ERA celebrates a year of achievements and its leading women at its Asia Pacific Business Conference 2024

/ EdgeProp Singapore |

March 21, 2024 11:20 AM SGT

All these women from ERA were highlighted in a special pullout on EdgeProp Singapore during the week of March 11 to commemorate International Women’s Day (IWD) on March 8 this year. (Picture: Albert Chua/The Edge Singapore)

Real estate agency ERA Realty celebrated the achievements of its agents at its annual ERA Asia Pacific Business Conference 2024 on March 20 at Marina Bay Sands. Indranee Rajah, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and the Second Minister for Finance and National Development, attended as the guest of honour.

The annual gathering of ERA agents from across the Asia Pacific region allowed the agency to showcase seven prominent female agents and corporate leaders, including its deputy CEO, Doris Ong.

Other featured women at the ERA Asia Pacific Business Conference 2024 were Brenda Zee, senior executive group division director; Joelle Chew, senior group division director; Tracy Teo, senior director of agency; Eileen Lim, team director; Joy Koh, chief marketing officer; and, Wong Shanting, vice president of research and market intelligence.

All these women from ERA were highlighted in a special pullout on EdgeProp Singapore during the week of March 11 to commemorate International Women’s Day (IWD) on March 8 this year. ERA was the only agency with leading women featured on EdgeProp Singapore for this year’s IWD.

Each woman received a framed commemorative blow-up of their feature from EdgeProp Singapore CEO Bernard Tong. ERA CEO Marcus Chu and Indranee were on stage to witness the ceremony.

ERA's annual Asia Pacific Business Conference was held at Marina Bay Sands on March 20. (Picture: Albert Chua/The Edge Singapore)

Addressing the gathering of real estate agents at the event, Indranee provided updates on the property market and recent measures outlined in Budget 2024. She also stressed the industry's role in combating money laundering in Singapore and outlined the government's plans to support households.

One of the key support measures introduced by the government during the recent Budget is the Parenthood Provisional Housing Scheme (PPHS) (Open Market) Voucher. This voucher is aimed at helping couples ease the financial burden of renting from the open market while enabling them to have a private space to kickstart their family plans.

“Broadly, these are Singaporean families with a household income of $7,000 or less. This allows us to target the PPHS voucher to those with less income to defray their renting costs. Each eligible family will receive $300 per month, regardless of whether they rent an HDB flat or bedroom. Payment will be made on a reimbursement basis every few months,” the minister says.

She adds that the PPHS will be in place for a year starting July 2024, and the government will closely monitor this voucher's impact on the rental market.

“Recent announcements in Budget 2024 aim to refine some of the earlier changes to support targeted groups. These include offering the PPHS voucher for young parents awaiting their BTO flats and allowing retirees ABSD concessions to facilitate downsizing if necessary. The higher annual value bands for owner-occupier homes will reduce property tax for homeowners in 2025,” says Chu.

Minister Indranee Rajah was the guest of honor, and spoke about recent measures outlined in Budget 2024 and outlined the government's plans to support households. (Picture: Albert Chua/The Edge Singapore)

Indranee also noted that the government has implemented three property cooling measures since 2021 to temper housing demand and encourage financial prudence among local homebuyers.

“We are seeing the effect of these measures. Our property market is stabilising. HDB resale prices rose 4.9% last year, less than half of the 10.4% increase in 2022. Price growth in the private residential market has also moderated, from 8.6% in 2022 to 6.8% in 2023. Overall, BTO application rates have also gone down, from a high of 5.8 applications per flat in 2020 to 2.9 applications per flat last year,” she says.

Agreeing, Chu adds: “Our government is committed to making housing accessible to Singaporeans and ensuring a stabilised real estate market. This is done by constantly monitoring the real estate market and applying timely measures when necessary”.

"As the various property cooling measures since 2021 have been introduced, we have seen home prices in Singapore stabilise,” says Chu.

Meanwhile, Indranee also notes the crucial role of the real estate sector and its key players, such as salespersons, in maintaining Singapore's reputation as an international trading and financial hub amidst ongoing efforts to combat financial system abuse by money launderers. She adds: “We should work together to prevent money-launderers from, first, abusing our system and second, using real estate agencies and real estate salespersons to further their money-laundering activities”.

ERA celebrated the achivements of its agents across the Asia Pacific, including key markets such as Singapore where it has 9,143 agents under its banner, says Marcus Chu, CEO of ERA Singapore. (Picture: Albert Chua/The Edge Singapore)

Indranee also spoke about the government’s plans to address concerns over a rising cost of living and job security, highlighting the enhancement of the Assurance Package to over $10 billion, $600 in Community Development Council (CDC) vouchers to be dispersed over the next 10 months, and a Cost-of-Living Special Payment of between $200 and $400 in cash that will be extended to adult Singaporeans with assessable income of up to $100,000.

“All these changes are part of a wider set of assistance measures, including enhancements to CPF framework, higher CDC vouchers, income tax rebates, reduced childcare fees, mid-career reskilling subsidies, and increased healthcare subsidies,” adds Indranee.

“ERA is committed to working with the government to help Singaporeans achieve their housing aspirations by empowering our salespersons with our tech initiatives,” says Chu. He adds: “Recognising the necessity for salespersons to acquire digital skills, ERA has adapted digital training programmes to accommodate the diverse learning capabilities of our sales force. Furthermore, as part of the Real Estate Industry Transformation Map, all RESs will receive training in at least one digital marketing skill”.

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