Illegal agents rising? Blame all please.

Reported in propertyguru.com.my today, according to the The Board of Valuers, Appraisers and Estate Agents Malaysia (BOVAEA), the number of cases due to illegal real estate brokers are increasing and it will continue to increase if there are no solutions forthcoming. The Board said that it will work with the relevant government agencies to trace and bring these illegal ones to justice. The number quoted was 50,000 within Malaysia alone. These unscrupulous illegal ‘brokers’ are cheating the public with various methods.
For example, a certified negotiator recently learnt that his photograph was printed on name cards with different companies and distributed to unsuspecting shop lot owners who were duped into paying sales and rental deposits.
Actually, there are no quick fixes to a problem when there has been insufficient attention and enforcement for the past many years. There are many of these illegal brokers who have been helping buyers secure units from sellers because they happen to stay in the area. They just did not want to be tied to any agency. Perhaps they know they are wrong, perhaps they pretend they do not know but if all the 50,000 illegal agents are all cheaters, the number of cases cannot be so low today. It should be filling up newspaper articles everyday and the public would already know that they are really stupid to still trust these ‘cheaters.’ This has not yet happened because the illegal brokers feel that they would not be caught and truth is, not many have been caught thus far.
As for the homeowners who engages them, can we blame them squarely? I have many friends who complained to me about the lazy real estate negotiators. Some would not pick up phones before 10am everyday and some would only allow viewing at a time most convenient to them instead of the potential buyers. There are definitely also those who are attached to a licensed agency but they too took deposits and ran away. Besides, if I am a homeowner and I wanted to sell my property the first one who connects me to some potential buyers would be the one whom I trust the most. It may not even occur to me that I should resist these illegal brokers and use the licensed ones instead.
Personally, I would use only licensed real estate negotiators. I have a few trusted ones. However, unless the issues above are solved, these cases would continue to increase, as predicted by BOVAEA. Seriously, it’s time to catch a few and publish to the world if we are serious in making Malaysia as regulated as Singapore or even Hong Kong. There, anyone looking to sell or rent knows that they should look for real estate negotiators. Of course, not every single one but it’s definitely much more regulated. Are we ready to start?
written on 14 July 2015
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