The move to review the Electronic Transactions Act and allow property transactions to go digital will benefit developers and landlords, observers said.
They see the move mainly as one that will smooth the administrative part of the transaction and cut out the paperwork, not the agents.
“People will still prefer to sell through an agent because it is very difficult to deal directly with the buyer,” said property agency ERA’s key executive officer Eugene Lim.
“Right now, the paperwork for transaction is not very efficient as we have to write the same information many times in different forms,” Mr Lim noted.
“So, if in the future, everything is linked, our administrative productivity will be vastly improved and we can concentrate on adding value in the other part of the transaction, which is getting the property sold within the timeline and price expectations of the seller,” he said.
Agreeing, Mr Karamjit Singh, chief executive of online property portal Showsuite, said property developers and landlords will be the big winners as they need to contract with multiple buyers and tenants for each of their projects.
“They need to deal with all of this on a large scale and on a recurring basis. It involves printing, postage, manual coordination and storage, which are costly and inefficient,” he said.
“Property developers – especially with multiple projects – currently need to station their authorised staff at their show flats, including over the weekends, in anticipation of sales in order to print and sign option-to-purchase (OTP) agreements. With the changes, all this can be achieved remotely, securely and paperlessly, which is great,” Mr Singh added.
If contracts are standardised, digital transactions can be even more efficient, said Mr Lim. Right now, only HDB and licensed private property developers use the prescribed OTP and sales and purchase agreements. So, HDB resale and developer sales are likely to be the first to go digital, he said.
“Contracts for private property resale and all tenancy contracts are non-standardised, and parties are free to negotiate the terms of the contract,” he said. As there is no template to draw on, these will still require some work to reap the efficiencies of going digital.
Ms Christine Li, head of research for Singapore and South-east Asia at Cushman & Wakefield, thinks such automation in the property sector will invariably lead to some job losses among property agents.
“In the data era, it is bound to happen to the middlemen that their presence in the sales equation would be questioned. But this is not the problem of the automation process, it is the problem of the middlemen. They need to add value to stay relevant,” she said.
Her advice to property agents is to learn the ropes of engaging their clients using technology.
“Instead of telling the clients that these are the available units, they will also have to work on financials, research and data to convince the clients that this particular one is the best buy,” she said.
Separately, shipping veteran Teo Siong Seng said the shipping industry is happy to embrace the use of electronic bills of lading.
Bills of lading are documents that acknowledge receipt of cargo for shipment and also serve as proof of ownership of the cargo.
Currently, an importer will incur additional storage and handling costs if a paper bill of lading arrives at the destination port later than the cargo, or suffer losses if the document has been tampered with.
According to the Infocomm Media Development Authority, digitalising the process would significantly cut transaction costs, reduce fraud, and reduce the complications and risks of transactions.
But Mr Teo, who is the chairman of Pacific International Lines, noted that the key is whether the other stakeholders in the value chain, like the banks, insurance firms and governments, are prepared to accept electronic data transmission instead of the paper-based documentation. With digitalisation, it would help reduce costs, but he also foresees he will have to downsize his workforce.
“Source:[Property and shipping players welcome drive for transactions to go digital] © Singapore Press Holdings Limited. Permission required for reproduction”
