Calia Residences by PGB

No. Not one unit in this project qualifies.

Johor sets a minimum purchase price of RM1,000,000 for a strata property bought by a non-citizen, with state consent required on top. PGB’s own advertising and sales permit gives the project’s price band as RM400,905 minimum to RM815,296 maximum. The most expensive unit in the building is roughly RM185,000 short of the legal floor.

That will not change by negotiating, and it does not change if a unit is later resold at a higher price – the threshold is applied to the purchase you are making. If you are a foreign buyer and someone tells you they can get you into Calia, ask them to put that in writing with the state consent reference, and then send it to me.

For completeness, if you are a foreign buyer looking elsewhere in Johor: budget the Johor foreign buyer levy of 3% of price or RM30,000 whichever is higher, in force since 1 July 2025 — and check which minimum you are actually on, because where the property is a serviced residence transacted below RM1 million the state scale sets the floor at RM50,000, not RM30,000. Calia is a strata serviced apartment with a permit band of RM400,905 to RM815,296, so it is the RM50,000 tier that governs here. Then add the flat 8% stamp duty applied to non-citizens since 1 January 2026.

Freehold. PGB publishes the full APDL disclosure on its own project site, and it states land tenure as freehold.

The rest of that disclosure is worth reading in full, because it is the most reliable document about this project in public: gazetted name Residensi Danga Paragon 1; Developer’s Licence 31149/09-2030/0205(N) valid 3 September 2025 to 2 September 2030; Advertising and Sales Permit 31149-1/12-2028/1027(N)-(S) valid 24 December 2025 to 23 December 2028; approving authority Majlis Bandaraya Johor Bahru; approved building plan reference MBJB/U/2024/14/BGN/223/KOM (18); expected completion Q3 2029; land charge held by United Overseas Bank (Malaysia) Bhd; 1,274 units; price band RM400,905 to RM815,296; 15% Bumiputera discount.

Two details I would ask about before signing. First, the building plan reference carries the KOM marker, and serviced apartments in Johor Bahru are normally built on commercial-titled land – that usually means commercial rates for assessment and utility tariffs rather than residential rates, so ask your lawyer to confirm the land category on the master title. Second, the land is charged to UOB; that is normal project financing, and your lawyer’s job is to confirm the redemption and disclaimer arrangements for your specific unit.

One thing in your favour: because there is a developer’s licence and an advertising and sales permit, this sale is governed by the Housing Development (Control and Licensing) Act, with the statutory sale and purchase agreement, the housing development account and the defect liability period that come with it.

1,274 units in this phase, across two towers of 36 storeys, on a 3.61-acre site. Both the unit count and the tower structure come from PGB’s own material – the APDL page gives 1,274, and the facilities plans are labelled Tower A and Tower B.

What PGB has not published is the split between Tower A and Tower B, or the number of units per floor. I am not going to guess it, because that number decides your lift waiting time and your corridor density, which is exactly the kind of thing people are entitled to a real answer on. I ask the developer for the stacking plan on behalf of every buyer who wants it.

There is a bigger number you should also hold in your head. The August 2024 development rights agreement covers two parcels totalling 7.13 acres, and the announced scheme is four towers of 36 floors with 2,552 serviced apartments in total. Calia’s 1,274 units are half of that. The other half is planned for the adjoining parcel. If you buy here, your future resale competition is very likely to include roughly 1,278 near-identical units launched later on the land next door.

Four layouts, all published by PGB with drawings: Type A 453 sq ft, one bedroom one bathroom. Type B 656 sq ft, one-plus-one bedroom, one bathroom. Type C 771 sq ft, two bedrooms two bathrooms. Type D 984 sq ft, three bedrooms three bathrooms, described by the developer as a dual-key home.

Every layout is stated to have a private balcony and a functional yard, and handover is partially furnished.

If you are choosing between them on resale logic rather than lifestyle: Type C is the one with the widest buyer pool in Johor Bahru, because two-bedroom two-bathroom under RM1 million is the shape of the local market. Type A is the easiest to let. Type D is the one to interrogate hardest, because dual-key configuration is usually limited to certain stacks and you want that confirmed in writing, on your stack, before the booking form.

7.7 km to both, according to PGB’s own location page. That is a drive, not a walk.

PGB provides a complimentary shuttle service to the CIQ and the RTS station, which genuinely helps – but a shuttle is a service, not infrastructure. Services get reduced, rescheduled or dropped once the management corporation takes over from the developer. Ask for the shuttle terms in writing, and ask specifically whether the cost sits inside the maintenance charge after handover.

On the RTS itself: civil works are targeted for completion by the end of 2026 and passenger service at Bukit Chagar is expected in early 2027, around five minutes to Woodlands North. Any material that still says 2026 for passenger service is out of date.

My honest read: Danga Bay is a waterfront and space play, not a border-commuter play. If your daily routine is crossing to Singapore on foot, buy in the city centre and pay for it. If you want a bigger unit at a Danga Bay price and you are happy to drive or take the shuttle, this postcode makes sense.

It does, and I would rather point it out than quietly pick one.

The Calia home page lists Hospital Sultanah Aminah at 3.9 km. The Calia location page lists the same hospital at 7.3 km. Both pages are on caliaresidences.com.my and both were last updated in 2026. They cannot both be right.

On this page I use 7.3 km, because it is the figure on the dedicated location page, which carries the fuller and more internally consistent set of distances – the same page also revises KPJ Puteri from 5.0 km to 5.3 km. I have flagged the discrepancy to be checked with PGB.

Why this matters beyond one hospital: if a distance table has an internal contradiction, treat every number in it as an approximation until you have driven it yourself. I will drive the route with you if the hospital run is part of your decision – a lot of buyers here are choosing for elderly parents, and for them four kilometres is not a rounding error.

It means you should buy this to live in, and treat any capital gain as a bonus rather than a plan.

The number: NAPIC’s Q3 2025 data records 9,018 unsold serviced apartments in Johor – the largest serviced-apartment overhang of any state in Malaysia, against a national total of roughly 17,892. That is the hangover from the Iskandar building wave, where supply was completed ahead of the demand that was forecast for it.

Three practical consequences for a Calia buyer. Resale liquidity: when you sell, you are not competing with a handful of neighbours – you are competing with unsold developer stock in the same district, which can discount and can offer rebates in ways an individual owner cannot. Expect a long marketing period. Rental: a large standing pool of empty units keeps asking rents flat and vacancy periods long; underwrite on a conservative rent and a realistic void, not on a brochure yield. Bank valuation: valuers work from transacted comparables in the immediate area. In an oversupplied submarket, comparables come in soft, and a soft valuation shows up as a lower loan margin and a larger cash difference at the point of sale – for your buyer, not just for you.

None of that makes Calia a bad purchase. It makes it a purchase you should size to your own use, not to a projection. If you want, send me your intended holding period and I will show you the actual transacted range for comparable Danga Bay stock rather than asking prices.

PGB has not published a current price list or a maintenance rate anywhere public, and I am not going to repeat the per-square-foot numbers circulating on listing portals because they contradict each other.

The only prices I will put in writing are the ones on the developer’s own advertising and sales permit, and they are a permit band, not a price list: minimum RM400,905, maximum RM815,296. That band tells you the shape of the project. It does not tell you what a specific unit on a specific floor costs today, and it says nothing about the rebate or package on offer this month.

Maintenance charge and sinking fund contribution are also unpublished. For a project with a lap pool, a cascading pool, three more water features, a pickleball court and thirty facilities across two levels shared by 1,274 units, this is not a detail – it is your monthly cost for the next thirty years. Ask for it in RM per square foot per month, and ask what is assumed for the shuttle service.

Message me and I will get you the current price list, the available stacks, the maintenance rate and the payment package direct from PGB. I would rather send you a real document tomorrow than a stale number today.

Generally yes – this is a licensed housing development sold to Malaysians under the standard statutory sale and purchase agreement, and margins of 85% to 90% are normal for a first or second property with a clean credit record.

Three things to check before you commit, in this order. One, the land category. The approved building plan reference carries the KOM marker and serviced apartments here are typically on commercial-titled land. That does not stop a loan, but some banks apply slightly tighter margins to commercial-title residential stock, and the assessment and utility tariffs are usually the commercial ones. Get your lawyer to confirm the category on the master title, then get your banker to quote on that basis – not on an assumption.

Two, the developer’s delivery. Calia is Paragon Globe’s first high-rise. The protection you have is the Housing Development Act: a housing development account, progressive billing tied to certified work, and liquidated damages if delivery is late. Use it. Keep every architect’s certificate, and check the physical progress before you release each payment.

Three, the completion date. Q3 2029 is on the developer’s own disclosure. If you are selling an existing home or timing a move, build the buffer in now, not later.

Send me your budget and whether you are a first-time buyer, and I will tell you which layout your margin actually supports, with the panel banks for this project.