Real estate agents may be viewed as a popular career that attracts many people to try and learn. Also, it can offer a new experience of earning money either independently or in a full-time job due to the “belief” in the story that has already become a myth. For example, doing without investment. You don’t have to stock the products but you can sell them and you will get 3% of commission. You also have a flexible timetable and have plenty of time to do additional work as a second career. You only sell three – four units and then you can set yourself free from a full- time job and new technology nowadays makes it easier to sell. You just stay at home, copy files from the internet to continue posting, wait for customers to contact, period. There is plenty of stock ready to sell. can be sold, etc.

If we go back to 10 years ago, such a story might not be exaggerated.  At that time, it was the time when the Thai real estate market, especially the City Condo group, was in a new peak period. As a result, many development agents were born. They were to create a trend to pump up the price for the resale condo market under its own brand to buy and sell to make profits in the short term and use the profit that has been bought repeatedly to extend the Customer LifeTime Value to other new projects endlessly.

I still remember that at that time, being a development agent’s salesperson was a career that many people wanted to do more than selling the Off Plan unit of the project.

Because the commission rate is quite high, around 3%. Basically, if they can , it can be 30,000 baht, even if it is a company’s income, the salesperson has to earn money both from salary and the commission, about 10 – 30% of the total commissions entered by the company. (Three thousand baht per million), which is a figure that is 3 times higher than the commission received by the project sale! Of course, the benefits would inevitably create a conflict between the project salesperson and the agent.

They secretly sell the units themselves, refuse to send consignment to resale and forward it to customers, etc. As a result, all companies have to issue a Loyalty Program package like an idiom, Scratch my back and I will scratch yours, by giving referral fees to project cells at the rate of 1,000 – 2,000 baht per million. If they can close the deal from customers sent from Stock. There are many times that the same stock has closed the deal repeatedly, up to 3-4 times. The owner and the buyer don’t have to sit and open the Listing and look on the website. They don’t waste their time on these issues. It reflects the incomparable invincibility of the developer agent market in a way that can’t be compared…but that was almost 10 years ago. How about today? Please read it in the next paragraph.

While the majority of people are in the same voice that today’s cutting-edge technology has a positive effect on the work of the agent. In terms of finding stock, finding customers, and marketing to create their own distribution channel and distribute the listing to other online channels to reach more customers. But due to our own domestic factors such as the lack of MLS (Multiple Listing Services), which is the central trading database of real estate through brokerages which facilitates the creation of real-time data and the Co-Broker Split brokerage system. No restrictions on the career of a broker, no license required and no applicable Standard Commission Fee, instead, it plays a very important role in creating huge brokerage demand among Thai people and foreigners who’d prefer to live in Thailand than finding demand from customers who want to buy or rent.

It is expected that if you count the number of brokers from both companies and all independent brokers in Thailand, there will be hundreds of thousands of people working in this occupation assessed by professional standards from the Institute of Professional Qualifications, just over three thousand. On the other hand, Singapore requires the presence of a broker with a CEA license in every real estate purchase-sale-rental transaction, with the number of brokers receiving CEA licenses reaching 30,399 in 2021.

Source: https://www.cea.gov.sg/professionals/key-statistics

Another factor that has brought developer’s agency down more than ever in the past 3-4 years is the end of the golden age of the condo resale market. In the past, it used to be very rich from the fact that there were only a few good stocks of projects or it was difficult to access. There weren’t also many investors in the pre-transfer resale market. There will be only a limited area. The number of demand is greater than the supply. There are no foreign investors and new speculators or Big Lot Investors who buy and sell in volume that can control the market price mechanism.

In addition, most developers compete to build a large number of projects to accommodate foreign demand that is likely to replace the purchasing power of Thais in the long run and support new routes for skytrain, causing a lack of purchasing power in the country. The first-hand units are still left. How will the resale be sold? Except for having a cheaper price… When this happens, the pre-transfer resale market that used to be a piece of cake for many people has turned into a devil of a job which can’t be sold.

Even though the owners of the units have reduced costs, the prices are still more expensive than the project units that are currently being sold. When you can’t sell a resale unit in hand, most people don’t want to spend extra money on a new investment. Plus, the buyer doesn’t have the money to pay a million down payment. It’s not like buying a unit in some projects that pay only thousands to move in. Plus, get various promotions for free … This situation has been looping back and forth until it has reached a critical stage for two years. From both government measures to limit purchasing power for investment and the epidemic economy, the solution for most developers agents is to take the first-hand project units and sell them. Of course, since the project cell already exists. Marketing has already been done. The website page is already accepting customers.

Why would you have to share a unit and sell it with a higher commission? Being a developer agent is even worse than a Sole Agent because the more you resell the final project unit, the more the customer database will belong to the developer who accepts the transfer anyway. An excuse for a larger and unique customer base seems to be a story that doesn’t make sense at all.

When many agents have faced with this kind of question, they (who do not have a network to sell International Overseas (which earns a higher commission), therefore, choose to accept the final offer. And there is no unit to divide the floor to be sold as Exclusive. Also, they have to pay a commission equal to the rate of the project sale where agents have to spend money on marketing and finding clients themselves.

In my point of view, it is like a time bomb waiting for the day to explode because of the income structure and it’s expenses come from agent business commissions at thirty thousand per million, not thousand per a million. In addition, according to the marketing plan, of course, to promote the first-class unit, most customers choose to contact the developer themselves or walk in to the project more. The result is a developer agent who doesn’t adapt and balance the risk, focus on the same customers of presales and resell before the transfer, no portfolio adjustments for both Stock & Inquiry, no organizational restructuring and business strategy. It’s even more difficult for them.

In terms of developers, it must be admitted that it is the time to save costs as much as possible. Sales teams were reduced and rotated as many sites as possible to match incoming leads. More cost-saving sales alternatives were implemented both in terms of selling through online channels and reducing the number of regular sales staff, using brokers who don’t charge Retaining Fee, using Referral Fee strategies, as well as creating a network of independent brokers. By taking the gap from having a group of personnel in hotel business and tourism which had to lose a lot of jobs. It seems to be a better answer than using an agent if it is measured in terms of creating awareness to a new group of clients that may not be available to general agents.

ออริจิ้น พร็อพเพอร์ตี้ ติดปีกให้กับอดีตแอร์โฮสเตทและสจ๊วตที่ได้รับผลกระทบจากสถานการณ์ COVID-19 และอยากผันตัวเองมาเป็นนักขายมืออาชีพ ร่วมเป็นส่วนหนึ่งในครอบครัวออริจิ้น ให้โอกาสตัวเองสู่อาชีพใหม่ในตำแหน่ง PROPERTY AMBASSADOR

อนันดาฯ จับมือ แอร์เอเชีย ร่วมกันสานต่อ “2ndJob 2ndChance” เพื่อก้าวผ่านวิกฤตโควิดไปด้วยกัน

What reflects a difficult time in running a business of the developer group is to focus only on the pre-sales of new projects and it should be the performance of each company itself. If we look at the infographic below, we will find out that almost all companies have a decrease in total revenue from 2019 with agents growing against the trend. Most will have a variety of business guidelines rather than focusing on selling presale units alone. Plus Property seems to be very strong in the corporate management group and received a good benefit from the heavy price reduction of the ready-to-move project from Sansiri last year (Plus Property in charge of selling both first-hand units and resale units) or Primo Realtor from Origin which earn a total income around 52 million in 2020 with a profit of 28 million baht. It is not probably from doing just Resale Transactions.

In my point of view, if an agent doesn’t classify the stock into different tiers and adjust the Commission and Selling Strategy, instead still keep watching the stuff that are easier to sell like the presale unit or resale unit before transfer, I bet you’re going down into the abyss. Because in the resale market, there must be a Movement that relies on the trend. If the first-hand unit is difficult to sell, there are many left and no cheaper price, the resale market can’t be on the spot. Customers who want a resale unit will continue doing window shopping until they find the cheapest unit online. They, finally, will meet the owner of the unit himself because the owners of those units choose to sell their unit themselves or offer to list their unit with the project salesperson.

If we talk about stock, I’m sure that many people who are agents will probably think that “Hey, it’s not that hard to find stock these days. There are people posting lists all over the world online. If you are not the owner of the unit, you can easily request a Co-Broker, both from the agent itself and in the project unit”. There is rarely anyone who restricts the stock like before because it’s hard to sell as all units are the same. Everyone is ready for all Co-Brokers because you can be confident that if there are 10 customers, there must be more than half of the Duplicate list anyway. The online world is full of duplicate stocks of many agents while a single client looks at every listing and sends an inquiry to every listing. The chances of losing a lead are even higher… but there is another type of agent business that is aiming. I saw the opportunity from the fact that Thailand has a lot of listings and many agents choose to sell only products they are good at and many people want to try to be an independent agent, the development of Topper has a lot of unit left for sale and ready to pay commissions and Thailand doesn’t have an official MLS Platform… from these reasons I would like to call this agent as a Co-Broker Platform. As far as I can tell, there are about 2 active players in the market right now: Sellorate funded by Ananda and Lifull group and Propfit funded by Sansiri. IQI, a platform from Dubai, seems to be inactive in Thailand compared to those listed  but is quite active in Malaysia at the moment.

Actually, the idea of ​​creating this Co-Broker Platform is not complicated at all. Even though it looks simple, it answers the needs of new agents who don’t want to start counting one on finding stock. The platform or the host agent doesn’t have to spend money on Non Focus Stock that has a lot of land in the database tank. Personally, I had the opportunity to initiate this project under the name Agency Alliance in 2014 but I quitted before; therefore I didn’t have an opportunity to continue working.

The main concept is to bring out the units from the stock that the company does not focus on selling at all but has plenty of stock for sale. The total value is close to one hundred billion baht! Let’s put it in the central platform for agent members with ready-made data that can be taken out and offered to customers. Usually, it must be shared 50/50 of a commission, isn’t it? Even so, it is on an Online Platform and a Subscription. The owner of the Platform doesn’t use a salesperson to close the deal but let the partner agents come and take the unit to sell comfortably. So we can pay the Co-Broker up to 100% (in other words, don’t ask for a share at all. If they can sell ​​it, they can receive 100% of the commission) but will achieve some business Objective & Goals in terms of Business Performance, Database and Customer Expectation

Both Sellorate and Propfit use this concept to adapt to their platforms. A little difference in the Operation Fee is that if they earn Propfit, they will have a 0.5% Operation Fee deduction. As for Sellorate, as far as I know, it doesn’t deduct Operation Fee. The agent who closes the deal will get a full 3 %. At the beginning, Sellorate will focus on selling mainly in the Foreign Quota section.

Regarding this, I believe that this Co-Broker Platform model should answer the trend in saving the development budget for the development team’s sales team. Because the original developer had to hire 3 to 4 salespeople per Site to turn around to receive the assignment. It may be adjusted to hire only 1 person and the rest comes from receiving jobs from independent agents who are interested in selling the project. I myself have a Database as a stock board ready to sell in hand. It also saves time for agents who don’t want to ask when they see Listing, “Can I request a unit for marketing?” or “Can we cooperate?” or “Is this the unit owner or the broker”? The classic weak point of Thai agent is that they are selective.

Because the Platform does not assign specifically which projects are the main priority, most of the leads come from project flows during that time period. If any project does not have a trend or does not have an inquiry in hand, agents also choose not to offer them to clients. Also, with the information in the Dashboard being closed where only members can see and use the data, and most of them are units that we see in the market and in the world of online listings, so many agents have decided not to market to the stock at that time because it’s not an Exclusive Stock. Anyone can sell it. It’s true that if anyone has money to do marketing, they may take that Listing to do Online Marketing to get Lead. However, don’t forget that in the sale of the project unit, it is necessary to have a Duplicate Customer check anyway and whether or not the customer will decide to buy without ever walking into the project before. Selling a Resale unit and collecting the Standard 3% commission has been a difficult task for a long time. And if the customers don’t really trust that they will get a really cheap price from the salesperson, they are always looking for the cheapest options in the online world… I think there maybe some adjustments to the Business Model and Selling Strategy for the Co-Broker Platform market. If you wonder how they can disrupt the market, I must say that there is for sure, but it depends on the user’s point of view.

Apart from the Sole Agent business, I believe that there are quite a few brokerage firms who think that selling projects in the form of Sole Agent (Exclusive sales, selling the whole project, whether online or onsite) is the best way to generate sustainable income. Because the company itself will receive both a retaining fee, which is the cost of having a salesperson stationed at the site and Marketing consulting fee. This includes the commission from every unit sold during the specified period. Altogether, they have the right to collect ten millions of commissions per project. In addition, the agent also collects Lead from customers who walk in the project; some people who do not buy it may use it to Utilize the customer base in Cross Selling across projects in the future or keep stock for sale – rent to be marketed later. In the past, the Sole Agent market was often dominated by big agents with a large network of clients, such as CBRE, Nexus, Knight Frank Plus, etc., but the limitations of selling is that it often occurs among newly launched projects or a new company that do not have a customer based and sufficient marketing and sales resources. It seems to extend time for the developer team to have the number of sales and be able to prepare teams while the building is under construction. There are very few Sole Agents that are difficult to drag until the building is closed.

At the same time, for a ready-to-move project with less than 20 units left for sale, choosing a sole agent might not be as cost-effective as selling it but there are still some agents who consider it even a post-transfer project. It’s meaningful to sit under a building because the agent can also sit and accept customers to buy or rent and consign or rent and collect the data from the customer. It sounds good until many agents choose to withdraw because they have to pay for the rental fees that have to be paid at the rate of tens of thousands baht per site to hundreds of thousands baht per month. It doesn’t include any other commission share because thinking about the calculations and then fighting to find a way to penetrate the stock by other methods is still much cheaper … but such logic may not work for agents that many people may not expect to jump into the business circle. Sole agents, such as Kaidee Property by DF Marketplace Company Limited, have always been known to do business on the Online Marketplace Platform for a long time. Before being traded and transferring last year. In recent times, Kaidee has set up a specific business unit to take care of the Listing Portal in the category of High Involvement Product such as cars and real estate to be able to generate more revenue than before. But no one has ever thought that he would move into one of the players in the Sole Agent market.

It’s true that the Sole Agent business has a market that newcomers are hard to beat, but Kaidee Property has been using a strategy of losing their benefit according to the business style of E-Commerce by setting up a sales team to sit and sell for free. It also helps to pay for marketing. It will only receive a commission. It is different from the other Sole Agents who want to sit and sell. The developer will have to pay for the team sales site and be accompanied by many other conditions. Many projects are allowed to sit and sell, whether it’s a Sole Agent or Co Agent because the project owner has nothing to lose. Actually, it’s not uncommon for a Real Estate Online Web Portal to become an agent because previous players like Hipflat or Fazwaz all did it. However, that’s just the presentation of the resale unit, not in the form of a sole agent. We have to follow up again later whether Kaidee Property will be in the right spot or not. At this moment, finding stock is not difficult at all. Even though there is an overflow of stock, it’s hard to sell anyway if there are no customers who want to buy.

When the whole market is even worse, what kind of agent are people looking for?

Of course, from the point of view of the stock owner, the first thing they are concerned about is the ability to sell. In the past, in order to make the agents sell their products, it had to come at a cost which sometimes is not practical for both the owner himself and in terms of reducing the price to the lowest closing contract. The agent itself still receives a normal commission rate. In fact, what you can give and sell doesn’t always depend on the price. It is true that there are many window shopping buyers in the market. The agent who has a good sale and there are customers who use their services repeatedly, mostly, they don’t think that the customers who drive a hard bargain isn’t the right customer. How much time do you have to spend each day to press the owner’s price in each unit to get the lowest price? However, once you do it, you lose that customer to someone else anyway. Because  customers will choose agents that offer cheap products mainly but their attitude toward the business is to try to create value for their assets and to be able to create the opportunity as much as possible.

These agents usually don’t have a lot of stock on hand but take care thoroughly and regularly. In most cases, there are only active holdings of not more than 50 Listings and will focus only on the same area mainly. There is a Sales Center that acts as a center for real estate information in that area. This is to demonstrate expertise in this area, to be able to organize networking events and to be ready to open the unit in Same Day style where profiles of customers who are interested in buying and not successful in each case will be recorded; or rental customers that are likely to buy according to how they like the project style, what their budget is and what the point of their fascination is. In order to bring the project in the stock that has been deceived to match in the future and not to throw it away easily, or at least, just send Bulk SMS when there is a promotion, which is not personalized marketing at all.

There are many ways to create value in stock, such as, improving the customer page to make it look fresh, responding to market trends and the preferences of each visiting customer, creating Value Content and stock to stand out from other stocks available. Online World Optimize Commission Scheme to meet Owner’s needs to make sales or even invest to buy a new Renovate to increase the selling price higher than the market price in the case of old stock and very low price. Agents, on the other hand, have to look for ways to earn income beyond commissions. Whether it is from applying for a Franchise membership, organizing seminars, decorating, renovating, relocating, and managing rental units. Recently, I had the opportunity to get to know a franchise agent from Japan. It’s called HouseDo.

According to the business of HouseDo, at first glance, is quite a response to homeowners who want to sell houses in this era because of positioning themselves as a Real Estate Buying Center. Due to the company’s business model, they are not only an agent that accepts for-sale-rent but also have a strategy to buy a house right away without having to wait for the house to be sold at any time. However, the purchase price of this item will be around 60-70% of the market price, which is a bit higher than the sale price. Then the company will take it to renovate and release it in the market. The release price after Renovate will be calculated to be a little lower than the market, about 10%, in order to have more opportunities to sell.

This is a comparison to see that there are more people in Japan who want to sell directly than through an agent. Especially last year, it’s the beginning of covids. There are more than before. Japanese people are an aging society like Thailand. There is a need to sell more than buy. But I think it’s different in Japan because of the land’s tax , including inheritance tax. Japan is much more brutal than Thailand. Japanese people in their old age think that selling out is the best way. Even if they have children, their children do not want to pay large taxes.

At this point, many people are probably wondering why would they apply for a franchise when the model is important, isn’t it? People who come to Franchisee must have a lot of capital. To make a profit, it will have to wait for the project to be sold. I must say that it’s not right at all because the company divides the form of partnership into 2 types; Franchise, which has to pay Brand Loyalty Fee and members to access the system on a monthly basis and a partner that will come to buy in a way that divides the investment into buying the project to renovate and sell it. (Basically, they want to find someone to pay money.)

Franchisees that do not invest with them have the advantage of being able to earn up to rewards two times; the first from receiving stock (if the company buys, it will receive a commission), the second time will be obtained only if the stock is renovated and the Franchisee can be sold. While the co-buying partner will receive a profit in proportion to the money invested, it will be approximately 20% of the property price.

It sounds good and it meets the needs of people who want to sell products in this difficult economic era. But the thing that needed to be concerned is;

– The purchase price is quite the same as the selling price. On the other hand, the landlord can also carry out transactions such as renting while selling under the contract period. and can also be redeemed and if our house is not too bad Reducing the price in order to sell it doesn’t have to be as much as 60% of the market price. A 30% reduction is already a chance to sell more than others.

– According to renovated stock, it’s not sure if the proportion of cost to renovate is determined or not. In order to sell at what price, because if Renovate comes out, the cost that has been incurred is more expensive than other consignment stocks, there is no chance to sell

– How much does the parent company in Japan set a budget for the initial purchase? Or is it that the buying model now depends solely on the partner?

– If it is a joint investment, who will be the name of the owner of the title deed specified in the title deed?

– Is HouseDo’s entire stock exclusive to the Franchisee? If it’s not, there is no advantage over other agents at all.

HouseDo aims to expand Franchise branches to 500 branches throughout Thailand, but there is no details of the conditions for expanding the branches whether it is necessary to be in the form of a physical shop like a convenience store or not, because Nature in trading Thai real estate is quite different from Japan. If there is a need to build a storefront like Japan, it may not be practical for some Franchisees.

Of course, all of the above questions I have already asked the HouseDo team, but have not received any answers yet. Hopefully, the company has a chance to read this article and help explain to clear up some doubts for me … Before we go, I want everyone related to this field, especially those in the agency industry to help us. Let’s share some ideas on how we can add value to our stock. How difficult is it to work during this period? How can we solve the problem? Before many people are discouraged, prepare to think about doing something else.