Inaugural 2011 Agent Innovation Seminar a Success
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The seminar was organised in line with the recently established Council of Estate Agencies’ (CEA) rulings for real estate agents and agencies and featured four speakers: the Institute of Estate Agents’ (IEA) first VP, Mr. Low Swee Kim, PropertyGuru’s CEO, Mr. Steve Melhuish, WayOnNet Group’s Master Jet Lee and SingCapital’s CEO, Mr. Alfred Chia.
Mr. Low kicked things off by explaining several of the CEA’s rulings and how agents could apply them in a number of possible professional scenarios. Topics such as commission sharing, rental issues and how to handle clients were covered in extensive detail.
Next was Mr. Steve Melhuish, who spoke about using analytics to generate and close sales leads. Using the Estate Agents’ Act, he emphasised the importance of keeping oneself up to date with the property market and communicating clearly with one’s clients. He then introduced PropertyGuru Analytics, a programme designed to help agents customise detailed property reports in just one minute. Extolling its many helpful features, Mr. Melhuish encouraged the agents to sign up for the various PropertyGuru accounts to enjoy the convenience of Analytics.
Following a 15-minute tea reception, the attendees were addressed by Master Jet Lee, who gave all interested parties advice on how to use fengshui to their advantage. His points included luck for agents based on their zodiac, the property and investment landscape for 2011, hot property areas for the new year and some fengshui taboos to look out for when selling property or advising clients on purchasing property.
Last but not least, Mr. Alfred Chia spoke about mortgage planning for wealthy foreign investors and how agents can satisfy such clients by understanding their mind set. He presented several in-depth property reports and spoke about factors which concern foreign investors, such as loan packages, global medical insurance, companies as investment vehicles, the education system, tax and GST considerations and PR / citizenship issues.
Each of the four speakers fielded questions from the audience after their talk, further educating attendees on the respective topics. As such, all those who had been present came away far more well-informed than before.