This is not just an issue of being a 'kaypoh' which i won't deny but yours truly did consider being a property agent many many years back. You see, from my adolescent eyes back then, i have observed that property agents drive nice cars. Usually their cars are continental ones and i can't be faulted for thinking that a property agent career is a one worth considering right?
Until i went for my first NS reservist and had a conversation with a property agent who drove a Audi TT back then who told me that their managers " persuaded " their downlines to drive flashy cars because a salesperson in debt is a hungry one.
From the CEA data from the years 2020 and 2021, the transactions by the top property agent are as follows.
2021 has not ended, so transactions in 2021 are up to October, inclusive.
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| https://data.gov.sg/dataset/cea-salesperson-residential-transaction-record |
I don't know how this salesperson did it but its amazing.
There are a total of 607 transactions in 22 months. This means on average, there are 27.6 transactions in a month.
Basically, this salesperson is closing a deal every day. Respect.
In Singapore, there is no fixed rules for commission rates. But for HDB and private properties, the industry practice for commissions are generally different. For HDB resale, the buyer has to pay 1% while the seller has to pay 2% in commissions. For private property, only the seller has to pay 2% commissions. The commission may also have to be shared if there is co-broking involved.
For simplicity and to be conservative, the commission rates will be assumed 1%. For rental, the industry practice is 0.5 months for 1 year of rental which will be used for the calculation.
Due to the very varied prices of property, let's further assume that the average HDB transacted cost $600,000. The average condominium and apartment transacted cost $1.2 million and the average landed property cost $3 million.
Accordingly, let's assume the rental for HDB is $2000 per month. Based on the CEA data, this property agent does whole room HDB rentals only.
The rental for condominium and apartment cost $3500 per month and the rental for landed cost $8000 per month.
These figures above, in my opinion, are very very conservative.
This makes the one month revenue to be $1.73 million. If one is to take into consideration the number of lock downs and covid restrictions for 2020 and 2021, this figure is even more supreme.
Of course, their actual earnings are much lower after considering marketing fees, petrol and so on.
Before you jump on the property agent band wagon after salivating at the earnings above, it would be better to delve deeper and check if it is indeed a rosy career...as rosy as for the agent above who made 607 transactions.
There are a total of 19,742 agents that transacted in these 22 months in the CEA data. Transactions in the data also include one room rentals which the alpha agent above did not do.
The alpha agent did 607 transactions in 22 months but the median number of transactions sold by property agents are 6, which may include one room rentals as some of the transactions.
All is not what it seems.
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