Times are slow for the real estate agents. Viewings have reduced and purchase is even lower. Yet, if they do not work harder, the potential may drop even further. In Singapore, an interesting piece of news appeared in propertyguru.com.sg One agent, Kenny Neo of ERA Realty Network told PropertyGuru that he began offering free car washing services during open houses after noticing that property viewings dropped significantly, due to haze. Other reasons include a slowing market as well as end-of-year school examinations. The result from this new idea? The viewings have risen threefold, from around five groups to 15 different groups per day on the weekend since they began washing cars.
Of course, he could do this as he was trying to sell a bungalow in the Bedok area worth SGD9 million (RM27.4 Million) and has enough space to park six cars on the porch. I know, I think the question would be what if the viewers are there only for the car wash instead of actually interested? According to Neo, in order to enjoy a free car wash, one does not actually have to make a purchase. However, they do sufficient follow up to ensure these potential buyers do have certain degree of seriousness with the bungalow. However, he said that this idea is not applicable for all landed properties due to space limitations for the smaller ones. He and his team-mates would just have to think of other ideas instead.
Actually, I would like to know if such an idea can work in Malaysia. After all, ERA is also active in Malaysia as well. If anyone knows of these out of the box ideas, please share yeah. I think this is worth sharing as I still believe secondary market is a better market to go if one is serious about buying that first property or even to start using the purchased property for rental income. Buying new properties would not get either of these actually. Either waiting till completion or even suffering negative returns because the prices have gone up far too high compared to the potential rental. Happy sharing!
written on 31 Oct 2015
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