The M Macrolink Medini

Do not accept an answer to this from a listing page, an agent or from me. Get a land search done. Here is why.

iProperty’s project page for this building labels the tenure freehold. Individual unit listings for the same building show a leasehold interest expiring in 2113. Both cannot be right for the same parcel, and the discrepancy is not random.

Medini land is generally developed under a private lease scheme. In the structure examined by the Court of Appeal in 2025 for a neighbouring Medini project, the land was freehold land owned by Iskandar Investment Berhad, which granted a 99-year lease running from 15 April 2013 to 14 April 2112 to Medini Land Sdn Bhd; the developer took the position of first lessee and each purchaser received a 99-year leasehold interest in a strata parcel. That is how a Medini unit can be described as sitting on freehold land while what you actually own is a long lease. The Court of Appeal upheld the arrangement and confirmed that strata titles issued under such a long lease are valid — so the structure is lawful. It is simply not freehold ownership in the sense a Malaysian buyer normally means.

What that means for you in practice: a shortening lease affects bank financing margins, resale pricing in later decades and what you can pass on. Before you pay any deposit, instruct your conveyancing lawyer to obtain the land search and the strata title for the exact parcel, and to tell you in writing the tenure, the expiry date and the years remaining. That is a one-day job and it is the most valuable ringgit you will spend on this purchase.

Historically yes, and that exemption is the single reason Medini exists as an entry point for foreign buyers in Malaysia. But you must confirm it in writing for your specific transaction, and I am going to be precise about why.

The rule everywhere else in Johor is a RM1,000,000 minimum purchase price for a non-citizen buying strata property. Medini has carried an exemption from that minimum, granted under the Iskandar Regional Development Authority framework rather than by the state, which is what makes it structurally different from the rest of Johor. Notably, the Court of Appeal judgment on the Medini private lease scheme referred to purchasers there having benefited from exemptions applicable to Medini including relaxed foreign ownership rules — so the exemption is not a rumour.

Three qualifications that decide your case. First, the exemption is generally described as applying to new strata units bought from the developer. A sub-sale from a previous owner may not carry it, and most of what is available at The M today is sub-sale. Second, state consent for a foreign purchase is still required — the exemption removes a price floor, not an approval. Third, the exemption is an incentive, not a statute you can rely on forever; it is reported to have been tightened over successive policy cycles.

So the honest answer for a specific unit at The M is: I do not know, and neither does any agent who tells you confidently either way. Get it confirmed in writing by the vendor’s solicitor and by a Johor conveyancing lawyer, and if the amount at stake justifies it, have the position checked with IRDA and the state land office before you pay a deposit. Whatever the outcome, a non-citizen still pays the flat 8% stamp duty that has applied since 1 January 2026.

1,005 units in a 39-storey scheme, with residential floors reported to start at level 8 above the car park podium. Those figures come from the property portals, not from a developer publication — there is no live developer website for this project — so treat them as reliable working numbers rather than gospel.

Eleven layouts are published, from 506 sq ft to 1,152 sq ft: Type A 506, A1 517, B1 614, B 624, C 678, D 743, E 753, F 861, J 1,119, G 1,152 and the Type H dual-key at 1,152.

A caution on the bedroom and bathroom counts. The marketing material describes the 678 sq ft Type C as two bedrooms with one bathroom, while iProperty’s building profile describes a 678 sq ft layout as two bedrooms with two bathrooms and one car park. The 743 sq ft Type D is published as a one-bedroom, which is unusually generous for a single bedroom. I have printed what the drawings say and flagged the disputes rather than resolving them for you on a webpage. For a completed building you settle this in fifteen minutes by viewing the unit — which is exactly what I would do with you before making an offer.

I am going to show you the range and then tell you why you should not treat any of it as a valuation.

In 2026 iProperty was carrying 137 units of this building for sale in a range of roughly RM373,000 to RM907,073, and 84 units for rent between about RM850 and RM3,500 a month. A property data service reporting on the Medini market in April 2026 put the average asking sale price for this building at around RM543,679 across 92 listings and the average asking rent at around RM2,471 across 210 listings, implying a gross yield near 5.5% — and noted this building had the deepest rental market of the main Medini developments.

Every one of those is an asking figure. Asking prices in a market with this much competing stock tend to sit above transacted prices, and asking rents sit above achieved rents once you deduct the vacancy months. Separately, the marketing site currently promoting the project quotes nett prices per layout from about RM406,000 for the 506 sq ft type up to about RM898,000 for the 1,152 sq ft type. I cannot trace those to the developer, so they are not on this page as facts.

What you actually want is transacted evidence for the specific layout and floor band, plus the achieved rent and the vacancy history of the units in that stack. I can get transacted comparables and I can ask the management office what is really being let and at what. Message me and I will pull it before you make an offer.

No, and anyone who tells you it is over is selling you something. But it has changed shape, and the shape matters more than the headline.

The history is well documented. Between roughly 2012 and 2017 Medini absorbed a wave of high-rise launches sold heavily to overseas investors on the strength of the no-minimum-price exemption and the Iskandar growth story. The units completed, the investors took delivery, and a large share of them found no tenants. Reports from that period describe occupancy in some Medini developments falling well below half and resale prices settling materially under launch prices. That is the origin of the empty-tower photographs you have seen.

Where it stands now. New launches in Medini have slowed sharply, which lets existing stock absorb. EduCity’s intake, Gleneagles Medini and the surrounding employers have matured from a promise into a recurring tenant base. Gross yields across the main Medini strata developments now cluster in the 5 to 6% range, which is what you would expect once prices have fallen far enough to be supported by real rent rather than by a growth narrative. That is a healthier foundation than 2015 — but it was reached by prices falling, not by rents rising, and you should be clear-eyed that you are buying into the aftermath.

The number that tells you the most about this specific building: 137 units listed for sale on a single portal out of 1,005 units in the scheme. Roughly one in seven, on one portal. That is your competition on the day you decide to sell. It does not make The M a bad buy — deep listings also mean liquidity and transparent pricing, and this building has the strongest rental depth in Medini — but it does mean you should plan for a six to twelve month sale process, price to the market rather than to your purchase price, and never buy here expecting short-term capital growth.

One structural thing the JS-SEZ does not fix: Medini is not on the RTS Link alignment. The cross-border commuter premium that Bukit Chagar and the JB waterfront will capture does not reach here. Medini’s tenant base will remain institutional and local. Buy accordingly.

It should change what you check, not necessarily whether you buy.

The facts first. Macrolink’s Chinese parent, 新华联控股有限公司, defaulted on debt financing instruments and went through a court-supervised restructuring. As at February 2023 its disclosed external guarantee balance was RMB 16.349 billion, reported as roughly 616% of its most recent audited net assets. The restructuring was carried through by applying equity in seven listed companies and four financial institutions to generate approximately RMB 5.5 billion in cash and shares for creditors, and follow-up default-progress notices were still being published as recently as February 2025. Its listed culture and tourism subsidiary has carried going-concern language of its own.

Now the part that matters for you. This building was completed in 2020 and handed over. The catastrophic risk from a distressed developer — an abandoned project, a buyer paying progressive instalments into a hole — cannot happen to you here, because the building is finished. What a distressed parent can still do to a completed strata scheme is slower: unsold developer stock released cheaply into your resale market, developer-held units in arrears on maintenance, weak participation in the management corporation, and reduced appetite to fix defects.

So the due diligence is simple and it is all inside the management office. Ask for the number of units still held by the developer, the maintenance fee collection rate, the sinking fund balance and the minutes of the last annual general meeting. If collection is strong and the sinking fund is healthy, the parent’s problems in China are largely somebody else’s. If a large block sits unsold and in arrears, you now know the real risk you are buying, and you can price it. I will go with you and ask.

It is one of the more defensible rental buys in Medini, on one specific condition: that you buy the layout the market is short of rather than the one that is cheapest.

Your tenant pool is institutional and local. EduCity hosts branches of several international universities, so students, postgraduates and academic staff turn over on the academic calendar — predictable, recurring, and budget-conscious. Gleneagles Medini employs medical and support staff. Surrounding industrial and office employers in Iskandar Puteri supply the rest. What you will not get here is the Singapore daily commuter, because Medini is not on the RTS alignment and the drive to the Causeway crossings is not a daily proposition for most people.

This building has the deepest rental market in Medini by listing volume, which cuts both ways. Depth means a tenant exists for almost any unit at some price; it also means that on any given day dozens of near-identical units are competing with yours, so the price is set by the market and not by your furnishings. Budget one vacant month a year as a baseline and be conservative about anything better.

The one real edge available to you here is scarcity within the building. Five of the eleven layouts are one-bedroom or one-plus-one — that is the crowded end. The 1,119 and 1,152 sq ft plans, and the Type H dual-key, are the thin end. A dual-key in particular lets you run two tenancies from one title, which halves the impact of a single vacancy. Ask me for the stack-by-stack rental history before you choose a unit; that is a far better guide than the average yield figure everybody quotes.

Usually yes, at a lower margin of finance than a Malaysian citizen, and with one extra complication specific to Medini.

Non-citizens typically obtain around 60 to 70% margin of finance on Malaysian property, against up to 90% for citizens. On a purchase in the RM500,000 range that means budgeting RM150,000 to RM200,000 of equity before costs.

The Medini complication is tenure. If the parcel is held under a private lease scheme with a finite expiry, banks assess the remaining lease term as part of their credit decision, and a shortening lease can compress both the margin and the maximum tenure they will offer — the loan term is normally required to end a set number of years before the lease does. This is a live consideration on a lease expiring in the 2110s today, and it becomes a sharper one for whoever you sell to in twenty years.

There is no way around doing this in the right order. Get the land search and confirm the tenure and remaining term first, then take that document to two or three banks and get their written indicative terms, then negotiate the price. Buyers who do it in the reverse order are the ones who lose their booking fee. Add to your budget the flat 8% stamp duty applying to non-citizens since 1 January 2026, legal fees on both the sale agreement and the loan agreement, valuation, and the state consent application. Ask me and I will lay out the full cost stack in ringgit for the specific unit before you commit to anything.

Because a portion of the units is operated as short-stay accommodation. The M appears on major hotel booking platforms under a Hijauan Medini address, which is the same address as the residence.

This is common in Medini for a straightforward reason: Legoland is 800 metres away, families visit for one to three nights, and a serviced residence with a pool converts easily into holiday stock. From an operator’s point of view it is a rational use of units that struggle to find long-term tenants.

From your point of view it has consequences worth weighing before you buy. If you intend to live here: expect luggage in the lifts at check-in hours, a rotating population in the corridors, and a security regime that has to handle guests who are not residents. Go and stand in the lobby on a Saturday afternoon and judge for yourself. If you intend to let long-term: your unit competes for tenants with the same building’s nightly rates during quiet periods, and short-stay operations put heavier wear on lifts, corridors and facilities, which the whole scheme funds through the sinking fund you also pay into.

Two questions for the management office: what the house rules say about short-term letting, and whether the management corporation has passed any resolution restricting it. Both answers are on the record and both are free to obtain.