Search the Community

Hi, Thought this was the right forum for this rant, but let me know if it is not. I have been browsing property websites to get a sense of the market and trends for landed properties, but have been having issues with popular ones like propertyguru, 99.co etc. The primary problems are 1) poor data verification - try searching for landed property in any district, then apply filters to EXCLUDE 99 year old leashold and Cluster House properties. Despite this, most of the listings are Cluster Houses, and you have to drill into each listing to find out from the description whether you are looking at a cluster house, and whether it is freehold. It would not be so bad if each property was not listed multiple times, which leads me to.. 2) Repeated listings for the same property. I understand it is a competitive market, and in some cases agents even publish listings where they do not have interior pictures or perhaps might not have the permission of the owner. However, I'm pointing to a far more malicious practice of one agency publishing multiple listings of the exact same property, maybe each with a slightly different price point, to drown out the listings of other agents. When you contact an agent for one of these listings, you are invariably referred to the agent actually responsible for the property. What this does, of course, is make the poor user of the website give up reading listings after seeing the 8th or 9th listing for the same unit. I've even seen the same agent post multiple listings of the same property, presumably, again to 'improve' their search results. With regards to the issue of duplicate postings, I have shopped in the US market before, where properties are consolidated to a common MLS (Multiple Listings Service) database, which serves to clearly establish listings where agents are marketing with owner permission, and allow agents to share information on commission structures etc. A system of this type will go a long way to solve the duplicate listings issue. I'm sure others will point out more issues. Nobody wants to go back to the old days of poring through newspaper ads, but the websites are close to unusable in their current form. The first property portal to crack these undesirable practices will surely attract more customers and ensure longevity.