malaysiaproperty4u.com

Skip to main content
🇲🇾 11 years in Malaysian property · Johor Bahru & Kuala Lumpur new launches
EN|中文
Area guide · Johor, Malaysia

Johor Bahru property

Johor Bahru is not one market. It is 10 distinct sub-markets built around two different border crossings, and the district you choose matters more than the project you choose. Here is the whole city, with the verified developments placed on it.

92 verified developments in Johor10 districts mappedRM244,000 lowest published priceVerified 2026-08-17
Ask which district fits you

⚡ Typical reply within 15 minutes, 9am–10pm MYT · No obligation

92Developments verified one by one
10Districts, each with its own logic
2Border crossings that split the city
Causeway vs Second LinkPrice band by districtTransacted, not just askingService charge and running costsForeign-buyer floors and leviesWho should buy where
Towers at Skypark Kepler @ Lido Waterfront Boulevard by Lido Waterfront Boulevard Sdn Bhd (Tropicana Corporation Berhad), Lido Waterfront Boulevard, Johor Bahru, Johor
Skypark Kepler @ Lido Waterfront Boulevard · Johor Bahru
Facade at Aethera Residences by UOA Group, Ibrahim International Business District, Johor Bahru, Johor
Aethera Residences · Ibrahim International Business District
Twin towers at The Astaka @ One Bukit Senyum by Astaka Padu Sdn Bhd, Bukit Senyum, Johor Bahru, Johor
The Astaka @ One Bukit Senyum · Bukit Senyum
Answer block

What you need to know about buying in Johor Bahru

The 60-second version.

Johor Bahru splits into two halves that barely overlap. The eastern half runs off the Causeway at Bangunan Sultan Iskandar; the western half runs off the Second Link at Tuas. Pick the wrong half and you commute an extra hour a day for as long as you own the property. Within each half, price falls sharply with distance from the crossing — published prices on this site run from RM244,000 to RM4,288,000 — and for a non-citizen, most of the lower half of that range is legally out of reach.

Developments verified
92each with its own page and its own sources
Published prices
RM244,000 – RM4,288,000lowest and highest figure any developer or permit has published here
Foreign-buyer floor
RM1m strata · RM2m landedplus state consent · RM500,000 only in Forest City
Closed to foreign buyers
at least 12 of 92documented as having no unit at or above the floor
The single most useful habit. When you see a distance, ask whether it is measured by road or in a straight line, and which document it came from. Two projects quoted on different bases cannot be compared, and in Johor Bahru they routinely are. I take that apart on the RTS Link page.
The map

The two crossings, and why they decide everything

Before districts, before budget, before project — this.

Johor Bahru has two road links to Singapore and they serve different halves of the city. The Causeway lands at Bangunan Sultan Iskandar in the city centre and feeds the eastern half — the CIQ belt, Bukit Senyum, the Jalan Tebrau corridor, Permas Jaya and out to Pasir Gudang. The Second Link lands at Tuas and feeds the western half — Gelang Patah, Iskandar Puteri, Medini, Puteri Harbour and Forest City.

If you work in the Singapore CBD, Woodlands or the north, the Causeway side is your side. If you work in Jurong, Tuas or the west, the Second Link side is. Nobody sensibly commutes from Medini through the Causeway, and nobody sensibly commutes from Tanjung Puteri through Tuas. The two shortlists are almost mutually exclusive, and I have watched buyers spend a year in the wrong one because a project looked good in a brochure.

The rail link changes the eastern half only. The RTS Link runs from Bukit Chagar, beside the Causeway CIQ, to Woodlands North. There is no station on the western side, which is why a Medini project’s own material states plainly that it is not served by it.

Six Johor Bahru projects worth looking at first · from the lists below

  • Causeway · Bangunan Sultan IskandarEastern halfcity centre, Bukit Senyum, Tebrau corridor, Permas Jaya, Pasir Gudang
  • Second Link · TuasWestern halfPerling, Iskandar Puteri, Medini, Puteri Harbour, Forest City
  • RTS Link · Bukit Chagar stationEastern half onlynot yet in passenger service — see the RTS page
Do this before you shortlist anything. Open a map, put a pin on your Singapore workplace, and note which crossing you would actually use on a Monday morning. Then only look at that half of Johor Bahru. It is the cheapest decision on this page and the one most people skip.
District by district

The 10 sub-markets of Johor Bahru

Each district below carries its own character, its own price band and its own buyer. Every project named is one I have verified against developer or statutory sources, with its own page on this site.

JB city centre and the CIQ belt · 18 verified developments

Everything within roughly a kilometre of Bangunan Sultan Iskandar. This is the densest, newest and most heavily marketed stock in the state, and it is where almost every Singapore-facing launch of the last five years has landed.

What you are buying here is walkability to the crossing, and you are paying for it in three ways: the highest price per square foot outside Bukit Senyum, the smallest layouts, and the thickest competition on resale and on rent. Seventeen of the developments listed below sit in this belt alone. Several of them are 1,000 to 4,000 units each. Work out who your future tenant is before you assume the rent.

Bukit Senyum and Stulang — the premium pocket · 3 verified developments

A small area immediately east of the city centre that has been developed as a single masterplan rather than lot by lot. It holds the tallest and most expensive residential towers in Johor Bahru, and it is the only pocket where an entire project prices above the RM1 million foreign-buyer floor.

This is where a foreign buyer with a real budget can actually transact without hunting for the one qualifying stack in a building. It is also where the price gap between here and three kilometres inland is at its widest — which is the whole point of the pocket, and the whole risk of it.

Danga Bay and the western waterfront · 4 verified developments

Two to eight kilometres west of the crossing along the Straits. The land here was reclaimed and master-planned for waterfront living, and it produced some of the largest single schemes in Johor Bahru.

The trade is space for proximity. Layouts are noticeably larger than in the city centre at similar money, and you get a sea frontage instead of a view of another tower. What you give up is the walk to the crossing — Calia’s own figure to the RTS station is 7.7 km, and a free shuttle is not the same thing as walking distance.

Larkin, Kebun Teh, Tampoi and the Skudai–Senai corridor · 8 verified developments

The inner north-west. Older, denser, unmistakably local, and priced accordingly. This is where the RM400,000-to-RM800,000 serviced apartment lives, and where almost nothing clears the RM1 million foreign-buyer floor.

It is also the belt where tenure gets least attention from developers. Amberwood is leasehold to 3 June 2119, The Asteriaz is leasehold on commercial title with no published expiry, and The Celestz and Aliff Harmoni have published no tenure at all. If you are shopping here, read the freehold and leasehold guide before you read the price list.

The Jalan Tebrau corridor, Taman Sentosa and Southkey · 12 verified developments

The spine running north-east out of the city. Malls, hospitals, schools and the bulk of the mid-market high-rise supply. Nothing here is walking distance to the crossing — the honest figures run from 3.5 km to about 7 km — so everything here is a driving proposition.

This is where the entry price for a new Johor Bahru apartment actually sits. Paragon Gateway’s phase 1 permit band starts at RM348,653, which is the lowest published launch price anywhere on the Tebrau corridor, and among the lowest of the 92 projects on this site — the lowest published figure anywhere here is RM244,000. It is also the belt with the deepest local tenant pool, because people who work in Johor Bahru rather than Singapore live along here.

Permas Jaya, Senibong Cove and Masai · 7 verified developments

The eastern waterfront, across the Sungai Johor mouth from the city. Quieter, greener, and built around marina and township living rather than around the crossing.

Distances here are the ones most often misrepresented. The Straits View DUO’s developer quotes 10 km to the CIQ; measured straight-line from the same address it is 6.4 km. Neither number is dishonest — one is road, one is a line — but if you compare a road figure here against a straight-line figure elsewhere you will rank two projects wrongly.

Mount Austin, Tebrau, Bandar Dato’ Onn and Ulu Tiram · 12 verified developments

Suburban Johor Bahru, ten to fifteen kilometres out. This is where the city actually lives: schools, landed housing, and the double-storey terrace that a local family buys instead of a tower unit.

It is also the clearest illustration of what the foreign-buyer floors do. Sanubari’s landed phases at Bandar Dato’ Onn are priced from RM1,100,977 to RM1,935,000 — comfortably over RM1 million, and still closed to non-citizens, because the floor for landed property in Johor is RM2,000,000, not RM1,000,000.

Pasir Gudang, Seri Alam, Meridin East and the industrial belt · 7 verified developments

Eighteen to twenty-two kilometres east. Port, petrochemical and manufacturing employment, and the landed housing built for the people who work there. Also where the state’s industrial property sits.

Two things to know. First, the landed stock here — RM743,000 to RM1,166,400 across the two schemes I have verified — is entirely below Johor’s RM2 million landed floor, so it is a Malaysian-buyer market. Second, the foreign levy on industrial property is 4%, not the 3% that applies to residential and commercial. People copy the 3% figure across all three categories and get it wrong.

Iskandar Puteri, Medini, Puteri Harbour and Perling · 19 verified developments

The western half of the metropolitan area, twelve to twenty kilometres from the Causeway and built around a completely different crossing — the Second Link at Tuas. If your work is in Jurong or the west of Singapore, this side of the city is the correct shortlist and the city centre is not.

Medini inside this area has its own tenure regime — a private lease scheme, not freehold, however it is advertised. Historically it also had its own foreign-ownership treatment. Both points need confirming in writing for the specific parcel, and I have set them out on the tenure page.

Forest City · 2 verified developments

The far south-west, next to the Second Link. It is the only address in Malaysia with its own foreign-ownership arrangement: the Special Financial Zone MM2H route sets a property threshold of RM500,000 here, against RM1,000,000 for strata and RM2,000,000 for landed everywhere else in Johor.

That single fact is why Forest City appears on every foreign buyer’s list and why it deserves the most careful reading of any address in this guide. Go and see the occupancy for yourself, and treat the threshold as a reason to do more due diligence rather than less.

The numbers

What things actually cost, and what they really return

The price ladder

Published launch and permit bands across the 92 developments on this site span roughly one order of magnitude. The floor is RM244,000. The ceiling on a residential unit is RM4,288,000, the top of the published band at Aethera Residences in the city centre. Landed housing runs RM743,000 to RM1,935,000 between the Pasir Gudang corridor and Bandar Dato’ Onn. Industrial starts around RM3.39 million at Setia Edge.

Those are the numbers I would negotiate against, because a permit band is a filed document rather than a marketing position. Anything quoted as “from RM___” is a single stack on a single floor and tells you almost nothing about what your unit will cost.

Asking prices and transacted prices are not the same market

Setia Sky 88 is the cleanest illustration I have, because both figures exist for the same building. Asking prices run from RM480,000 to RM1.89 million. The median transaction is RM845 psf, about RM694,000. Same address, same year — one number is what sellers want and the other is what buyers paid.

Where a project is completed, ask for the transacted median before you look at a single listing. Country Garden Danga Bay sits around RM688 psf, The Astaka around RM1,032 psf. The spread between those two is address and building quality, and it is a more honest map of the city than any asking-price table.

The costs nobody quotes you

Service charge is the number that quietly decides your net return. The verified rates on this site: RM0.42 psf a month at R&F Princess Cove phase 2, about RM0.47 psf at Setia Sky 88, a projected RM0.40 psf at Summer Suites. On a 900 sq ft unit that is roughly RM360 to RM425 every month, and the sinking fund contribution sits on top.

Then the title category. Most Johor Bahru high-rise stock is on commercial-category land, which means assessment, water and electricity are billed at commercial rates rather than residential ones, and banks commonly lend a lower margin against it. That is a permanent difference in your monthly outgoings, not a one-off at completion.

Ask for the estimated service charge and sinking fund per square foot in writing before you pay a booking fee. On a small unit those two figures move the net yield more than the headline price does.

Rents, so you can sanity-check a yield

Asking rents from completed buildings I have verified: Setia Sky 88 RM2,200 to RM3,800 a month, Shama Suasana RM2,400 to RM3,900, Space Residency RM1,300 to RM5,000, SKS Pavillion RM700 to RM4,000. Those are asking rents. Achieved rents are lower and vacancy is real, particularly for small units in buildings where several hundred identical units come to market in the same year.

The arithmetic that matters is not gross yield. It is: achieved rent, minus service charge, minus sinking fund, minus assessment and insurance, minus agency, minus the months the unit sits empty, against the price you actually paid including stamp duty and legal fees. Run that and a great many advertised yields do not survive.

Matching

Who should buy where

Five buyers I meet repeatedly, and where each one should actually be looking.

RM348,653Lowest published launch price
RM4,288,000Highest published band
RM1m / RM2mForeign floor, strata / landed
19Projects closed to foreigners
🚗

You cross at the Causeway every day

City centre and the CIQ belt, or Bukit Senyum. Buy for the walk, accept the small layout, and check how many units in your own building will compete with yours.

🏭

You cross at the Second Link

Iskandar Puteri, Medini, Puteri Harbour, Perling or Forest City. Read the tenure carefully — Medini is a private lease scheme, not freehold.

🌏

You are a non-citizen with RM1m+

The shortlist is genuinely short. Bukit Senyum is the only pocket where a whole project clears the floor; elsewhere you are buying one qualifying stack in a building.

👨‍👩‍👧

You want land and schools

Mount Austin, Bandar Dato’ Onn, Tebrau, or the Pasir Gudang corridor. Deeper local resale pool, and Johor’s RM2m landed floor keeps foreign competition out.

📈

You are buying to let

Decide who the tenant is before you decide the district. Then get the service charge in writing and count the identical units completing in the same year.

💬 Tell me your situation, I will name the district
Honest part

Three ways buyers lose money in Johor Bahru

📏

Buying on a distance figure

Road distance, straight-line distance and “minutes” are three different claims, and projects quote whichever flatters them. Two developers on this site publish two different figures for their own project.

🧾

Ignoring the title category

Freehold on commercial land is normal here and costs you commercial assessment and commercial utility tariffs every year, plus a tighter loan margin. It is never on the price list.

🏢

Assuming the rent

A tower with 1,500 small units delivers 1,500 competitors on the same day you look for a tenant. Ask how many units share your layout before you model a yield.

None of these makes Johor Bahru a bad market. They make it a market where the paperwork matters more than the showroom. Every project page on this site is written on that basis — where a developer has not published something, it is not on the page.
Straight answers

Frequently asked questions

Is Johor Bahru a good place to buy property?

It depends entirely on which of three things you are actually buying, and buyers who do badly here are usually the ones who have not decided. If you are buying a home to live in, Johor Bahru gives you more space per ringgit than almost anywhere within an hour of Singapore. If you are buying to let, you are entering a city with a great deal of new small-unit supply and you need to know your tenant before you know your yield. If you are buying to resell in five years, you are betting on a specific location and a specific completion date, not on “Johor”.

The verifiable market backdrop: JLL reported Johor Bahru serviced apartment prices up 25.4% in FY2025. That is one asset class, one financial year, one research house. It is a reason to look carefully, not a reason to assume the number repeats.

Which part of Johor Bahru should I buy in?

Start with the crossing you will actually use, not with the project. If you commute through the Causeway at Bangunan Sultan Iskandar, your shortlist is the city centre, Bukit Senyum and the inner east. If you commute through the Second Link at Tuas, your shortlist is Iskandar Puteri, Medini, Gelang Patah and Forest City. Those two lists barely overlap, and choosing from the wrong one costs you an hour a day for as long as you own the property.

If you are not commuting at all, the question changes completely — then it is about schools, hospitals, the tenant pool and how much land you want. That usually points north-east, to Mount Austin, Tebrau and Bandar Dato’ Onn.

How much does property in Johor Bahru cost?

Across the 75 developments verified on this site the published launch bands run from RM324,200 at Sentrio Residences 2 in Senai to RM4,288,000 at the top of Aethera Residences. Landed housing runs from RM743,000 in the Pasir Gudang corridor to RM1,935,000 at Sanubari phase 3 in Bandar Dato’ Onn. Industrial starts around RM3.39 million at Setia Edge.

Those are developer and permit figures, not asking prices, and they are the numbers I would anchor on. Where a project is completed, the transacted median is more useful still: Country Garden Danga Bay around RM688 psf, Setia Sky 88 around RM845 psf, The Astaka around RM1,032 psf.

Can foreigners buy property in Johor Bahru?

Yes, above a price floor and with state consent. Johor sets a minimum purchase price of RM1,000,000 for strata property and RM2,000,000 for landed property bought by a non-citizen. Forest City is the one exception, where the Special Financial Zone MM2H route sets a property threshold of RM500,000.

The costs on top matter more than people expect. The Johor foreign buyer levy has been 3% of the purchase price or RM30,000, whichever is higher, since 1 July 2025 for residential and commercial property — with the minimum rising to RM50,000 where the property is a serviced residence transacted below RM1 million — and 4%, with no minimum at all, for industrial. Stamp duty for non-citizens has been a flat 8% since 1 January 2026, with no first-home exemption; on a RM1 million unit that is RM80,000. Financing is typically 60% to 70% loan-to-value rather than the up-to-90% a citizen can get.

The consequence is blunt: at least 32 of the 75 developments on this site are documented as having no unit at or above the applicable floor, which means a foreign buyer cannot buy a single unit in them at any price. That is not a technicality — it is most of the RM400,000 to RM800,000 market.

Freehold or leasehold — does it matter in Johor Bahru?

It matters most at the far end of the hold, because banks price a lease off its remaining term rather than its original one. It is also routinely misdescribed, particularly in Medini.

I have written that out properly rather than compress it here: see freehold property in Johor Bahru, which lists every project on this site by tenure and explains what a lease costs you at the bank.

What are the ongoing costs of owning?

Three recurring items, and the brochure prices none of them. Service charge: the verified rates on this site are RM0.42 psf a month at R&F Princess Cove phase 2, about RM0.47 psf at Setia Sky 88 and a projected RM0.40 psf at Summer Suites. On a 900 sq ft unit that is roughly RM360 to RM425 a month before you switch on a light. Sinking fund sits on top of that. Assessment and utilities: if the title is commercial — and most Johor Bahru serviced apartments are — assessment, water and electricity are billed at commercial rates for as long as you own it.

Add quit rent, fire insurance and, if you let the unit, agency and income tax. A yield calculated on gross rent is not a yield.

Is the RTS Link running yet?

No. As at August 2026 it is not carrying passengers, and any page telling you otherwise is out of date. Current status and every project’s distance to the station, with the source of each figure, is on property near the RTS Link.

Landed or high-rise?

In Johor Bahru this is mostly a question about who you are. Landed housing is where the local family market is, and it is where the resale buyer pool is deepest — but Johor’s RM2,000,000 floor puts nearly all of it out of reach for non-citizens. Sanubari at Bandar Dato’ Onn tops out at RM1,935,000 and is still closed to foreign buyers for exactly that reason.

High-rise is where the cross-border demand is, where the small units are, and where the supply is heaviest. If you are letting a small unit in the city centre, look hard at how many other units in the same building will be competing with yours on the same day.

What should I ask for before paying a booking fee?

Four documents, and none of them is the brochure. The APDL or statutory permit panel — developer licence number, sales permit number, tenure, encumbrances, unit count, price range, completion date. The land search on the specific lot, obtained by your own conveyancing lawyer. The current price list by stack rather than a headline “from” price. And the estimated service charge and sinking fund per square foot in writing.

Then check the developer licence number yourself on the Ministry of Housing and Local Government’s TEDUH portal. If any of the four cannot be produced, that is information too.

Go deeper

Written guides, not auto-generated tag archives.

Tell me the crossing you use and the budget, and I will name the district

Not a list of everything — the two or three districts that actually fit, and what is available in them this week, with the permit band and the service charge rather than a headline price.

WhatsApp Louis now📞 Call +60 10-906 6685

No agent fee payable by the buyer on new developer launches

Louis Koh

11 years in Malaysian property · Johor Bahru & Kuala Lumpur new launches · English & 中文

I work with cross-border buyers from Singapore and with local investors. When a project does not fit what you actually need, I say so — that is usually worth more to you than another brochure.

💬 Message Louis

Published 2026-08-05 · Every figure on this page comes from the developer material, statutory permit disclosure or transaction record cited on the individual project page it links to. Prices, service charges and completion dates are set by developers and change. This page is marketing information, not an offer or a contract, and not legal or tax advice.

Johor Bahru property92 verified developments · 10 districts · two crossings
WhatsApp