MORE than 70 per cent of real estate agents in Singapore have signed up for a programme that vouches for their credibility.
The Central Registration Scheme (CRS), officially launched yesterday by the Institute of Estate Agents (IEA), aims to check the increasing number of rogue agents here.
The Consumers Association of Singapore (Case) received 672 complaints last year, up from 469 in 2004 and 447 the year before.
Although registration for the CRS is not compulsory, 32 agencies, with 14,000 agents in all, have signed up.
The IEA estimates that there are some 20,000 agents in Singapore.
'We are aiming for the 80 or 90 per cent mark, and hopefully the people who haven't joined will feel the pressure to do so,' said IEA vice-president Mohd Ismail.
'We hope to show the relevant authorities that this is a platform good enough for consumers, and make registration compulsory.'
He was referring to the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore, which hands out licences to real estate and brokerage businesses.
Under the CRS, licensed agencies will enter their employees' names into an online database. Home buyers and sellers can visit www.iea. org.sg to check, for free, if their agent is from the agency he claims to represent.
By keying in a registered agent's name, users can see his full name, agency and the last four digits of his NRIC number.
For housing agencies, there will be an additional field: employment history. They can check if a would-be employee has a bad record with his previous employer.
The online register also deals with the problem of 'double agents'.
These are people who use the reputation of their employers - usually large, established agencies - to attract clients, but close the deal under a smaller company's name, where the commission is higher. Now, the system sends out an alert when an agent is found to be registered under two companies.
Mr Albert Lu, managing director of the 1,000-agent C&H Realty, said the company had found four such offenders in the past two years.
'Hopefully this system will help us weed out all these rogue agents,' he said.
Case welcomed the scheme, lauding it as 'a step forward'. But Case president Yeo Guat Kwang is concerned that 'it might be a problem for those aunties and uncles who are not so educated to check the website'.
IEA said that within the next month, it will put up advertisements on buses and in newspapers, as well as organise a public forum to inform the public of its services.
