Arus Nova

Legally, you will be buying a strata unit in a leasehold building. Practically, it is designed like a small hotel: a front desk, luggage room, housekeeping, laundromat, indoor pool and rooftop bar, with 133 of 158 suites being studios.

That distinction matters for three things: the title category, which determines whether short-stay letting is permitted; whether there will be a single operator running a rental pool; and how the maintenance charge is set.

The developer fact sheet answers two of them in outline: it classes the project as commercial, and it estimates the management fee and sinking fund at about RM0.50 per square foot. The operator has not been named. Ask for all three in writing before you book.

The developer's floor plans show 158 suites: six on Level 2 and nineteen on each of Levels 3 to 10. That total matches the developer's own unit table exactly.

The developer fact sheet says 183 units, and a business-press market survey says 184. The difference may be suites on floors not yet drawn, or a count that includes something other than suites. I cannot reconcile it from the published material, so I have used 158 — the number you can check yourself on the plans — and flagged the rest.

Not as a rule. The fact sheet states that units are sold without a car park, and the building has 52 parking bays in total, most of them reached by a car lift. For a short-stay studio that is normal; for owner-occupation with a car it is the first thing to resolve.

If you need a bay, ask whether any can be purchased or leased separately, and on what terms.

Business-press coverage of the quarter's launches put Arus Nova between about RM475,000 and RM1.063 million, or roughly RM1,143 to RM1,480 per square foot. That is the only published range I could trace.

Current prices vary by floor, view side and type, and I take the live price list directly from the developer. Send me the type and budget you have in mind and I will send you what is actually available.

Possibly, but Sabah is not the Peninsula, and I will not give you a threshold as though it were settled.

The Bar Council's state-by-state table records Sabah's minimum price for residential property bought by a non-citizen as RM1,000,000, which would exclude almost every suite here. A figure of RM600,000 for high-rise strata is also widely quoted. Serviced suites on commercial title may be treated differently again.

The only reliable answer is a written confirmation from the Sabah Lands and Surveys Department, obtained through a Sabah conveyancing solicitor, for the exact unit and price. Budget also for the flat 8% stamp duty on residential purchases by non-citizens since 1 January 2026.

The developer estimates the end of 2029. That is an estimate on a fact sheet, not a contractual date.

What binds is the delivery period in your sale and purchase agreement and the compensation for late delivery set under Sabah's rules. Read that clause, and plan your financing around it rather than around a marketing year.

It depends on what you are buying for, and the floor plans answer most of it.

For a let-by-the-night studio with the lowest entry price, Types E and F are the smallest keys. For a studio that does not compete with 116 identical neighbours, Type A is the only large studio and there are just nine. For something a family can use, only the eight Type C corners have two bedrooms. Type D gives two lettable keys behind one door.

Tell me whether you plan to live in it, let it by the night, or let it by the year, and I will lay the relevant types side by side with current prices.

Still unpublished: the Sabah licence and advertising permit numbers; who the architect and contractor are; a finishes schedule; how far construction has got; who will operate the suites and on what terms; and why the fact sheet counts more units than the plans show.

Types C and D also carry two different built-up areas in the developer's material: 790 and 777 sq ft in the brochure and on the official project site, 754 sq ft in the unit table on Aton Group's page. Ask which one will be written into your agreement.

Arus Nova is on Jalan Tanjung Aru, 88100 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, in the Tanjung Aru beach district south of the city centre.

The developer brochure map draws it next to Aru Suites and SM La Salle, close to the Kinabalu Golf Club, Perdana Park and Tanjung Aru beach, with the international airport to the south. No street number or distances are published. The sales gallery is elsewhere, at Vetro 11 on Jalan Penampang.

The developer of Arus Nova is Fortress City Sdn Bhd (company no. 1463346-M), and the project is marketed under the Aton Group name.

The developer fact sheet lists Aru Suites, Vetro 11 and Beaufort Pavilion as the developer's completed projects, which matches Aton Group's own website. Confirm the vendor name on your sale and purchase agreement.

Arus Nova is leasehold: the developer fact sheet states a 99-year lease, and classes the project as commercial rather than residential.

The lease start and expiry dates and the land title number are not in the brochure or the fact sheet. Ask for a copy of the title — the years remaining and the permitted use are what a bank and a later buyer will look at.

The developer fact sheet estimates the management fee and sinking fund together at about RM0.50 per square foot — about RM210 for a 421 sq ft Type B and RM395 for a 790 sq ft Type C, on the usual monthly basis.

It is an estimate made before completion, with no breakdown, and the final rate is set when the building is handed over. If the suites are run as a managed pool, ask what the operator charges on top.