Too many property fairs, good or bad for developers?

Penangpropertytalk.com founder, Ken Lim sent me a note that this weekend (24 – 26 Oct), there are three property fairs in Penang, by three different organisers, in three different venues. It was the very first time that this has happened. This weekend, I went to two malls in KL, both had property fairs and I got to know about another 2 malls which also had property fairs. Some of my industry friends were speaking in these property fairs and they showed in Facebook that there were huge crowd listening to their talks. Two good friends went to the fairs and sent me photos which showed that some fairs are doing ok while others are just not doing well at all. In fact even the staffs of the organisers were chit-chatting as there were no new visitors to register! If you want to know which is doing well, ask me when we meet lar. Not necessary to state down the names. 🙂
On second thought, are property fairs so lucrative that everyone is trying to organise one and gain huge financial profits from it? Or are property fairs effective, therefore the developers are pushing for even more fairs and for some developers, they spread they teams to cover more than one fair on the same weekend in different venues and different states? The third reason would be a negative one. Is the property market so bad that the usual ‘Open House’ or the ‘Pre-Registration Lunches’ no longer work and everyone has to try everything? I prefer to think it’s reason number one. 🙂  However, according to REHDA’s own survey, it was reported that 85% of the developers faced a dropping sales within 1st half of 2014. 
On a personal note, I think for developers it may be best to preserve your best team and only go to the largest few fairs and not all. If I see you more than once before in any property fair, my confidence level in you drops, no matter how well you say you are selling. Always remember, these days, there’s no such thing as sell slowly. There’s also no such thing as 3 times newspaper is enough or even just organising one ‘pre-registration’ lunch should do it. If your price is able to do the talking, then yes, there’s no need to do much of anything. However, if your price is so-so, the area is not bad, the mindset better be changed to ‘sell fast’ and not ‘sell slow’. Oh yeah, I saw one developer whom I have seen way too many times and every time I see them, there’s always ‘limited units left’. Maybe, its true, they are still selling that few limited units that’s why they are still participating. Some developers even told me that the buyers would buy as soon as they see the construction is about to end. That’s when the buyers have full confidence. I just smile these days. I am very sure they are more experienced than me. Happy visiting property fairs. 
written on 26 Oct 2014
Next suggested article: Buyers today, property fairs today and ignorant developers