Is HDB’s New Resale Flat Listing Service Really Going To Help Homeowners Sell Their HDB?

With the addition of the Resale Flat Listing (RFL) service, the HDB has enhanced their Flat Portal to allow Singaporeans to list their own flat directly for sale. On the surface, this sounds like a great thing, as property portals like PropertyGuru and 99.co only allow property agents to list.

This was precisely the reason why we initially started Stacked as a buy/sell direct portal, as there really wasn’t a place for genuine sellers to list their homes for sale. And for sure, skipping the property agent sounds great as you’ll save on commissions. However, as we quickly learned, it isn’t just about creating a place to list your home, as there’s still a lot more work that has to be done for it to be a viable place for homeowners.

Here’s why the HDB flat portal may face adoption issues, if more work isn’t done beyond the initial launch:

What’s the HDB flat portal?

It’s a tool for those who want to list their homes directly for sale. Or in some cases, a DIY approach to selling or buying their own resale flats. Starting from 13th May this year, sellers can list their flats for sale (for free) on the website.

By transacting directly with their buyer, a seller could shave off property agent commissions, which is often (but not always) two per cent of the sale price. To be clear, this isn’t exactly about cutting out the property agent here, as an agent can still manage the transaction and listing for you – but signs are pointing that this seems to be the eventual outcome.

As it so happens, we’re one of the many people who have also tried building a direct seller property portal; and it’s a bit surprising that this isn’t a straight-up, must-register site for all the resale flats (although it may probably be at some point). Here are some of the issues we anticipate:

1. It’s not a one-stop site with all the listings

When we set out to create our own portal, we always knew it was about getting the listings. Buyers are inherently lazy, and they would rather just go to the one portal to see everything than have to visit many smaller sites to find their homes.

To make the HDB resale portal the go-to site, it really should be required for all the resale flat listings to be on here. Perhaps not in the same way, or to the same level of detail, as other portal sites – but this should still be a one-stop site where all the resale flat listings can be seen first. 

If a buyer has to visit other portals to scout for flats, and also the official HDB resale portal, there’s a chance they won’t use two sites. Many will just flock to the biggest portal site which has most of the resale flat listings, instead of going to multiple smaller platforms that have fewer options.

Imagine this from a buyer’s perspective. Visiting the portal for the first time throws up a few hundred listings while visiting the biggest still has thousands. Which would you bother visiting after a while?

If HDB makes its portal mandatory – which means it’s one site with all the available resale listings – this would simplify the search for prospective buyers. Bear in mind, this doesn’t mean that that’s the end game, it would still require for the majority of the buyers to be there, before everyone bothers to invest the time to list and maintain them. There’s also the “small” question of the SEO game, as it may not be top of mind always for buyers to visit a portal – many resort to searching on Google to see what comes up. If the HDB flat portal doesn’t take the first spot for most searches, that would still be a tough one to fight.

2. Who gets priority of place for listings?

One of the reasons portals make money is that users pay for awareness/views. If you want to sell more urgently, have your listing more prominent, etc. then your property agent needs to pay more, to refresh or boost the listing. Otherwise, subsequent listings will just pile on and obscure yours.

Since the HDB portal isn’t out to make money though (or currently charge), how does priority of place work? If the listings just accumulate, one on top of the other, then can anyone game the system by removing and re-listing their unit (thus also making the listing seem newer)? 

This also matters for sellers who are more urgent to sell, how would they be able to showcase their listings more to prospective buyers?

3. Buyers who lowball you due to your lower perceived costs

One issue with DIY sellers is that, quite often, more seasoned property buyers are quick to lowball you. There’s a tendency to assume that, because you’re “saving” on paying the agent’s commissions, you’re prepared to accept an accordingly lower price. 

In some cases, sellers who don’t have the aid of professionals are given the wrong sense of value. We’ve met sellers who felt they should price lower, after being shown cheaper nearby listings by prospective buyers – comparisons that ignore key details such as which floor the units are on, or maintenance/renovation issues. 

4. Whenever a government body is involved, users expect them to arbitrate and perfectly control everything

Remember the DBSS flats and the ensuing problems? DBSS flats weren’t built by HDB, but many buyers immediately took to blaming HDB anyway, and demanding they fix the developments anyway. As far as they were concerned, they associated HDB with the end product.

We could see the same thing happening with the official HDB flat portal. There’s going to be assumptions that nothing will go wrong, because HDB is overseeing the entire process – and if a transaction goes wrong, regardless of HDB’s noninvolvement, some users are going to blame the organisation. 

As we’ve seen with the property portals, once there is competition for eyeballs, users will do anything to get ahead. While there will probably be more strict policing on using price to stand out, there has to be a lot more filtering on the front of misleading photos, and untrue information.

There’s a Singaporean tendency to lump everything flat-related on the back of HDB, and a bad portal transaction is going to be no different. There may have to be a message that the site is only an intermediary and that anything that goes wrong between buyers and sellers is their own issue. That also means users need to keep their eyes open, and assume that HDB will come running if they get a bad deal. 

One final issue is with DIY transactions, regardless of the portal being used

That’s the issue of filtering inquiries. If you’ve never sold a property before, you may be shocked at how much work is involved with filtering out serious inquiries, from just time wasters.

You could get as many as 40 to 50 phone calls or messages a week asking about the property, of which about 10 (or less) may be actual inquiries. The rest are often other sellers trying to scout out the competition, or people who think they can talk you into an outrageously low price, without announcing it at the start.

There’s also the element of taking the time to schedule appointments, as invariably people would want to view after working hours and all day during weekends/public holidays.

By far the worst are the fake prospects who insist on viewing the property, even if they’re really just nosy people looking to sell or rent their own unit. This can lead to further disruptions in your work schedules or weekends.

Ultimately, what pays property agents their commissions is not just putting your property on a website, but on dealing with all the nonsense and inconvenience of viewings, inquiries, timeline planning to move, etc. It’s definitely nice that we have the option to cut out the property agent and a proper place to list your home, but from experience, this still has some way to go before becoming truly useful.