When property agent Serene Goh started attending Good Gifts City Church in 2023, she discovered that its weekly services are held on Saturdays instead of the typical Sunday.

“Saturdays are busy days for property agents. I told the Lord that the market is volatile and highly competitive. If I don’t show houses, another agent will do it,” Serene, 65, an associate division director with real estate firm ERA, told Salt&Light.

Serene (second from left) is part of the healing ministry team at Good Gifts City Church.

When she was at her previous church, she would sometimes go for house viewings after Sunday services.

This time, however, she felt convicted to prioritise time with God and His people, and to forgo working on Saturdays.

Over time, she also began to serve in the healing and hospitality ministries in church. From morning to evening, she found herself spending almost the whole of Saturday at church.

“It felt counter-intuitive and, to be honest, I was worried that it would impact my livelihood. But I clung on to God’s promises in Psalm 34:9-10 that ‘those who fear the Lord and seek Him will lack no good thing’,” said Serene.

She closed more deals, more quickly

What followed was nothing short of miraculous for Serene.

She found that she was closing more deals on weekdays, and she was closing them more quickly. Even when she was away on holidays, she was able to facilitate or close deals from overseas.

Serene on a mission trip in Cambodia.

“Recently, I was doing outreach and distributing rice during a mission trip in Cambodia. I sent a client to see a landed property while I was away. When I returned, I started negotiations and the deal was completed swiftly,” she told Salt&Light.

Compared to the past when she used to work on Sundays, her income – instead of dropping – grew by 20 per cent when she decided to dedicate her Saturdays to God.

“It’s the Holy Spirit who gives me wisdom to know what to do for each deal,” said Serene, who has been in the industry for the past three decades. 

Serene has been a property agent for the last 30 years.

Last year, for instance, Serene was entrusted with an old single-storey semi-detached house at Bukit Timah to sell.

“Four siblings were involved and I understand that they were not on very good terms. So, I asked God what I needed to do to have a smooth sale,” she said.

The Bukit Timah house that Serene was tasked to market.

She heard from God to do a valuation for the house, as there likely would be many squabbles if the house was undersold. Ordinarily, she would not necessarily do a valuation on the landed homes that she sells as it incurs additional costs.

After arranging for a valuation and seeing to the cleaning of the house, it was sold within two weeks at the highest price for such an home in the vicinity.

At other times, God gives her the discernment to sense which person would be the most suitable buyer or tenant for the place.

“God knows my desire to place the right person for the house. Sometimes, the house may be sold under tragic circumstances and the seller may still be in mourning, so I want to help them as best as I can,” Serene explained.

Recently, a missionary – who was busy with caregiving for her elderly mother – asked her for help with renting out her three-room flat.

“During the open house, I didn’t move very much or say very much. I just sat there and watched the people come in. I noticed a family from Myanmar and told the co-broke agent to follow up closely with them. True enough, an offer from them came in shortly after,” she related to Salt&Light.

The three-room flat that was put out for rental.

“When the Holy Spirit highlights a buyer or tenant to me, I will pay close attention and ask them more questions to determine their suitability for the house,” she added.

When prayers are answered immediately 

Whenever she meets with difficulty, she looks to the Scriptures for encouragement.

In the book of Daniel, for example, the angel told Daniel that he had come because God had heard his prayers from the moment that he began praying for understanding and humbling himself before God (Daniel 10:12-13).

A few months ago, HDB emailed a client of Serene’s to inform her that she had to remove a signboard that was hung high up on the HDB wall since her student care centre had been sold.

As she was based overseas, she asked Serene to help with the removal of the signboard.

“I went all the way there but my ladder was too short to take it down. It was already 7pm. So, I just prayed and asked God for help, that He would bring the town council people here,” said Serene.

When she opened her eyes after praying, she did not see anyone in the vicinity. But five minutes later, two town council workers happened to drive by in their trolley cart.

The trolley cart driven by the town council workers.

They assisted her in taking down the signboard.

The town council workers appeared out of “nowhere” five minutes after she prayed, and helped Serene take down the signboard.

“God hears us and He can answer us soon, just like He did for Daniel,” noted Serene.

Not every transaction is trouble-free. There have been times in her three decade long real estate career when the challenges she faced did not end neatly.

Some time ago, she advised a home buyer on the procedure for purchasing a property as he wanted to buy the house of his next-door neighbour. He started negotiations with the neighbour and they agreed on a price. So, Serene advised him to place a deposit with his neighbour for the purchase.

The neighbour, who was living in Malaysia and had rented out the unit, ran away with the deposit money. The unhappy buyer took it out on Serene by serving her a legal letter to pay up the deposit, even though it was of no fault of hers.

“While driving on the road, tears ran down my face. I cried to the Lord about this injustice. I had good intentions in advising the buyer but ended up being accused,” she said.

In the end, she paid him the S$1,500 deposit and chose to let the matter rest.

Serene with her family.

Clean hands, pure heart

What is of great importance to Serene is that she conducts her business with clean hands and a pure heart (Psalm 24:4).

Receiving “under the table” money is a form of bribery, she said, and it used to be quite a common practice in the industry before the Council of Estate Agents stepped in.

Seven years ago, a buyer urgently wanted a unit that he had viewed.

“If you sell it to me at S$1.5 million, I will offer you S$20,000,” he told Serene. Unscrupulous agents might have taken the opportunity to tell the seller that there was no other better offer, and pocket the bribe. 

Instead, Serene told him to take the S$20,000 to the seller directly, and use it to officially raise his offer price by that amount. He did, and the house was sold to him.

There are many other grey areas or loopholes that real estate agents can exploit, but Serene avoids them. 

Recently, she found a rental flat for an Indian foreign worker. He thought he had to pay her a month’s worth of rental money as her commission and offered to do so.

Serene assured him that he did not need pay anything to her as he was not represented by any agent, and that the landlord of the unit would be paying her the commission.

“I could have asked my son, who is also an agent, to represent him and to take that commission. But that would not have been right,” she told Salt&Light.

“Selling houses is different nowadays. (If you) give other agents the unit number of the flat and they may go behind your back to deal directly with the seller and steal your deal. But God will give you the wisdom needed if you seek Him,” said Serene, a mother of three and a grandmother of three.

Serene’s three grandchildren.

In her 30 years in the industry, Serene said not a single month has gone by when she did not close a deal.

“When we learn to give to the Kingdom of God, we do not need to worry about running dry, like the widow in 1 Kings 17 whose little bit of oil and flour were not used up, and her family and Elijah had food every day,” she said.

Citing Malachi 3:10, Serene stressed the importance of tithing, adding: “Our tithe is not just about giving the one tenth, the rest of the ninth tenth also belongs to Him.”

One time, she organised a garage sale to raise funds for her previous church’s building fund.

She felt God prompting her to give S$15,000 to the fund but held back because her own finances were tight as she had just moved into a new home.

For three weeks, she wavered about giving that sum before eventually deciding to do so. Her donation brought the total funds raised from the garage sale to S$20,000.

“Unknown to me, another lady testified later on that she had been praying from the start that the garage sale would raise $20,000 and it really came to pass. I learnt to be obedient to God’s prompting when it comes to giving,” said Serene, who sees herself as a tentmaker.

So far, she is the sponsor of three children in Cambodia, and continues to give to the needy in countries such as India and China.

Two boys that Serene helps to support in Cambodia.

Serene sponsors a young teenage girl in Cambodia.

Apart from enabling her to give financially to various causes, her real estate work also gives her a platform to share Christ with those who come to view the houses and even fellow agents.

A few months ago, Serene shared about God’s work in her life with a house viewer who had stopped going to church. She prayed for him and he witnessed many of his prayer requests being answered. Since then, he has returned to church with his wife.

Serene met a co-broke agent in Yishun once; she represented the tenant while the other agent represented the landlord. Instead of letting competitiveness and guardedness define their relationship, Serene chose to share with the other agent about God and eventually led her to say the Sinner’s Prayer.

“I want to serve Him in all that I do,” Serene told Salt&Light.

“We cannot just warm the pews on Sunday – we are called to serve others around us.”

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