On Jan 4, the Council for Estate Agencies (CEA) – the statutory board that regulates Singapore’s real estate industry – announced that the number of registered property agents increased to 28,571 as at Jan 1, 2018, up slightly from 28,397 last year. This marks an increase of 174 agents.

“The increase in the number of registered agents could be due to positive sentiment in the real estate market,” says Chia I-Ling, director of policy & licensing at CEA. On the other hand, owing to consolidation of agencies in the past year, the number of licensed agencies fell y-o-y from 1,286 to 1,269.

The largest agency as at Jan 1, is PropNex Realty with 6,684 agents. PropNex merged with Dennis Wee Group (DWG) last June. Meanwhile, OrangeTee & Tie – formed from the merger of associate teams at OrangeTee and Edmund Tie & Company (ET&Co) last August, ranks third with 3,898 agents.

SLP Scotia – the result of a merger between SLP Realty and Scotia Real Estate Group in July – is in sixth place with 585 agents.

Table 1: Number of licensed agents and registered agencies, 2016 to 2018

(Credit: CEA)

Table 2: Ten largest agencies by size, as at Jan 1

(Credit: CEA)