Mainstream brokerages enter en bloc fray

Yunita Ong

As more sites here jostle to be sold in the red-hot collective sales market, mainstream real estate agencies are also deepening their involvement in this space, marketing such sales alongside property consultancies.

For some of these brokerages, it is a part of an expansion of services beyond the home sales and project marketing for which they are usually known, so their joining in the fray adds to a crowded landscape for marketing agents.

Huttons Asia has sold $2.26 billion worth of sites this cycle, including Tampines Court and Park West. Its investment sales team of 15, set up in 2007, made its first collective sales deal with Jasmine Court in 2011, the team’s head Terence Lian told The Business Times.

PropNex, appointed marketing agent for seven sites, established its investment and collective sales team of about 25 staff, team members and agents in February 2018.

The month before, it set up an auction team; it is now planning to have its own valuation department.

Its chief executive Ismail Gafoor told BT: “We no longer just want to be a brokerage and are charting a path to go into the consultancy space to add value for our clients.”

ERA Realty sold $571.6 million worth of sites this and last year, and has “easily 10 to 20 more” jobs in the pipeline, but its key executive officer Eugene Lim says en bloc sales are “not our main business”.

Five teams of agents, helmed by division directors with experience in en bloc sales, handle collective sales for ERA. “It’s boom town for collective sales. There are more jobs available, so inevitably there are more hands on deck,” he said.

At OrangeTee Advisory — the professional services arm of the OrangeTee brand established in 2011 — an in-house team of eight handled the sale of Eunosville and Chancery Court, worth $1.17 billion.

According to Assoc Prof Sing Tien Foo, deputy head (administration and finance) at the National University of Singapore, real estate brokerages can have an edge in brokering collective sales because of their strong ties with home owners on the ground.

Mr Lim of ERA Realty backed up this observation: “A lot of our agents service clients living in estates trying to go en bloc and have good rapport with them. That’s how our company got involved in en bloc sales.” Huttons Asia’s Mr Lian said the agents on its investment sales team even help sellers they work with to find replacement homes.

But Prof Sing added that consultancies — firms which offer in-house professional services like research and advisory — have their strengths as well.

“Some larger projects may go for those consultancies with longer track records, and their long-term relationships with developers and institutional knowledge with investment
sales is valuable,” he said.