Over 100 staff to quit KW Singapore amid fallout from alleged scandal involving PropertyLimBrothers co-founder Melvin Lim

Ismail Gafoor, co-founder and executive chairman of Singapore’s biggest real estate agency PropNex, said two senior property agents and their respective teams from KW Singapore have recently joined his firm.

Additionally, over 38 salespersons from that agency have sought to make the move to PropNex since January, he told The Straits Times.

The Business Times reported earlier that another senior agent at the firm, Rayne Chua, is set to move to ERA with her team, citing a desire to join an organization that "genuinely invests in people." Chua was said to be "instrumental" in helping KW Singapore secure projects from property developers.

"ERA stood out as the right fit with values aligned to my own and a strong emphasis on structured training and robust tech platforms that support advisers at every stage," she said.

KW Singapore is a franchise of US-based real estate agency Keller Williams. Founded last year by Lim, the boutique agency operates separately from PLB. Records from the Council for Estate Agencies’ public register show that it had 157 registered agents as of Thursday.

The recent departures follow Lim’s decision to step back from his duties as the franchise’s operating principal after he earlier resigned as CEO of PLB in late January.

Melvin Lim, co-founder of PropertyLimBrothers. Photo from the company's website

Lim’s resignations came as an alleged extramarital affair between him and influencer Grayce Tan, who previously held executive positions at both firms, stirred up a media frenzy, according to EdgeProp Singapore.

The controversy first emerged on Reddit, where users circulated a video that appeared to capture moaning from an office unit and later showed a pair resembling Lim and Tan leaving that unit together.

Tan has since also resigned as PLB’s vice president for strategy and KW Singapore’s director of growth.

Lim is known for making home tour videos that often garner more than 20,000 views. He co-founded PLB in 2017 with Adrian Lim, whom he first met in 2004 while both were training as prison officers with the Singapore Prison Service.

Tan, meanwhile, has more than 190,000 followers on Instagram, where she goes by @babygrayce. She has disabled the account following the allegations. She joined PLB in 2022 as an intern and moved through multiple positions before reaching the executive position last January.

Industry watchers said the expected exits would substantially weaken KW Singapore’s sales force.

Mark Yip, CEO of Huttons Asia, another agency, said: "If you have 100 agents and more than 50 leave, it will definitely have an impact, whether it’s (on) the bottom line or psychologically."