Avid property investor turns property agent

MORE than a decade of experience in corporate sales has stood City Crest Realtors principal Darren Khor in good stead. “The experience I gained from my sales job definitely shaped and helped me become who I am today,” he says.

Khor currently leads a team of 26 real estate negotiators and agents in the heart of Kuala Lumpur.

After graduating from Universiti Utara Malaysia in 1997 in business administration majoring in marketing, he joined multinational computer technology company Dell Inc in Penang, doing corporate sales. “I learnt a lot when I was working there. I started as a salesman before I moved up to a managerial position where my team covered sales in Taiwan and Malaysia,” Khor says.

One of the sales skills he picked up was to sell Dell’s products via the telephone. “It is a very powerful skill. All you have are your words to explain and sell your products and a pair of ears to listen to the needs of your clients,” he explains.

In 2007, Khor moved to Microsoft in KL. It was a tough decision for Khor as his parents were still living in Penang. But he decided to go for it. Besides his job at the time, there was one other thing that Khor was interested in — real estate.

“Even back when I was at Dell, I had a huge interest in property investment. Practically every week, you will see me at property fairs. But that wasn’t because I had a lot of money to invest in properties as I was still a young chap. I was just very curious about the property market and I wanted to observe consumer behaviour when it came to buying properties,” he laughs.

What was he curious about?

“I was curious to find out things like how property developers priced their products, why one unit was more expensive than another on a different floor, why a certain block’s take-up was higher than another block’s and what was the unique selling point of each project.”

When he could afford it, Khor bought and resold a few properties after learning the tricks of property investment.

In 2003, when he was still in Dell, a friend introduced him to what he described as an “interesting course” — the real estate agent licence course conducted by the Board of Valuers, Appraisers and Estate Agents Malaysia (BOVAEA), where he could sit for an examination and start an agency with minimum capital.

“Since I loved property investing, I thought why not? I self-studied for the papers in 2003 and by 2004, I had passed all 12 of them,” says Khor, who took the maximum six papers allowed each year. Nevertheless, he continued with his corporate life at Dell.

In 2009, when the global financial crisis struck, Khor began to wonder if he should take a break from his corporate life to fulfil his two-year practical experience to qualify as a real estate agent. In 2011, he decided to take the plunge. He left his corporate job and became a full-time real estate agent. In November 2013, he set up City Crest Realtors.

“Of course, along the way, there were people who discouraged me and told me that it was not easy to start my own business. But having experience at the managerial level has benefited me a lot in terms of coaching and training my team members. It is not just about hiring and letting them run around closing deals. As their principal, I make sure I think of their career paths so that they can move up the ladder and be continuously better at what they do,” he says.

Khor prefers to lead by example. “When we are assigned as the agents for a project, I make sure I close several deals first to show my team that the project is sellable,” he remarks.

According to him, to become a successful negotiator and agent in this field, one has to ask the right questions, do research and always maintain good relationships with clients.

“The first few basic questions to ask your clients include whether the property they are buying is for investment or their own use, what is their budget, is the investment for capital appreciation or rental yield, is the view important — these are questions that some buyers may overlook,” he says.

Khor believes an agent can also become a trusted adviser to clients. “You need to be the person your clients come to whenever they want to make an investment because they trust you. You need to be the one advising them on what suits their needs the most and the importance of knowing the project they are buying into,” he explains.

His team closed a total of RM60 million in sales in 2014 and RM80 million the year after. Khor’s game plan is to expand his agency. “I am working on opening two more agencies in Bangsar and Mid Valley/KL Eco City. Those two areas would be more focused on local market demands and needs in KL.”

Although the local property market is slow, Khor believes one needs to be optimistic and sniff out opportunities in the market. “It’s easy to blame poor market sentiment and the economy, for example the depreciation of the ringgit. The good thing is, I am a problem solver. I choose not to dwell on circumstances I can’t control. I will continually lead my team to do our very best for our clients in any market climate,” he concludes.

This story first appeared in TheEdgeProperty.com pullout on April 8, 2016, which comes with The Edge Financial Daily every Friday. Download TheEdgeProperty.com here for free.