Beyond cloak and daggers

NST PROP 06/04/2001 By Andrew Wong

It was during the press conference announcing the launch of the Home Ownership Campaign 2002 that I realised the extent of image-building needed by developers. All because as Deputy Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Peter Chin put it, of a handful of black sheep.

"The selling of properties (by developers) should be conducted professionally and not with a cloak-and-dagger approach," he said, adding that "trust between buyers and developers must exist" to ensure sustainability of the sell-then-build method of construction.

Cloak and dagger, I put down my pen and notepad, and looked around. Was I mistaken or did he really say that? I saw similar disturbed, searching faces.

Images of beady-eyed, crooked nosed marketeers dressed in shiny black trench-coats, fedoras and dark glasses touting property to innocent, unsuspecting virgin buyers sprang to mind. Surely not! In my years covering real estate, I haven't seen such a sight before, but then again, the Ministry of Housing must be wiser to the world than me.

I'm quite certain no developer actually started out to build a bad project, and wanted to employ cloak-and-dagger marketing. Maybe those that Chin described as the black sheep adopted that style because they ran their outfits at too high a risk-level so that when the economy came tumbling down, so did they. And in their effort to keep afloat, they had to resort to stealthily stabbing buyers and showing them the wrong end of the stick. That's a great pity because the industry is made up more of good players than bad, and because in the chase to own real estate, the offer of stock from developers employing the sell-then-build method provides the lowest entry cost.

Nevertheless, the sound of a deal turned rotten travels far - so far, in fact, that as Chin pointed out, his ministry has had to tighten enforcement by empowering the Minister of Housing with the tools to protect housebuyers' interests with the recently gazetted Housing Development Act.

Chin, in his message to the press and developers during the conference, also lauded the creation of watchdog agencies such as the House Buyers Association (HBA), which acts as friend, advisor and confidant to buyers and foe to black sheep developers.

"If all the components that make up the property development industry play their roles properly and professionally, the HBA need be no more," he remarked, to which the association's secretary-general Chang Kim Loong responded: "When that time comes, we'd be happy to go".

Happy because when proficiency reigns, the major thorns pricking the industry would be weeded out, thus allowing the association's volunteer members - which include a retired brigadier-general and an army of lawyers - who sacrifice their personal time and money to run their effort to return to their "normal" lives.

It's going to be a long run while before that happens though, what with all the problems in the housing industry the economic crisis of the past few years have helped unearth. And, according to HBA's Chang, once these have been resolved, the next focus of attention will be on unscrupulous developers of commercial projects, and on the need for another piece of legislation that he proposes be called the Property Development Act.

That the majority of sincere developers take no offence to the presence of the HBA watchdog, and in fact see it as a party that can give constructive bite is testament of the growing maturity of the industry.

But the creation of laws and supervisory bodies are essentially knee-jerk reactions to prevailing problems. Because of this, they are short-sighted in nature, effective for as long as nobody creates another problem or finds another loophole in the law.

What is more needful is that all suppliers of property take a proactive stance to ensure they accomplish what they set out to do, in  a sincere, honorable way with the pursuit of quality always being at the top of their agenda. They can do this simply by not thinking of development solely as a business but also as a social responsibility. With that comes professionalism, and with that comes, hopefully, the end of cloak-and-dagger marketing.