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</TD></TR><TR><TD class=content_subtitle align=left>Thu, Apr 29, 2010
The Straits Times </TD></TR><TR><TD height=15>
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</TD></TR><!-- Story With Image End --><TR><TD class=bodytext_10pt colSpan=3><!-- CONTENT : start -->By John Lui
Property agent Anthea Yeo is in a hurry. Not just because she is in a rush to see her client, but because the mother of two has set a target of $1 million this year in income between her and her husband.
At age 34, the PropNex agent is in the prime of her earning years in a market that is hitting historical highs in prices.
She is at the right age, with the right amount of experience. She is talking on her hands-free unit while driving.
'Don't bargain. You get a sea view, no noon sun,' she tells one prospective buyer.
She rattles off other facts about the unit - where the bedroom doors face, the size of the balcony - from memory. At any one time, she remembers detailed information about 15 properties.
<TABLE class=bodytext border=0 cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=2 width=506 align=center><TBODY><TR><TD colSpan=4>The path to $1 million
Click on thumbnail to view </TD></TR><TR><TD width=120>
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</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>'Clients don't want to hear, 'Hold on, I will call you back with the information',' she says. According to her, this instant recall is what sets the pros apart from the wannabes.
Everyone has a relative or friend who is a property or insurance agent. But the majority of them are dabblers - people who wait for deals to come to them. What distinguishes Ms Yeo from your aunt or cousin who holds an agent's licence is that she goes after the deals, with a vengeance.
At night, when most people are watching television, she is making cold calls to owners, asking them to sell or rent through her.
She is designing flyers, placing ads in The Straits Times or on property websites, scanning documents for overseas clients or updating her Facebook page or personal website with the latest units.
The $1-million mark is not impossible. She and her husband have hit it before, though on average they make between $20,000 and $50,000 a month. Achieving it took some doing.
In 2006, when she was starting out, she staked out new condominiums for weeks, buttonholing owners as they left the building, hoping they would appoint her as their sales agent. Or she would make cold calls from lists purchased from property database agencies. Each name cost $3.
Of course, not everyone is pleased to receive a call from her.
'You have to develop bulletproof skin,' she says.
Chasing dreams
Her mother is looking after her children, a 21/2-year-old girl and a boy of eight months, while she and her husband, Mr Jude Teem, 37, a tattoo artist- turned-property agent, chase their dream. She grabs time with them when she can, sometimes taking her daughter on the road with her.
Once Ms Yeo has reached her career goals, which include earning a steady income as a team manager, she will be able to give her children her time as well as the best life they could ask for, she says.
A couple of milestones have been reached: The couple own their dream car, a BMW convertible, in addition to a Honda Stream MPV, and they have just bought a $1.8-million terrace home at the new Luxus Hill development in Ang Mo Kio, which will be completed in three years. By which time, she hopes to spend more time with her children by becoming a sales manager.
So, on top of everything else, she and her husband are recruiting and training agents for their team, now 25 strong. She mentors them, gives them sales leads and gets a small slice of their commissions.
She is near her goal.
'When you are young and girlish, the clients don't trust you. When you get too old, they think you are too slow,' she says.
Her first appointment of the day is 9.30am. Leaving from her three- room HDB flat in Ang Mo Kio, she arrives at the Marbella condo in Mount Sinai Road 10 minutes early.
'You wait for the client, you never make the client wait for you,' she says.
She parks her Honda Stream and, once inside the two-bedroom, 18th-floor apartment, she draws open the curtains and switches on the air-conditioner to freshen up the air.
The potential renters, a German couple, come on time. The foreigners, like many others, are baffled by the bomb shelter and Ms Yeo rattles off the explanation.
'If anything happens, stay in there and wait for help,' she says with the practised ease of a comedian making the same joke for some time.
The couple nod and make a joke about the nuclear bomb-grade shelters in Switzerland.
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The Straits Times </TD></TR><TR><TD height=15>
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Property agent Anthea Yeo is in a hurry. Not just because she is in a rush to see her client, but because the mother of two has set a target of $1 million this year in income between her and her husband.
At age 34, the PropNex agent is in the prime of her earning years in a market that is hitting historical highs in prices.
She is at the right age, with the right amount of experience. She is talking on her hands-free unit while driving.
'Don't bargain. You get a sea view, no noon sun,' she tells one prospective buyer.
She rattles off other facts about the unit - where the bedroom doors face, the size of the balcony - from memory. At any one time, she remembers detailed information about 15 properties.
<TABLE class=bodytext border=0 cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=2 width=506 align=center><TBODY><TR><TD colSpan=4>The path to $1 million
Click on thumbnail to view </TD></TR><TR><TD width=120>
</TD><TD width=120></TD><TD width=120></TD><TD width=120></TD></TR><TR><TD width=120></TD><TD width=120></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>'Clients don't want to hear, 'Hold on, I will call you back with the information',' she says. According to her, this instant recall is what sets the pros apart from the wannabes.Everyone has a relative or friend who is a property or insurance agent. But the majority of them are dabblers - people who wait for deals to come to them. What distinguishes Ms Yeo from your aunt or cousin who holds an agent's licence is that she goes after the deals, with a vengeance.
At night, when most people are watching television, she is making cold calls to owners, asking them to sell or rent through her.
She is designing flyers, placing ads in The Straits Times or on property websites, scanning documents for overseas clients or updating her Facebook page or personal website with the latest units.
The $1-million mark is not impossible. She and her husband have hit it before, though on average they make between $20,000 and $50,000 a month. Achieving it took some doing.
In 2006, when she was starting out, she staked out new condominiums for weeks, buttonholing owners as they left the building, hoping they would appoint her as their sales agent. Or she would make cold calls from lists purchased from property database agencies. Each name cost $3.
Of course, not everyone is pleased to receive a call from her.
'You have to develop bulletproof skin,' she says.
Chasing dreams
Her mother is looking after her children, a 21/2-year-old girl and a boy of eight months, while she and her husband, Mr Jude Teem, 37, a tattoo artist- turned-property agent, chase their dream. She grabs time with them when she can, sometimes taking her daughter on the road with her.
Once Ms Yeo has reached her career goals, which include earning a steady income as a team manager, she will be able to give her children her time as well as the best life they could ask for, she says.
A couple of milestones have been reached: The couple own their dream car, a BMW convertible, in addition to a Honda Stream MPV, and they have just bought a $1.8-million terrace home at the new Luxus Hill development in Ang Mo Kio, which will be completed in three years. By which time, she hopes to spend more time with her children by becoming a sales manager.
So, on top of everything else, she and her husband are recruiting and training agents for their team, now 25 strong. She mentors them, gives them sales leads and gets a small slice of their commissions.
She is near her goal.
'When you are young and girlish, the clients don't trust you. When you get too old, they think you are too slow,' she says.
Her first appointment of the day is 9.30am. Leaving from her three- room HDB flat in Ang Mo Kio, she arrives at the Marbella condo in Mount Sinai Road 10 minutes early.
'You wait for the client, you never make the client wait for you,' she says.
She parks her Honda Stream and, once inside the two-bedroom, 18th-floor apartment, she draws open the curtains and switches on the air-conditioner to freshen up the air.
The potential renters, a German couple, come on time. The foreigners, like many others, are baffled by the bomb shelter and Ms Yeo rattles off the explanation.
'If anything happens, stay in there and wait for help,' she says with the practised ease of a comedian making the same joke for some time.
The couple nod and make a joke about the nuclear bomb-grade shelters in Switzerland.
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