Property Agents In Singapore Face Tougher Rules As CEA Raises Industry Standards — With DIY Home Listings Also Under Study

The real estate agent industry just had its biggest regulatory update in years, with the Council for Estate Agencies (CEA) – the statutory board regulating property agents and agencies – confirming three major changes. A broader package of other changes are currently being studied as well.

The latest changes and proposals under review were announced by Sun Xueling, Senior Minister of State for National Development and Senior Minister of State for Transport, at the Singapore Institute of Estate Agents (SIEA) Conference on July 28.

Underpinning these changes are the government’s three key objectives for the real estate agency industry, namely: raising professional standards, enhancing transparency, and giving consumers greater clarity and choice, according to Sun.

Here’s what we know about the changes so far:

Three Confirmed Upcoming Changes Impacting Property Agents

1. Property agent registrations will now last three years instead of one year

From 1st January 2027, property agency licences and property agent registrations will be valid for three years. At present, the license requires annual renewal. This move is part of pro-enterprise measures being rolled out by the Ministry of National Development (MND) and CEA, says Sun.

This move is expected to reduce administrative demand for multiple industry players, from estate agencies to the individual agents. However, annual registration fees will remain unchanged, but the application fee will be payable once every three years instead of annually.

For existing agents who are set to renew their license at the end of 2026, the first three-year registration cycle will run from 1 January 2027 to 31 December 2029.

This adjustment to a three-year license doesn’t mean standards will be easier for property agents – as we can see in the next headline change.

2. Agents must remain active or pass a refresher examination

The move to a three-year registration cycle will be accompanied by a new Currency Requirement. This means that in order to renew their registrations, agents must either:

• Complete at least three qualifying property transactions over three years; or
• Pass a refresher examination.

“Consumers should be able to trust that their property agent’s advice reflects the latest rules and regulations,” says Sun. She adds that while the majority of property agents already uphold these standards, CEA has received feedback regarding the currency of market knowledge of property agents who have not transacted a deal over extended periods.

Eugene Lim, President of SIEA and who is also the Key Executive Officer of ERA Singapore, points out that the minimum of three transactions over three years works out to an average of one transaction a year. “For someone who intends to remain actively engaged in the profession, that is a reasonable baseline,” he says.

This adjustment to the license and registration periods is in line with CEA’s consumer research, which found that three in four consumers expect their agent to complete at least one transaction each year, according to CEA’s 2024 Public Perception Survey. Around 40% of registered agents do not close at least one deal per year.

Qualifying transactions will include HDB resale and rental transactions, private residential sales and rentals, commercial and industrial transactions, overseas property sales, and collective sales.

New agents will receive some flexibility. Since these rookies usually need more time to build up their client base, first-year agents will not be required to complete any transactions during their first year. Instead, they will need to complete two qualifying transactions over Years Two and Three, or pass the refresher exam again.

Lim also points out that transaction counts do not always tell the entire story. “Some agents may be taking a career break or practising on a limited basis because of family or other commitments. Some agents simply specialise in market segments with longer transaction cycles and therefore take a longer time to close one transaction,” he says.

As a result, agents who are unable to satisfy the Currency Requirement – and subsequently leave the industry – may need to retake the Real Estate Salesperson (RES) exam if they want to return as a licensed property agent.

3. CEA will collect commission data

Finally, CEA will begin collecting commission data from property agencies. The intention is to eventually publish aggregated and anonymised industry-level information, to give prospective agents a realistic understanding of what a career as a real estate agent looks like.

This data-collection is not intended to disclose individual agents’ earnings, stressed Sun. Instead, CEA will study the data before publishing anonymised, industry-level statistics.

While details are still forthcoming, the move could provide greater visibility into typical earnings among property agents.

Longer-term reforms under study

Beyond the three confirmed changes, Sun shared that there are a series of proposals that the government is still studying and are unconfirmed.

The Possibility of Mandatory Estate Agency Agreements Before Work

CEA is studying whether property agents and their clients should be required to sign an Estate Agency Agreement, before work begins. The agreement would also require agents to disclose upfront who will be paying the commission, and how much.

“A signed agreement will give greater clarity to all parties and prevent downstream disputes,” says Sun, adding that the proposal would also protect agents, by reducing situations where they complete substantial work only to encounter disputes over commissions later.

This will also address an old bugbear in the real estate industry: agents who introduce a buyer, fail to close the deal, but find a deal was closed with the same buyer later – possibly by another agent or directly with the seller. 

This also seems like an appropriate time for such arrangements, as some agents now engage in much more elaborate work than in previous decades. One example would be staging homes for video tours, and paying for online content distribution out of pocket.

A safe listing-verification platform

CEA announced that it will launch a full-scale platform next year, to verify the authenticity of online property listings. The initiative builds on the earlier Alliance for Action on Accurate Property Listings.

According to Sun, the platform is intended to address “inaccurate, fake, duplicated, as well as unauthorized property listings”.

We don’t know much else for now, but the government says that implementation details will be announced closer to the launch of this platform.

Survey of Realtors Regarding Their Agencies

CEA plans to conduct a survey of property agents regarding their experiences with their agencies. The Senior Minister of State encouraged agents to provide candid feedback, saying that the survey would help CEA better understand how property agencies operate. It will also identify areas for future improvements.

HDB’s Resale Flat Listing service could become the default

Another proposal under study is whether HDB’s Resale Flat Listing (RFL) service should become the default listing platform for HDB resale flats. Since its launch in May 2024, over 12,500 verified listings have been on the platform, with over 60% transacting successfully.

However, Sun emphasised that the proposal is still not intended to replace commercial property portals. Property agents and sellers will still be able to continue advertising on the usual private platforms.

HDB is gathering feedback from buyers, sellers and agents before deciding on the next phase of changes.

From our perspective, it seems to suggest that HDB wants oversight and control over parts of the resale process for the sale of public housing. It would be coherent with the concern HDB has displayed in recent years, regarding the public perception of million-dollar flats.

Owners may eventually be allowed to advertise directly

CEA is also studying whether homeowners should be allowed to list their own properties directly on commercial property portals, without engaging a property agent.

Perhaps with the implementation of a verified listings system, this might be more possible. As of now however, most major portals don’t allow this as it increases the number of potentially fake or distorted listings.

The last time owners were able to directly list their properties for sale on public listing platforms, it gave rise to improper and rude cases, the nudity incident being just one among many.

Clients may be able to rate their property agents

Another proposal being explored is a verified review system that could allow clients to rate their property agents.

Although the details of this have yet to be announced, this could be something of a double-edged sword, since the most popular agents are not necessarily the best. As most realtors can tell you, it can be very easy to appear cooperative and helpful if you just confirm a client’s biases. Agents who provide real insights, contrary to their clients’ prejudices, can sometimes suffer unfairly for it.

Perhaps the most interesting takeaway from the announcements is what they say about the future role of property agents.

Several of the proposals seem geared towards providing consumers with more options to sell their property. Homeowners may eventually be able to advertise their own homes directly, and buyers could have access to better verified listings.

Yet none of these proposals suggest that property agents are becoming less relevant. In fact they’re almost an acceptance of the opposite: we need agents to remain active and accountable because they’re still necessary for most.

The changes reflect the main cause of information asymmetry: Property has one of the longest feedback loops of any financial decision. When you buy or sell, you don’t know immediately whether you’ve made the right choice. It can take months or years before you discover that you bought the wrong project.

Lim of ERA says that for property agencies, headcount alone does not tell the full story.

“What matters is whether our agents are actively participating in the market, continuing to build their capabilities and contributing to the strength of the organisation. The three-year window (for property agent registrations) gives us sufficient time to identify different levels of engagement across our network and respond accordingly,” he says.

Likewise, he echoes that the profession itself has become increasingly demanding, adding: “consumers are better informed, competition is intense, and salespersons are expected to provide advice across financing, regulations and market conditions”.

Ultimately – unless you’re a very seasoned investor – you need the insights from people who are handling multiple transactions every year; and that’s the whole reason for the emphasis on currency.

We will likely see some attrition among agents who have retained their registration but are no longer meaningfully active in the industry. But the latest changes will shift the focus away from agency headcount towards the productivity of individual agents.