Sentrio Residences 2 (SN13A)

No. Not one of the 690 units qualifies, and this is not a marginal case. Scientex's own statutory disclosure panel puts SN13A between RM324,200 and RM405,300. Johor requires a non-citizen to transact a strata unit at RM1,000,000 or above and to obtain written State Authority consent. The most expensive unit in this development is worth about 40% of the legal minimum.

That is the whole answer, but here is what would have applied if the numbers were different, because people ask. Johor's foreign-purchase levy has been 3% of the price or RM30,000, whichever is higher, since 1 July 2025 — with a RM50,000 minimum on the state's scale for serviced residences transacted below RM1 million, a bracket that is academic here precisely because those units cannot be sold to a non-citizen in the first place. On top of that sits the flat 8% stamp duty on residential property acquired by non-citizens, effective 1 January 2026, with no first-purchase relief. Add state consent fees and you are typically looking at low-to-mid six figures of transaction cost before you own anything.

Do not let anyone tell you the Johor–Singapore Special Economic Zone changes this. It does not. The RM1,000,000 floor is set by the state and the SEZ incentives are tax and business measures, not a relaxation of the foreign ownership threshold. If you are Singaporean and Senai is where you want to be for the airport, message me and I will send you the western Johor launches that actually clear RM1 million, with the levy and the 8% duty already built into the total.

690 units in SN13A. It is phase 2 of Sentrio Residences, and phase 1 is a separate, larger thing: Scientex describes phase 1 as six blocks totalling 1,038 units, which is exactly SN12A's 516 plus SN12B's 522. Add SN13A and Scientex will have put 1,728 apartments into this one township.

The three releases are near-identical products at three price points and three completion dates. SN12A: 516 units, RM297,500 to RM372,900, completing July 2027. SN12B: 522 units, RM308,200 to RM385,800, completing January 2028. SN13A: 690 units, RM324,200 to RM405,300, completing June 2029. Same 850 to 1,036 sq ft built-up range, same three-to-four bedrooms, same freehold title, same approving authority.

So the honest way to choose is not by which is nicer — they are the same apartment — but by what you are optimising for. Earliest handover and lowest entry price: SN12A, if anything is left. Middle ground: SN12B. Newest release with the widest choice of stack and facing, and the most facilities: SN13A, at the cost of waiting until 2029. Tell me which of those three matters most to you and I will pull the live availability for that block.

850 to 1,036 sq ft, three to four bedrooms, two to three bathrooms. Those are the four figures Scientex publishes in its highlights panel, and they are the only layout figures I will state as fact on this page.

Here is what is deliberately missing and why. Scientex publishes one combined floor plan sheet for SN13A rather than a type-by-type schedule with codes, areas and bathroom counts set out separately. Listing portals have filled that gap with type codes and area splits of their own. I am not going to reprint an agent's reconstruction of a developer's schedule as though the developer had published it — that is exactly the kind of number that gets copied around until nobody remembers where it came from.

What the size band does tell you is more useful than the codes anyway. A 1,036 sq ft four-bedroom under RM406,000 works out below RM400 per square foot, and a family-sized apartment at that price in Johor is not common. When you are choosing, the questions that actually move the value are the ones not on any sheet: which stack faces away from the airport approach, how many lifts serve your block, and how many car park bays come with a four-bedroom unit. I ask those on your behalf before you pay a booking fee.

About 1.9 km in a straight line to the terminal building. I calculated that from the coordinate Scientex publishes for Sentrio Residences, and I have labelled it as a straight-line figure rather than a drive.

Whether it is a problem depends entirely on which side of the transaction you are on, and I would rather set it out than sell around it. As a landlord, proximity to an operating international airport and to the Senai–Kulai industrial belt is the single strongest demand argument this address has. Airport ground staff, air-cargo and freight-forwarding employees, and factory supervisors are a stable, salaried, locally-financed tenant pool, and they are the tenants a 3-bedroom 850 sq ft apartment at RM324,200 is actually built for.

As an owner-occupier, do the physical check. Straight-line distance to a terminal is not the same as sitting under a flight path, and the answer depends on runway orientation and the approach used on the day. Stand on the site in the early morning and again late in the evening, which is when freight movements cluster. Scientex has not published a noise assessment and I have not seen one, so I am not going to tell you it is fine or that it is bad. Go and listen, then decide.

Freehold, with land encumbrances stated as nil on the statutory panel. Freehold in this part of Johor is genuinely common rather than rare, so it is a comfort rather than a selling point — but it does mean no lease-extension question thirty years out, and banks price that in.

The serviced apartment part is the one that costs you money every month and gets glossed over most often. A serviced apartment is a residential unit sitting on commercially-titled land. Three consequences follow, and all three are permanent rather than one-off. Assessment rates (cukai pintu) are charged at the commercial scale. Electricity and water are billed at commercial tariffs, which are higher than the domestic tariffs a residential-titled apartment pays. And several banks set a lower margin of financing on commercial-title stock, or add a spread to the rate.

None of that makes it a bad buy at this price. It does mean the honest monthly holding cost is above what a same-sized residential-titled apartment would cost, and you should build that in before you compare this to a landed terrace in the same district. Get the maintenance rate and the sinking fund rate in writing from the developer, and get an indicative financing approval before you firm up the booking rather than after.

It sets the weather, but SN13A is not standing in the worst of it, and the distinction is worth getting exactly right.

The scale first. NAPIC's Property Market Q1 2026 figures record 19,263 completed unsold serviced apartments nationally, of which Johor alone holds 9,972 — the largest serviced-apartment overhang of any state in Malaysia, and more than Kuala Lumpur and Selangor combined. That is the category SN13A belongs to, so it is the right number to quote here rather than the separate residential category.

Now the part that matters. The overhang is concentrated in the RM500,001 to RM1 million band, which carries the clear majority of that unsold stock. SN13A's ceiling is RM405,300. It sits below the crowded band, not inside it, and it competes for a buyer whose alternative is a 20-year-old flat or a rented terrace rather than another RM800,000 city-centre serviced apartment. That is a real structural advantage and it is the strongest thing this project has going for it.

The risk that remains is local rather than statewide: Scientex will have released 1,728 apartments into one township across three phases, and they are the same apartment. When you come to sell or let in 2029, your closest competition is not the JB city centre — it is the unit two floors down. Buy the stack that is genuinely differentiated (corner, quiet facing, best light) rather than the cheapest one, because in a building of identical units the only thing you can compete on later is the specific unit.

Be careful with this question, because there is no published answer to it yet and there is plenty of invented answer circulating.

What Scientex actually states is short. The scheme is gated and guarded, and the Senai township page describes SN13A as offering seven better facilities than phase 1. That is the complete official position. There is no itemised facility schedule on the SN13A project page — no pool dimensions, no gym, no playground list, no clubhouse description. There is also no block count and no storey count published.

I could fill that space with the standard list every Malaysian serviced apartment brochure carries, and you would probably not notice. I would rather you knew that the list you see elsewhere for this project is not coming from the developer. The facilities that are contractually yours are the ones drawn on the building plan approved under reference (17)dlm.MPKu4/2-15/2024P, and that plan is the document to ask for. Message me and I will request the approved facilities layout and the current site plan from the Senai sales office and send you what actually comes back.

The prices are real, in a specific and limited sense. RM324,200 to RM405,300 is the price envelope filed with the authorities on the advertising and sales permit — the legal minimum and maximum across the whole development. It is not a live price list. It does not tell you what a specific stack on a specific floor costs this month, what rebates or packages are attached, or which layouts are still available at the bottom of the range.

The maintenance fee is a different situation: Scientex has not published one for SN13A, so there is no figure on this page. On a serviced apartment this is the single most consequential number after the purchase price, because it is charged per square foot every month for as long as you own the unit, and on commercial title it sits on top of commercial-rate assessment and utilities. A guess here would be irresponsible, so I have not made one.

What I will get you, in writing, from the developer rather than from a listing: the current price list for the release that is actually open, the maintenance charge and the sinking fund rate per square foot, the car park allocation for the layout you want, and the payment schedule against construction milestones. Tell me your budget and whether you are buying to live in or to let, and I will put the request in.

The question to answer first is which of the three Sentrio releases fits you, because waiting for SN13A is not the only way to buy this apartment. If handover date is what you care about, SN12A completes in July 2027 and SN12B in January 2028, both at lower price ceilings — but Scientex says phase 1 has only limited units left, so the choice of stack is whatever is unsold rather than whatever you want.

If you are buying SN13A specifically, three practical consequences of a June 2029 completion. Your capital goes out on a milestone schedule you do not control, so the cash flow needs planning. There is no rental income for roughly three years, so any yield calculation starts in 2029, not now. And the market you sell or let into in 2029 is not today's — the JS-SEZ build-out, the industrial and data-centre demand in the Senai–Kulai belt and the RTS Link opening all land between now and then, and nobody honestly knows the net effect.

There is protection worth knowing about. This is a residential development registered under the Housing Development Act with a developer licence and an advertising permit, which means the statutory sale and purchase agreement, progressive payments tied to certified construction stages, liquidated damages if delivery is late, and a stakeholder sum retained against defects. That is real, and it is exactly what a purely commercial or industrial product does not give you. One thing to confirm on paper rather than assume: the vacant possession clause in your own SPA, which is the date with legal force — not the June 2029 date printed on the marketing panel.

For a Malaysian buyer, yes, and at RM324,200 to RM405,300 this is squarely in the band that Malaysian lenders finance most comfortably. Two things still deserve attention before you commit.

First, commercial title. As covered above, a serviced apartment sits on commercially-titled land, and some lenders set a lower margin of financing on that or add a spread to the rate. It is not an obstacle at this price, but it is a reason to get an indicative approval in writing before you firm up a booking rather than assuming the number you have in your head. The approval environment has also tightened: the national housing loan approval rate has been running below 40% in 2026, down from the low forties in the two preceding years.

Second, the timing of the stamp duty relief. The first-time-buyer stamp duty exemption for homes up to RM500,000 has been extended to 31 December 2027, and every unit in SN13A falls under that cap. Whether you can actually use it depends on your own eligibility and on when your instruments are executed against a June 2029 completion — that is a question for your conveyancing lawyer, and it is worth asking early rather than at signing. For a non-citizen the question does not arise, because no unit here is available to you in the first place. Send me your budget and situation and I will map the real all-in number for the specific layout you want.