Tricia Chong is no stranger to the real estate industry, having now amassed over a decade of experience despite being only 32 years old this year. She began working in the industry at 17 years old, working part-time during the school holidays at a local real estate agency. Surprisingly, both her parents are not in the industry themselves, her father being a principal engineer in the private sector, and her mother devoting her life to taking care of the family as a housewife. Tricia, however, credits her family’s values of working hard for the things that they want for helping her take the plunge into the real estate industry.
Tricia is also an active gym enthusiast who works out 5 times a week to calm her body, mind, and soul. She is a strong believer that with good fitness, she can continue to serve her clients in the long run. Being fit allows her to go further and faster in the real estate industry.
A young woman with unusual foresight to plan ahead
Upon turning 21, she turned her part-time job into a full-time career. For Tricia, the real estate industry provides her with the ability to be flexible and work in a way that meets her own needs. She also quickly learned that the payoff from working in the industry is heavily dependent on one’s self-discipline and work ethic. She honed these qualities for herself, working outside of regular working hours, and sacrificing weekends and public holidays to ensure that she could meet her potential client’s schedules. She also learned the ropes from real estate industry veterans, through her stint with Melvin Lim and Adrian Lim at The Property Lim Brothers.
Within four years of joining the industry, she purchased her first property for investment and began collecting rental income. She had the unusual foresight to understand that the fastest way to financial independence was through investing in properties. A few years ago, she met a significant milestone for herself when she sold her first property, and bought two other properties, a condominium for investment purposes, and another freehold unit for her own use. In doing so, she continues to be able to build her wealth while realising her childhood dream of living on a property in the central region of Singapore. Aside from meeting her personal goals, Tricia has also received many professional accolades, including the Millionaire Achiever award for 3 consecutive years, Top HDB Transactor awards in August and November 2021, and multiple Platinum Achiever Awards, a Super Platinum Achiever, and even a Titanium Achiever Award (Achieving $500K or more in sales commission within a singular month)!
Persistence through multiple challenges
Tricia’s journey through the real estate industry has not always been easy. Tricia began her career at a young age when all her friends were still studying and could not afford to buy properties. She therefore couldn’t rely on her existing networks as possible leads, and had to start her business from scratch, cold calling, distributing flyers and pitching projects to strangers. At the time, social media platforms and online property portals were non-existent, so Tricia’s method of generating leads was to simply chat with strangers and passers-by. She also had to work hard to pick up skills on the job, learn from her setbacks, and work to gain her client’s trust as she was much younger than other agents in the industry. Eventually, her persistence, sincerity and hard work paid off as she gradually converted her cold leads into sales, and her clients began to refer her services to friends and family, as they began to enjoy the growth in the transaction values of their properties.
Over time, Tricia has deepened her skillsets to ensure that she remains at the top of her game. Tricia specialises in million-dollar HDB homes mainly in the central and west regions. She focuses mainly on property owners who wish to upgrade their properties and has helped many of her clients upgrade to private newly launched condominiums and landed properties.
This can be a niche area to work in, as it requires her to find the right balance for her clients between making money for their next property, and ensuring that their living needs are still met. Tricia relishes this challenge though, as her goal is usually to ensure that her clients generate at least $300k in profits for their new home. Her services also extend beyond transacting into long-term planning, as she also helps clients who return to her after a few years of upgrading their properties to climb further up the property ladder. Tricia has also fully pivoted from traditional marketing into digital marketing, tapping exclusively on social media to reach her potential clients. She has also started her own company called Property Privé, which has a media marketing team that helps her produce videos for her clients to best market their property on Youtube, Facebook and Instagram.
A strong desire to provide the best for her clients
Tricia is driven to provide value-added services to her clients, and in putting her money where her mouth is, does not charge her clients any additional cost on marketing. Her clients also do not pay anything upfront when they engage her services as an agent, as she is confident in her ability to sell their properties.
For her, it is important also to put herself in her client’s shoes and deeply understand her client’s lifestyle needs, and the earning potential of their properties. This means prioritising efficiency in securing her clients a property that they can move into quickly, and also helping them navigate the Ethnic Integration Policy (EIP), which can present particular challenges for ethnic minority groups when transacting their properties on the market. At the heart of her interactions with her clients is a desire to see them grow together with her. She recalls helping a client sell their first property at Natura Loft, and then helping them gradually upgrade into bigger properties in more exclusive neighbourhoods. To see her clients succeed gives her a great sense of achievement.
Parting words of advice
We asked Tricia if she had any advice for young agents who are just beginning to break into the real estate industry. She shares that they should always keep their professional goals in mind, and be persistent in their efforts because it will take a while to see results.
She is also thankful to have received help from many real industry veterans like Kelvin Fong, Eddie Lim, Melvin Lim, Adrian Lim, and Alvin Choo, in her real estate journey, as well as Kenny Neo and Bjorn Chua, her previous mentors from another agency who guided and shaped her. Lastly, she offers an insightful suggestion: think like a child. “Children are always so curious and always learning from their experiences, both good and bad. There’s something admirable about being able to explore, and learning to grow and be a better version of ourselves. I hope that even in the toughest time we can all remain child-like, have faith in ourselves, and adopt that growth mindset,” she says.
The post Tricia Chong: A young real estate entrepreneur on the rise appeared first on 99.co.
