LISTING LARGE

These realtors give a peek into the world of handling ultra-expensive residential properties

- Teo Kai Xia g

Luxury real estate has never been more in the limelight.

In 2023 alone, Netflix's hit reality TV series Selling Sunset (2019 to present) racked up over 259 million hours of viewing across the globe on the streaming platform.

The show is just one of dozens airing now featuring those who sell high-end properties to the rich and famous.

However, Singapore-based luxury realtors tell The Sunday Times that their livelihoods are far less glamorous than TV screens depict, though they agree that big wallets and big personalities come with the territory of dealing in luxury residential properties.

In the first half of 2024, a total of 382 prime non-landed residential and landed residential units were sold in Singapore, resulting in sales of $3.3 billion, according to real estate consultancy Knight Frank.

One of the top luxury non-landed home transactions during this period was the sale of a penthouse unit at the Skywaters Residences in Shenton Way for $47.3 million, at $6,100 per square foot.

Luxury realtor Michele Cabasug, 49, deals with such high-value transactions. The Hawaii-born American began her real estate career here in 2005, after moving to Singapore with her then husband.

While house-hunting, she fell in love with the aesthetic of a blackand-white bungalow in Nepal Park, but it was slightly above their rental budget. "I decided I was going to make that $200 myself," says Ms Cabasug.

New to Singapore, the marketing graduate entered the real-estate sector by connecting agents with prospective renters of black-andwhite homes around Mount Faber, Mount Pleasant and Kay Siang Road before she later branched into leasing and sales herself.

"I came here as a trailing spouse with no listings and no clients. I didn't even know how to drive on the right side of the road or what a district was, and I got propelled into representing these good class bungalows," she says.