[quote=andrekua2,Dec 1 2023, 10:59 AM]Well, time has changed...

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This post has been edited by boyboycute: Dec 18 2023, 11:15 AM

Lets say you engage an freelance REA who will take up your case for a much cheaper rate at maybe 2%. But he is not affiliated with any regulatory body (does not have a REN/REA license) and he is not working under any reputable Real Estate Agency. As a buyer or prospective buyer, would you have the confidence to nego with this said Agent or pay your booking fees to him or his company?

A flawed comparison. Internet service you cant provide yourself. House you can sell yourself.

In reality, you can no longer find any agent willing to do his work below maximum fees. So, your scenario doesn't exist at all

No one can legally provide real estate services except for licensed professional.

Let's go back to our discussion on free market and market competition.

Let's say one day , legal firms consolidate into three big players only, and they asked you pay the maximum legal fees on their services, you will think very differently and not so defensive

This is not a question about professionalism, security, etc

This is a discussion on free market and market competition.

Don't go on other path discussing micro stuff

You can apply the same scenario to engineering services, medical services, education services, internet services, etc

Who knows, maybe one day, plumbers may consolidate and charge max fees...

You should get the picture now

This post has been edited by boyboycute: Dec 1 2023, 11:59 AM

there is also SST of 6%

TS are you willing to pay?

The problem of monopoly is ironically a problem of the free market mentality. Big fish with big capital to start up will have a far bigger advantage than someone with small capital. Small fish will eventually gather together with other fish for survival, or get eaten by big fish.

To bring up example with famous local ride for hire service, why do you think we ended up with Grab taking over Uber? Uber (a foreign non SEA brand with an already established structure of fees) couldn't compete with Grab (SEA based startup, initially charge super low fees) so they exit.

Mergers, acquisitions, and takeovers will eventually consolidate entities to large entities, because operating under a single large brand is easier to market rather than trying to burn money to out compete bigger brands. Then once they have sufficient market dominance, they can control the pricing. Again, bringing up Grab, they're no longer as cheap as they used to be because they can afford to charge to start making a profit vs in the past where they take losses to market their business.

If you want government to prevent monopoly, that means it's no longer a "truly free" market, because agencies will be forced to not expand beyond a certain limitation. This will cause another issue of not enough economic growth because how to grow when there is a growth limit.

Ironically the "max 3%" is protecting the seller because agency cannot charge higher than that. If there's no such ceiling agencies will probably happily charge much much higher.

In Singapore there is a minimum fee structure but no maximum, so commissions demanded by agents do not really have a ceiling. They have a "standard practice" of 2% but I've seen 4% before.

This post has been edited by DragonReine: Dec 1 2023, 02:22 PM

there's no need to even talk about companies consolidating into 1 big organization
when there's needs/demand, people will always take advantage of it..
you wanna use plumber, i give you same example..
nowadays doesn't matter which plumber you ask, come to fix a leak easily is ady rm 120 and above.
just an inspection ady rm 80
whether is the job shitty or not, that's to be judge later..
and these aren't even from '2 companies that are only in the market/area'
they know what's the current market rate, then they follow... its that simple..
even if you find someone online like fb marketplace or mudah or wtv portal that provides plumbing services, they will follow the market rate..
cuz why go cheaper when that's what ppl are paying for now?
unless they are totally new company, wanna get some free advertising while earning lesser for a few months, then okay maybe they'll fix leaks for you at RM 80 instead of RM 120..
after some time, they got their existing client base, they'll fix for RM 120 as well..

like you said, free market and market competition..
market rate is at such rate now, they charge the same la..
why? cuz they can... and nothing regulates the max price for services like these..
willing buyer, willing seller

that bolded sentence, in the end, its still a regulated market. It's not free. It might be more competitive but what makes the companies can't be owned by the same person / group right?
then in the end it comes down to same bosses, controlled by a big few big shots in the industry. Honestly, no matter what industry to be used for comparison, there's no exactly "free market".
You only think it's free, but in reality it's not. Companies will always follow market rate whenever someone starts something.
Will only be cheaper when they are new and trying to penetrate into the market competing against existing players. Once something has been dominated or able to have a large enough customer base, they will follow the market rate.

Aiyah, don't lah gaduh-gaduh. Just spell out the name of the property agents who charge 3% then boycott them like McDonalds. Sure market will re-adjust back to REAL market price

Plumber who charge RM80 for inspection also just let us know the name here so other plumbers can charge RM75 to boycott that LCLY plumber

We're not fighting about fees here.

We're discussing about free market and market competition for healthier property market.

I like some of the constructive comments.

But once the big companies control the market, there's no longer market rate. It's just pure "toll collection" to strangle the cow.

I came across certain area which is dominated by one agency. The agents are setting the asking prices and asking rental at sky high.

Market got no supply already because developers slow slow launching to control supply .So, market paid the sky high asking selling price. Bankers and valuers kautim the loan for buyers.

Brickz databases showed a few transactions. Market believed the transaction data. The game rolled on.

Amazing stories

This post has been edited by boyboycute: Dec 1 2023, 02:50 PM

As I said, there's no free market without eventually reaching a stage where there's monopoly by people who have more money, and by then you have to pray to higher power that either the owners of the monopoly are ethical enough to not squeeze for max profit, or government step in to set limitations which will slow monopoly at the expense of broader economic growth (via capitalism). The boardgame Monopoly demonstrates exactly this, with how when it comes to buying property, you're only limited by your bank balance.

I don't know how old you are and how long you've been observing market, but if you're complaining about the property prices now, you have not seen how bad local market got 10 years ago. Current prices are actually on average contracted/down from what they were in 2018-2019.

And if you see greatest oversupply now, it's the "regulated" projects that cannot exceed certain price range set by government. Meanwhile because there aren't much buyers for 2nd hand units on the market due to cost of living and stagnant wages, both buyers and sellers are playing wait-and-see, so what you will be seeing is low supply, high prices, low demand. That 3% fee means nothing if no properties are being sold often.

This post has been edited by DragonReine: Dec 2 2023, 12:01 AM

Property price goes up because of inflation will already increase the total amount for that 2%
Your comparison makes 0 sense. Are you a property agent by any chance?

U pay for the service worth, the 3% is justify provided the REN is capable of advising.

Don't forget the REN specialize at XX area because they have database on the transacted value in the past 10 years, so when u sell they will advise to set at certain price to get the right price.

Secondly, they have to advertise it with their own cost, be it website iproperty, mudah, property guru, physical banner etc. All this come out with their own cost.

Thirdly, the hassle of viewing, the agent has to entertain many viewers and follow up the case, imagine 20 viewers within a month, all this come with a cost.

The whole process will take at least 4-6 months to get it done, unlike rental whereby the deal can be close within a month or two. Most importantly for a seller is, whether the agent is able to sell it higher than transacted price for u.

3%? Penang Seller 1% Buyer 1%

3% reasonable la, iproperty, propertyguru, mudah, facebook, newspaper ads fee keep increasing , every year only iproperty renewal acc ady 4k-5k not yet plus the credits and feature credits and other platform like propguru also 4-5k, and every week have spend credit readvertise, and feature the ads all is money, futhermore seller usually appoint 2-3 agents if the sale not close by him all efforts he spend is zero return, sometimes feel they quite pity

This post has been edited by versace3325: Dec 3 2023, 03:46 PM

Deal directly with developer's agent. Property agents will promise you the stars but deliver to you the sucks

3% are the maxed they can charge. Find other agency that can lower it to 2%

Report that agent! No such thing on charging Buyer agent fees.