting data and ways to deal with any particular property (you can even sort them out in stacks if you are a condo Realtor), I’ll leave it to you to explore to sign up with them if you are keen.

As the market matures, all these tools will benefit the consumers in the long run as they innovate to present transparency. Both Streetsine and Squarefoot are two different products in which aids me in my work on presenting and proposing to my investors, and there could be no comparison grid between them.

What would be nice

Singaporeans tsk. Always not contented with what we have lol. These are suggestions coming from the floor which could improve the subscribers’ experiences with Square Foot,

• An Andriod/iPhone app would be good if they would allow users to access the data quickly through their smartphones.
• The site is a little heavy as I understand data has to be sorted out and presented through programming algorithm, if the codes can be optimized for the data to be presented a little wee bit faster, it would be nice.
• More research reports

QE3 was announced on September 13, 2012. In an 11-to-1 vote, the Federal Reserve decided to launch a new $40 billion a month, open-ended, bond purchasing program of agency mortgage-backed securities; to continue until at least mid-2015.[62] According to NASDAQ.com, this is effectively a stimulus program which allows the Federal Reserve to print $40 billion dollars a month for an unlimited amount of time.[63] Ratings firm Egan-Jones said it believes the Fed’s decision “will hurt the U.S. economy and, by extension, credit quality.” As a result the firm once again slashed the U.S. bond rating bringing it down to AA-. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke acknowledged concerns about inflation.[64]

Read more about Quantitative Easing, Wikipedia

With QE3, the Feds are going to inject another $40 billion (printed of course) to buy back mortgage securities in the States, to allow Americans to have an improved lives by improving the job data and consumerism from the possible enhanced property market. They are guaranteed on the low-interest rate as well till mid of 2015 (I wonder whether Bernanke will still be chairman by then)

How would this adversely affect Singapore Property Market?

Although some financial experts have stand out and mentioned that QE3′s effects will not spillover (the Edge, Business Times, yada) as the effects could be absorbed by US domestic market before affecting the global economy, but I feel otherwise. By rule of thumb, if you are printing money, it just simply means inflation is going to happen.

QE3 is a process flow where monies are printed and distributed to the banks’ channel to pump into the US economy, therefore, this should be lagging and be treated with care. We should be able to feel the effect from QE3 within the next 6 to 9 months when this would hurt the US Dollar.

With most countries holding a US basket of currencies in their reserve, this is definitely going to affect the global economy. Investors will channel their funds to somewhere that protects the value of their money instead of holding onto anything that is in relative to US Dollar. You would already know some countries are not very reliant on their own country’s currencies for consumption. Its a well known fact that commodities such as gold, silver and Real Estate from other economies would be the protection against the losing power of US Dollar.

Unfortunately, countries like Hong Kong and Singapore where home currencies are strong and property stability is an attraction, would be one of the channel that opens up gate to the globe. Although Singapore has already took extensive measures to cool down the buying momentum, recent reports shown that foreigners took the extra stamp duty into consideration as part of their investment cost and still is comfortable putting their trust onto our market. Ah, the low interest rate till 2015 as well..

New Cooling Measures?

The only possible dampener in the Singapore property market would be the government to stem foreign buying should they introduce something drastic again. Hong Kong has introduced cooling measures immediately after QE3′s announcement to prevent any possible bubble in the market.

For now, prices can only go north from here slowly, as of how inflation will affect any markets in the world on property pricing.

Geared with the iPhone as the main arsenal to my business, here are my must have apps for work which you might find them useful for you as well:-

1. Streetsine

The best tool ever developed to help agents get the earliest possible information on the local property market real-time. Use this and you look like a pro anytime, anywhere I’m on the investor subscription since Streetsine was born and I’m still loving it. Benefits of using this app includes

• real-time update of property prices
• location & amenities around 2km vicinity
• comparative projects around search subject
• useful listings from fellow Realtors using Streetsine

If you do not deal with commercial properties, you can opt for the Professional version (S$659 annually). If you’d like to use two instance of the app in both your iPad and iPhone, go for the Investor version ($959 annually).

Look out for “Streetsine” in the AppStore.

2. Sugarsync

We can start the Dropbox vs. Sugarsync debacle again, but this is what I use. This great cloud storage offers 5gb free and has solutions for all your smart devices (Android, Blackberry, iPad, iPhone duh). Sugarsync can be useful when

• You need to access files on the go when you are out of your office. We do forget to bring stuff sometimes.
• Sending e-mails quickly when huge attachments are involved, since you can send a link to the intended file and this speeds up the process
• Access group information. As SRI5000 grows, plenty of partnerships are formed. These folders are created for real-time sharing and is more systematic to my business approach.

I am currently on the 60gb plan (US$99.99 annually) and its suffice for my very heavy usage sharing between my iPhone, blackberry, iPad, laptop and desktop (for now).

3. Evernote

Evernote is the best cross platform to remember everything. I am a heavy user for this as it allows me to organize my leads, create notes and have them filed in real-time with all my devices. Imagine the convenience of having noting down your client’s preference on your iPhone and having access to these files when you are in your office’s Desktop or home laptop? It has some sick features like image OCR, which allows you to search for images and text that you have noted down whenever, wherever. Almost your own mini-google

This is free for sign ups and they offer 60mb per month (which is a lot still) and premium accounts at US$45 a year.

Look out for “Evernote” in AppStore.

4. Facebook

I know, I know. It’s obvious you already have this, but it doesn’t come installed by default, so head down to your AppStore and have this newly improved Facebook app in your phone. This app is basically for social exposure and connecting with friends. On the professional side, we can share photos of our Realtors’ listings, post major breakthroughs of my Realtors to raise profile, brand and share real-time information through niche groups.

Look out for “Facebook” in AppStore.

5. Week Cal

The basic calendar for iOS6 for your iPhone didn’t exactly improve since the last iOS. I am heavily reliant on the calendar functions of my smart phones ever since embarking in the business, so WeekCal is the solution. It is so similar to your Outlook calendar that its a boon to use. With iCloud sync, this basically allows you to store your calendar online and you can have a 3rd party to create events for you to accept (great for those who has personal assistant). This cost US$1.99. Well worth every penny!

Look out for “Week Cal” in AppStore.

6. Masterplan08

URA has this app developed since a year ago and I find it extremely useful since I deal a lot with shop houses. The critical information is available with the zoning of the area, and it allows you to check on vital information such as the plot ratio, height restriction and whether the area is a primary conservation area.

This is a free download and should be a must-have for all Singapore Realtors especially if you deal with a lot of land-type properties. I’m somewhat sure they would release the Masterplan for 2013 once it’s out next year.

Look out for “URA” in AppStore.

My work phone, the iPhone status has been upgraded from my Blackberry 9900

Remember the times when history classes in Secondary School was a chore with a huge thick purple textbook talking about pre-Singapore throughout the Malayan history through World War 2 and finally independence of the country. And I was in shorts then still singing ‘Majulah Singapura’ every morning in the basketball courts of my school every morning. The 50 cents bee hoon with curry sauce from the canteen aunty and the 30 cents grass jelly drink (sorry, but I don’t know how much canteen food costs now lol) always perks up my recess even though the teachers could be relentlessly boring in the class, scaring us with homework and assignments.

How much Singapore has transformed so far since then!

The Transformations, as far as I could remember..

The transport system has came under fire by many since it gets congested very easily these days. I would reckon that the population is really growing but do you remember there were the only two color routes namely the Red and the Green line? Now with so many short cuts that you could take, it starts to become as confusing as when you are in Japan taking their train. Before EZ-link, I remember there was these tickets that could bend like Beckham (silver thin cards, was it red for students? and purple for seniors?).

I remember my dad has to buy those CBD passes to be sticked onto the car screen to enter into the business district before Electronic Gantry Pricing units start taking all over the country (LOL).

You almost couldn’t recognize Sentosa. The changes since my school days till today is unbelievable. The cleaning up of the water along the coastline where pubs and restaurants are now sitting. I remember the musical fountain that spits water and lighting in all different directions that is replaced by a show call “Songs of the Sea”. You have your mega rich global audiences as well owning landed houses in Sentosa Cove, which was never used to be possible.

Gardens by the Bay Shot by Raymond Lam, SRI5000

Marina South has been transformed, from greens and those eat-all-you-can buffets and Superbowl to your now proud water catchment area, The Marina Barrage which is great for weekend gatherings, kite-flying and catching a glimpse of the awesome city lighting bouncing off one building to another (I suppose you have to thank the lighting masterplan as well). The all-new Gardens by the Bay which recently just opened places Singapore on the map yet again.

Despite the changes, there are some places which was already torn down which will stay dear to my heart (The old Macdonalds at East Coast, the old Marina Square, and the Marina South area, the old Kallang Stadium). A good thing is that most of the conserved shop houses are still around as the government tries their best to preserve what would be the heritage of our country.

Every scene from my growing up days seem to be still the black-and-white movies before things get transformed to what it is today, a vibrant, exciting little city country.

Nationalism

I was a Tekong boy; We were the new batch that takes Penguin ferries every weekend to our Basic Military Training (BMT) School, and then for me it was SISPEC after passing out from BMT. How time flies No one can ever forget the first day they were pledged into the school singing Majulah Singapura and swearing into protecting Singapore with their lives before their heads were shaved clean. For sure no one will forget the day they drew their Ali Baba bags and changing into those “ARMY” labelled singlets and start to be ‘tekan’ by their sergeants and officers.

Friendships were forged during our ‘siong’ trainings, our ‘lobo’ times. There was no differential treatments despite which race you were (Ok, let’s forget about the white horse stories for now). Everyone was abang, adek. Even after leaving the army, there were very close ties and friendship which were maintained till today, be it through social media like Facebook or offline buddies like my friends who are my colleagues. And I do enjoy my reservist sessions despite how ‘sian’ it seems to me. Dawning green reminds me of the fun times I had before during my regular days, and it still stand the same even till now (I have like a good 4 to 5 times of cycles before I MR.. so…)

A common question is always posed to Singaporeans typically just from neighbor friends especially for men who has gone through the National Service regimen on whether would you stay and fight for your country and will we able to fend and fight should we be attacked; Though most will jokingly put off this issue with ‘a bomb would be suffice to tear Singapore’, what would your answer be?

Indefinitely Yes and I’m sure most of us would have said yes when the question is poised seriously to them. To protect their loved ones, to protect their country.

Standing Proud

Shot by Raymond Lam, SRI5000

The government has done a great job in keeping every aspects of a Singaporean stable and in shape. Whatever any differences between different political parties in Singapore, I would think most of them have kept in checked in terms of wanting the country to improve and advance. Let us put the differences aside for the next few days as Singapore celebrates its 47th year since the day it declares independence from Malaysia.

I’m proud to be a Singaporean. Thank you for keeping my family, my friends safe and sound. Thank you for providing us so many platforms to reach out to the world for my business as well as impressing the world how a small little dot on the map can do wonders.

Happy 47th birthday Singapore, and many more peaceful and prosperous years to come

Getting Great Deals

As a prospective buyer or investor, you would be having houses ranging from inter terraces to detached houses available island-wide displayed right in front of you. You would be able to tell the price difference in different districts and tell whether you would be getting yourself a good deal.

Again depending on the landed exhibit, you might already have star buys identified for your easy reference.

Knowing More About Landed Homes

Apart from knowing the prices of different types of landed homes, you would be able to know more information should the exhibit have lessons or talks done by different specialty group, such as experience builders and architects who could cover the difference between Addition and Alteration (A&A), Reconstruction and Redevelopment.

You would be able to know the costing as well, and start your dream as an investor or even a developer managing your own land purchase.

Planning your Finances for Landed Homes

Financing is important in all aspects especially when it comes to property purchases. You would like to know what is your financing options like should you decide to purchase an old house to doll up, whether on A&A or reconstruction.

A proper landed exhibition would have teamed up with an experience senior banker to advice the requirements and possible type of loans which could be offered to you.

Looking out on Legal Obligations When Purchasing a Landed Home

Ah yes, legality when it comes to landed homes. Are there anything you should look out for before penning down the option money? Would you have to look out for possible illegal modification to the house? What are the pitfalls should you be shortchanged in terms of land size?

A well organized Landed exhibition would have a professional solicitor advising on such matters.

Free Buffet?

I think a proper landed exhibition should have nice finger food to go along when you are getting ample good knowledge from the experts as well as when you are spotting a possible great landed home buy. Of course that can’t be the primary reason why you should be there; or can it be?

Is there even such an event?

Hmm. Where can you find such an event which is packed with unbelievable good deals?

Oh wait! I think there’s an upcoming landed exhibition this coming Saturday on the 14th of July! Find out more here!

HDB flats are primarily meant for owner occupation. Those who wish to sublet their flats must meet the Minimum Occupation Period (MOP) and obtain HDB’s approval before they can do so. This rule applies to both Singapore Citizens (SCs) and Singapore Permanent Residents (SPRs).

Enforcement Actions Taken Against Unauthorised Subletting

2In 2011, HDB carried out 7,000 flat inspections and took action against 56 flat owners for unauthorised subletting. Of these, HDB has initiated compulsory acquisition action against 18 flat owners for blatantly infringing subletting rules. (See Annex A (PDF 22KB) for details of 3 cases where HDB has initiated compulsory acquisition actions as the flat owners have blatantly abused the public housing system and flouted HDB rules.)

Revised Subletting Rules for Singapore Permanent Residents (SPRs)

HDB reviews policies and rules regularly to keep them relevant. As part of ongoing reviews, the rules for subletting by flat owners who are SPRs will be revised with effect from 11 Jul 2012.

It just shows how flexible can they be when it comes to tweaking the rulings to curb with certain issues. These are measures definitely to appease the citizens to prevent possible abuse of monetizing public housing for rental income.

But of course, people who are illegally subletting their flats now should be wary.