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Is Centaline Worth Your Trust? Explore HK Real Estate Giant
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Centaline Property, an established real estate agency in Hong Kong, is renowned for its diversified real estate services spanning the entire Greater Bay Area. As a longstanding real estate agency, what is the quality of their services like? From the user's perspective, we delve into whether Centaline's service fees are justifiable.
Introduction to Centaline Property
Founded in 1978, Centaline Property has grown into a prominent real estate brand in Hong Kong and mainland China, boasting approximately 1,500 branches and over 30,000 agent employees. Its brands include Centaline Property, Ricacorp Properties, and CentaPro.
Centaline offers a comprehensive range of services, including residential, commercial, and parking space sales, covering both new developments and the secondary market. The company also engages in consultancy, property management, surveying and valuation, mortgage brokerage, asset management, and immigration investment services.
Centaline attributes its success to a focus on brokerage services, steering clear of speculative property trading and striving to “introduce the cheapest properties to buyers while presenting the highest offers to sellers.”
Market Presence and Strength of Centaline Property
Centaline holds approximately 15% of Hong Kong’s market share, with significant influence in both the high-end residential and commercial real estate markets. As a publicly listed company, its revenue exceeded HK$10 billion in 2023. In the same year, Centaline was honored with several awards, including “Best Real Estate Agency in Hong Kong” and “Most Trusted Real Estate Agency by Customers.”
As an ordinary consumer, one aspect that interests us most is how Centaline performs in terms of the reasonableness of its service fees.
Are Centaline’s Service Fees Reasonable?
Real Estate Agency Commission
Typically, Centaline’s commission rates align with the market average, commonly around 2% of the transaction price. Compared with competitors like Midland Realty, it's evident that Centaline’s pricing strategy adheres to industry norms. However, with many agencies like Centaline and Midland, these established players have the power to set these customary rates. Although Hong Kong law does not mandate a 2% commission, it encourages free market pricing. Reports of 'commission manipulation' have surfaced, accusing these agencies of setting a 'market rate' at 2%, which results in higher costs for clients.
Price versus Service
Whether Centaline’s fees match the services they provide is another crucial measure of price fairness. The company offers extensive market analysis, property showcases, and transaction support, aiming to deliver an efficient trading experience to its clients. In recent years, Centaline has actively introduced distinctive services, including:
- Centaline Club: An exclusive service platform for members, offering priority property viewing, professional real estate consultations, and various transaction discounts, including reduced commissions and mortgage rates.
- Centaline Smart Living: A smart home platform providing intelligent home solutions, including smart locks, lighting, and appliances, along with installation and maintenance services.
- Centaline Data: Hong Kong’s first real estate agency to launch a big data platform, providing comprehensive market data and analyses to aid clients in making informed investment decisions.
While Centaline offers a range of valuable and convenient services, ultimately, the costs of services typically included in real estate brokerage, like property viewings and investment analysis, are being shifted to a premium membership model, imposing additional expenses on users.
Urgent for a Fair and Transparent Real Estate Platform in Hong Kong
As consumers, we easily notice and react to changes in food and commodity prices. Yet, the hidden costs of buying property are less apparent. From the user's perspective, there's a strong demand for a fairer, more transparent real estate platform in Hong Kong—one that provides superior agency services on a pay-per-service model and avoids commission manipulation, ensuring you get quality service for every dollar spent. This is what LetsGetHome Rental Platform offers. , find rental properties online and enjoy commission-free rentals.