10 Questions to Ask Before Entering a Property Deal (2026)

Before you put money into a pooled or co-investment property deal, ask who is behind it, how they are paid, what control you get, who decides the exit, and what happens if the projections fail. In Singapore a small private deal can legally escape the prospectus and approval rules that cover public offers. That leaves the checking to you.

At a glance

• A “deal finder” who offers you a share in a property deal is selling you something. Ask how they make money before you ask how you will.
• A 49% share of the profit is not a 49% share of the control, and it is not a cap on your share of the loss.
• Small offers can be exempt from MAS authorisation and a prospectus. Exempt does not mean approved.
• A company or trust buying Singapore homes pays 65% ABSD, and banks lend it far less than they lend an individual.
• If the deal still works when the projections miss, it may be worth a look. If it only works when everything goes right, walk away.

Start with the question that matters most

Return promises are the least useful part of a pitch. Anyone can type “15% a year” into a slide. The question that separates a deal from a trap is this: will the investment stay sustainable if things go worse than the projection?

A deal that only works in the good case is a bet on luck. If it goes well, you walk away with a profit you did not control. If it goes badly, you find out how little control you had. Being a passive investor is fine. Being passive without understanding the terms is not.

Here is a labelled example of how the terms can hide the return. Say a finder invites co-investors to fund a S$20m project. Co-investors put in all the money and share 49% of the profit. The finder puts in no cash and takes 51% for finding and running the deal. The pitch says the project makes 20% over two years.

Sale price after two years	Project profit	Co-investors’ 49%	Return on S$20m
S$24m	S$4m	S$1.96m	9.8% in total, about 4.8% a year
S$21m	S$1m	S$0.49m	2.45% in total, about 1.2% a year
S$18m	−S$2m	−S$2m (if the finder bears none of the loss)	−10%

The 20% headline reached investors as under 10%, before any fees. And unless the contract says otherwise, a profit split says nothing about who absorbs a loss. Questions 5 and 8 below are where you find out.

The 10 questions

1. Who exactly are they? Ask for their track record in this market and this type of deal. Get the names of past investors and call two of them. Check any licence they claim in the MAS Financial Institutions Directory, and check any company on ACRA’s Bizfile. A confident manner is not a track record.

2. Do they have their own money in the deal, on the same terms? If not, ask why. A finder who takes 51% for no cash is paid whether or not you profit.

3. How are they paid? Ask for every fee in writing: finder’s fee, acquisition fee, yearly management fee, sale fee and any share of profit above a target. Add them up. Then ask whether each is paid up front or only after you get your money back.

4. What will you sign? A real deal has a written agreement, usually a shareholders’ or partnership agreement. Read it with your own lawyer, not the finder’s. “Standard terms” that nobody will let you take away are a warning sign.

5. What control do you get? Ask who decides on borrowing, major spending, replacing the manager and bringing in new investors. A clause saying management may decide without consulting co-investors means exactly that. Ask about your right to receive accounts and to inspect records.

6. Who decides the exit, and when? Ask for the planned holding period, what happens if the property does not sell, and whether you can get out early. Ask whether investors can be asked for more money later.

7. How many investors are there, and what is the minimum? Very small tickets attract many investors with little experience, and one panicking investor can stall a decision for everyone. Fewer, larger and better-informed co-investors usually make a deal easier to run, but this is a judgement, not a rule. Ask who the other investors are.

8. How is the property held, and who is on the loan? Ask whether it sits in a company or in individual names, whether the loan is non-recourse or needs personal guarantees, and who gives them. If you give a guarantee, you take on risk beyond your investment. Ask what extra return you earn for it.

For Singapore homes, the holding structure also decides the tax and the financing:

• A company or trust buying residential property pays ABSD of 65%, compared with 0% for a citizen buying a first home.
• Bank loans to non-individual borrowers are capped at 15% of the value, against 75% for an individual with no other home loan.
• Stamp duty is a cost of the deal whatever the structure. See our guide to BSD, ABSD and SSD.

9. What returns are promised, and what are they based on? Ask for the assumptions behind the number: purchase price, rent, vacancy, costs and exit price. Then ask for the same table with 10% lower rent and a 10% lower exit price. A guaranteed return is only as good as the guarantor’s balance sheet, and it is often paid out of your own money. Our guide to rental yield shows how to test the maths.

10. Who runs it day to day, and who do you call when it goes wrong? Ask who manages the property, which lawyers and agents they use, and who looks after your interests if there is a dispute. This matters most when the property is overseas or in a market you do not know. The people matter more than the building.

What the regulator does and does not do

Pooled property investments can be collective investment schemes. Offers of units in a scheme to the public must generally be authorised or recognised by MAS and come with a registered prospectus, unless an exemption applies. MAS lists exemptions for offers to accredited or institutional investors, for offers raising S$5 million or less in 12 months, and for offers to no more than 50 persons in 12 months.

So many small co-investment deals are legal without MAS vetting. That is a reason to do more checking yourself, not less. If a promoter says MAS “approved” the deal, check it. MAS keeps an Investor Alert List of entities wrongly seen as MAS-authorised, and tells the public to verify firms through its directory instead of trusting a name. For the signs of a scam, see ScamShield and our pieces on overseas property scams and one property investment scam.

If the deal is overseas

Everything above applies, with extra layers: foreign law, foreign title rules, currency risk and far less ability to check things yourself. Read our five things to know about overseas property before you wire anything.

Bottom line

You do not need to be an expert in every deal. You do need to understand the terms well enough to explain, in one minute, how the finder gets paid, how you get paid, who is in control and how you get out. If you cannot, wait. If the pitch makes it hard to ask, that is your answer. This is general information, not personal financial advice. For the principles behind a sound investment, see the four fundamental rules of property investment and common investment mistakes.

Sources

• Offers of collective investment schemes — MAS, checked Oct 2026
• Investor Alert List — MAS, checked Oct 2026
• Financial Institutions Directory — MAS, checked Oct 2026
• Additional Buyer’s Stamp Duty (ABSD) — IRAS, rates from 27 Apr 2023, checked Oct 2026
• Loan tenure and loan-to-value limits — MAS, updated 27 Mar 2024
• Bizfile — ACRA, checked Oct 2026
• ScamShield — Singapore government anti-scam service, checked Oct 2026