Product and Services Roundup: Kelify, and Singapore Agents

This week's Product Roundup features some less common names to our usual fare. We'll start in Madrid before heading to Singapore...

Europe: Kelify adds Madrid state-backed rentals to its portal

Kelify has added almost 200 listings to its portal, all guaranteed by the Community of Madrid.

According to a post on the company's LinkedIn page:

18 years ago, the Community of Madrid launched Plan Alquila. Now you can also find them in Kelify: on the map, with filters and alerts.

Rental prices have risen a lot. Its website remains almost the same. Today, even the map has stopped working. And it is a shame, because the service is useful: they study solvency, prepare the contract, mediate if there are problems and offer non-payment insurance and legal assistance. 100% Free for owners and renters. No agency fees. It is not public housing nor is it necessarily cheap. They are rentals between individuals with the guarantees of the Community of Madrid. More than 110,000 contracts and renewals have gone through the program.

Asia: Singapore Agents Association to crack down on fraud with new initiative

Singapore's Council for Estate Agencies (CEA) will launch a full-scale platform to verify the authenticity of online listings next year.

According to reporting by Asia One, the announcement—made this week at the Singapore Estate Agents Conference—will tackle fake, duplicate and unauthorised listings.

Singapore's real estate agency space is rife with duplicate listings, a lack of professional standardisation, and opaque processes. The new platform will conduct backend verification checks and assign a unique code to property listings before they are published.

CEA will also consider publishing consumers' ratings of property agents on the CEA Public Register and allowing For Sale By Owner listings on property portals. Of the more than 12,500 resale flats listed on HDB's Resale Flat Listing (RFL) service since it launched in May 2024, nearly 40% of resale transactions were completed by sellers who listed their flats without an agent.

A CEA spokesperson said the body will continue to consult the industry for its views on new measures, and "progressively implement them over the next few years where feasible".

"The [new] platform builds on the work of the Alliance for Action on Accurate Property Listings, following a common concern by both property agents and consumers on the prevalence of inaccurate, fake, duplicate and unauthorised property listings."