A PERSPECTIVE OF REAL ESTATE AGENCY

Abstract

The real estate market is an imperfect market. Due to this reason, many real estate professionals have emerged to provide a service that would help to make the market functions in a more efficient way. Real estate as a business is enjoying an era of prosperity, judging from the fact that the property market has been estimated to be worth S$50 billion dollars. The business of real estate is to sell other people's property. Real estate brokerage is a big business where yearly commission paid to brokers for sales and rental of property is estimated to be in excess of SS115 million dollars. The real estate agent being one of the real estate professionals has emerged to provide the very important and economic service of negotiating between prospective buyer and seller of real estate, whether finding a purchaser for one desirous to sell or finding a seller for a prospective buyer. However, while selling is not the only business, it is the primary activity of the entire operation. He may engaged in other activities like leasing, property management and financing arrangement, but it is the sale that is essential to his existence. In a service industry, it is important that the consumers are entitled to the best quality of service that is "value for-money". In this connection, the real estate broker has to exhibit his greatest proficency in giving the best service that will satisfy the consumers and at the same time maintaining and upgrading the professionalism of the real estate agent. In view of the above, this study attempts to examine the current practice of residential real estate agency. From the findings and various reports in the media with regard to the misconduct and inefficiency of estate agents, it indicated that there are some inadequacies on the part of estate agents. Hence there is a need for concern because such inadequacies can disrupt market order and affect market confidence. Therefore, appropriate measures especially with regard to more comprehensive legislation and control of agents' activities should be implemented so that only the experienced or properly qualified agents are allowed to handle the single largest investment that most people make in their life time.