Have you read this week’s property news about sales of JadeScape on the first weekend?
It is interesting to see an unanimous celebratory mood in the headlines and content across similar articles in The Straits Times, Business Times, The New Paper, PropertyGuru, iProperty, EdgeProp and Yahoo News.
Strong sales, encouraging results, market confidence and new benchmark are positive words shared by the journalists and property agencies.
It is not surprising to see all the print media under SPH coming up with indistinguishable news stories for convenience. But the online media also reach a consensus to show the developer that their advertising dollars spent on them over the past few weeks is worth it.
What a peculiar media scene in this Little Red Dot!
The hard truth shows a different picture
The truth is: Qingjian Realty only sold 330 units out of a total of 1,206 in the new project.
Isn’t it confusing for the readers with the overly-upbeat tone in the articles which are contradictory to the disappointing result?
1) Strong first weekend sales?
Is 27 percent (330 out of 1,206) of units sold on the first launch weekend considered as strong sales?
What about new projects launched in the past few months that were easily 70 to 80 percent sold on the first weekend?
What about Hundred Palms Residences, The Hillford, Alexandra Central and J Gateway that were all fully sold out on the first day?
Wow, they must be overachievers.
Wait, have they lowered the standard from 100 percent to 30 percent? Then JadeScape’s result of 27 percent sold should quite encouraging, right?
2) Where have all the cheques gone?
The EdgeProp article mentioned that, “over the past two weeks, more than 800 cheques were received as expressions of interest, which means a conversion rate of 41.5%.”
What a novel and interesting concept of balloting! In fact, JadeScape has given a completely new meaning to the word “balloting”.
We have the activity of balloting because there is overwhelming demand over limited supply. So we draw lots to ensure everybody has an equal chance of getting it.
Take the example of J Gateway. On 28 June 2013, eager buyers submitted a total of 1,400 blank cheques to their property agent for the balloting of 738 units.
But over the last weekend, a total of 800 cheques were collected to ballot for 1,206 units, out of which 330 units were sold at the end.
Why did we still have to ballot if there are only 800 buyers of 1,206 units?
Why was the “conversion rate” not 100 percent but 41.5 percent? Does that mean 58.5 percent of buyers decided to back out after passing their cheque to the property agents?
3) Why we need so many to sell?
Another innovative way of marketing JadeScape is the opening of the project to marketing by five property agencies, including ERA, Huttons, PropNex, Savills and SLP International. (To be honest, after all the mergers, how many large property agencies are left in Singapore?)
This is an unusual practice since most new launch projects are either marketed by an exclusive property agency or at most two to three to protect the interest (and commission) of the property agents.
By opening the project to the five largest agencies, it can’t help giving the market the impression that the developer is desperate to reach the limited pool of buyers in the current market.
Similarly, the property agents of the five agencies are exposed to the highest level of competition because almost any property agent can bring their customer to the sales gallery.
Do agents have to be so desperate if they really believe in the strong buyer confidence and market resilience claimed by their companies’ spokespersons?
4) How many are actual buyers?
Two weeks ago, another article from EdgeProp said JadeScape drew a crowd of 9,000 people to its sales gallery on the preview weekend on September 8 and 9.
Why did the project only manage to move 330 units out of the 9,000 who turned up at the preview? Were there 8,670 property agents visiting the showflat the other day?
I don’t know whether Qingjian Realty is a good developer or not. But it is definitely the most generous one to spend a whopping six million dollars on Singapore’s biggest two-storey showflat, with 2,000 sq ft space to host the big party for 8,670 property agents.
Rather than treating readers like fools, is it a problem for the media and industry stakeholders to say the truth, and admit that sales has slowed down after the introduction of new cooling measures?
It is far more convincing to explain that there are far less property investors and speculators in the market now. But these days buyers are all genuine home seekers who have the real need and financial means to own a reasonably-priced condo unit in a good neighborhood.
Afterall, what is the point of the REDAS President telling the public that the Singapore property market is facing many challenges, hoping that the government can take it easy on cooling measures; when the media keep faking successes with new launch results and property data interpretations on the other side?
How to read property news from the media
When we put our savings into a home or an investment, be it local or overseas, we expect prices to go up and worth more in the future.
Why is the outcome often the opposite?
It is because too many home buyers and property investors took the misleading property news and advice from their property agents or so-called industry experts, made a bad decision and got burnt.
What people fail to realize is that these industry stakeholders have vested interests. They are paid to say what they say. They don’t stand behind their words and we can’t hold them responsible for anything.
These people only care about their business, their sales, their job, their pay and their commission. They don’t care whether we lose money or not.
If the industry stakeholders don’t care about our well-being, why do we care what they say?
I am a fan of Japanese blogger and writer Chikirin who has 70 million followers in Japan.
In a new book “Don’t use your brain the wrong way again: Japanese famous blogger Chikirin’s 11 principles of thinking” (别再用错你的脑 : 日本超人气部落客Chikirin的思考11法则), Chikirin shares how we can avoid being misled by the wrong parties.
“Think about the issue first, before reading the comments from the so-called experts in the media, or listening to other peoples’ opinions.”
For example, there is an article in Monday’s Straits Times titled “JadeScape sees strong sales on launch weekend”. Before you read the content, ask yourself the following questions first:
1) What do I expect the sales of JadeScape on the first weekend?
2) What are the logical consequences of the new cooling measures in the new sale market?
3) Why the headline of the property news article says the opposite? Do I agree with it?
4) What kind of comments do I expect from the “experts”? Do I agree with them? In which ways are they vested in this matter?
If you think before you read the property news articles, you can train yourself to think independently and practise using your individual judgement.
Above all, you can avoid believing in fake news, biased comments or illogical conclusions, and repeating them like parrots to the others later.
You are getting more enemies (from agts especially) by the day but at the same time u get genuine friends who knows you tell the truth.
Enjoy reading your post. Thanks
God bless
Thanks. Only the bad ones are upset. My property agent is a good friend of mine.
In any case, I hope I can afford a better class of enemies.
Hi,
you have really summaries my sentiments very well. Ask any school kid, if they only achieved 20 to 30% In their exams, can they consider their results as ‘strong’ or ‘encouraging’ ? Most would consider this bad or flop.
These days, even after balloting and lengthy show/ performance, still only achieve F9 grade! and yet media used words like ‘strong’. ‘Decent’ ‘encuraging’to perhaps encourage Developers to pour more advertising dollars to become more strong and decent. It is like a tuition centre trying to convince parents to continue with the tuition even though the child has been consistently scoring F9s! ‘
‘F9 is strong and encouraging and decent result because …..’
One agent blogger even admitted ‘who cares what people say all agents are the same, at the end, it is money in my pocket’ so who’s putting money in their pockets?
They can’t play this game for too long. Numbers speak louder than words. Sooner or later everyone can see the truth. In the meantime, the public is forced to watch a lousy show that keeps repeating itself.
remember news said the developer only alunched around 400 units ?
That’s a gimmick and face-saving way of saying so. They also know sales won’t go beyond 400. In this market, developers are more than happy to see their units sold out on first launch than waiting for a better time to relaunch again.
When a student only scored 25 marks explains that he only attempted 35 out of 100 questions due to reasons xxxx and scored 25 percent, do you accept?
Any development would want to sellout 100% on the first day, that’s why balloting is carried out. Not putting up a show, balloting, queue etc and only sold 25%, then try to explain only limited unit launch ( like only have limited time to attempt some but not all questions, then the student still deserves to be considered a failure because of poor time management )
Good analogy. Totally agree with you. It is just an excuse of the developer to make themselves look good. But it just doesn’t make sense when you think over it.
Dont forget SPH also has investments in property development. They bought that super expensive land at Woodleigh.
Anyway. Thank you for all the objective and insightful posts over the years.
Sigh. Please give us a good reason to believe what the media said.
Thanks. The pleasure is all mine.
Some people do not think through or do proper research before their purchases.
Looking at the monthly implied returned units in square feet.com teaches one to think through and plan carefully in order NOT to join the list of those forfeiting 1.25% for nothing…money and time and effort down the drain.
Just spoke to one agent who shared that rental market is still very bad and those who unwittingly bought at high price and unable to pay their mortgage are now STUCK between losing money holding on (rent cannot cover mortgages and expense) and selling at a loss (as they bought at a high price).
Gained much from reading your blog and watching your videos on YouTube. New fan!
Welcome to the Property Soul blog and youtube channel! I am glad you enjoy the posts and videos.
Hi there. It has been a while and as they said in baseball, we are in the final innings of the game. I checked out the addresses of the purchasers of JadeScape from the Square Foot website. Though they only revealed the latest 15 entries, all of the purchasers’ addresses had one thing in common i.e. “N.A”. While it can mean other things like the purchasers do not have houses yet or they are from the moon, it can also be that the purchasers are likely foreigners. Maybe from the Middle Kingdom perhaps? In keeping up with the spirit of not spreading fake news, I quantified myself and state that all the above are just pure speculation on my part. Readers should do their own research and draw their own conclusions after they verify the sources. By the way, Powell had just raised interest rates recently… there may be one more coming up this December and three more slated next year. I have also checked my own indicator and it is at a high… the last time the index was this high consistently was in 2005. Pure speculation again folks, dyodd and have a great weekend.
Yes, I also have to refer to squarefoot.com.sg to check the number of returned units for new launch condos. Not because I am very free. But the developer may say they sold 330 units when first launch.. Then the next month squarefoot shows there are 33 returned units in the project. I will immediately receive an email from a sensitive reader asking me what the xxxx is going on.
Last time I was told that it is because of developers’ innovative Deferred Payment Scheme. So buyers who signed up have to “buy first then return” to delay exercising the option. But these days, most likely returned really means returned.
I remember I was holding four properties in 2005 and paying 1.3 percent interest rate mid of that year. The bank was so diligent and persistent in raising interest rate that, by the end of 2006, I was asked to pay 4 percent and forced to refinance or repackage my loans.
The difference between now and then is: The rental market was doing well in 2006 and 2007. The rent was going up in tandem with interest rate hike. My rental yield was high despite high interest rate. But unfortunately I don’t see this happening now.
Great take on the rental part. I have missed that one out and yes, I think dwindling rentals are going to be a problem moving forward. For those who backed out and returned units for JadeScape, maybe they backed out after knowing that they are actually paying for properties and not for moon cakes during the Mid Autumn Festival lol
Remember to check square foot.com for returned units.
These days many over reporting, sold 10 units, report 15 units.
Rental market only 2,000, say rental is 3,500.
When your unit is due to be rented, story changed to ‘times are bad, now 1,500 also should rent, better than leave vacant,’
When told that rental returns are only 1.5%, lower than FD rates of 1.75%, they say, who told you to buy residential? People sell all their residential to buy commercial.
Sounds familiar? Like roti prata, flip her flop there. Do you believe?