Raising Industry Professionalism through Collaborative Partnerships

January 2025 - 3 min read

Dear industry partners and friends,

A Happy New Year to all!

Raising Professionalism

Last year was an exciting first year for me in CEA. What stood out to me in our discussions over the past year is that raising the professionalism of the industry remains top-of-mind for all of us.

To this end, CEA has worked hand-in-hand with industry partners through efforts such as:

• The Examination Syllabi Review Workgroup – to review and update the Real Estate Agency (REA) and Real Estate Salesperson (RES) examination syllabi, and ensure that they continue to stay relevant in preparing RESs and Key Executive Officers to carry out their duties effectively and professionally. The Workgroup completed its work last year and the revised examination syllabi will take effect from 2026. CEA will be announcing the changes soon.

• The Approved Course Provider (ACP) Review Panel – to raise the quality of training by ACPs and improve the learning experience of aspiring RESs. The Panel completed its work in May 2024 and put forth various recommendations to improve the quality of the RES courses. 

On this topic, I would also like to take this opportunity to highlight that as part of the Project ADEPT (ADvancing and Enhancing Professionalism and Training) recommendations that were announced in May 2023, the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) requirement to fulfil 16 training hours per year will take effect from later this year.

This represents a significant change in our CPD framework that will support RESs in raising their professionalism and providing quality service to clients.  CEA will be announcing more details in the course of the year.

Digitalising the Property Transaction Process

On the technology front, the industry-led Alliance for Action (AfA) for Accurate Property Listings successfully completed a prototype in February 2024 that will help to address the issue of dummy, inaccurate, unauthorised and duplicate listings. Drawing on the feedback from the industry in the testing of the prototype, CEA is now working on developing a full-scale platform to be rolled out.

When implemented, this will be of great benefit to the industry and property consumers, as the search process for properties marketed by agents will be more accurate and efficient.

Upholding Industry Professionalism and Protecting the Interest of Consumers

Over the course of the past year, CEA continued to actively engage the industry on important topics such as industry transformation, as well as being professional and ethical, and advertising responsibly.

One major issue we discussed has been the fight against money laundering, which is a nationwide effort involving not just the Whole of Government, but industry stakeholders across various sectors as well.

To ensure that our Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regime remains robust, CEA will be providing further guidance to property agencies and agents on conducting customer due diligence, making AML/CFT training mandatory for agents and reviewing our penalty framework for non-compliance of AML/CFT requirements.

Protecting the interests of consumers is another important mission for CEA.

Aside from taking enforcement action against property agents who commit breaches and offences, we continued to work with partners to educate consumers on important topics such as preventing rental scams and areas they should look at when engaging the services of an agent.

Such efforts not only protect property consumers, but also equip them with more information on the property transaction process so they can make better decisions in choosing an agent to represent them.

The Year Ahead

I have thoroughly enjoyed engaging and learning from all of you, and as last year has demonstrated, collaboration continues to be the way forward in 2025, which promises to be an even more exciting year ahead.

I wish everyone a successful and productive year, and look forward to our continued collaboration to realise our shared vision of a real estate agency industry that is professional, productive and resilient.

CHAN KHAR LIANG
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
COUNCIL FOR ESTATE AGENCIES

Information accurate as at 2 January 2025