Shama Suasana @ Suasana Iskandar

No. This is the single most important thing to get right about this address, and almost every listing gets it wrong.

The development is Suasana Iskandar Malaysia, a freehold mixed-use project on a 1.42-acre site at 82C Jalan Trus. It contains three distinct things under one roof. Suasana Residences is the strata serviced-residence component — 339 units, sold to individual buyers, and the only part you can own. Amari Johor Bahru is a 242-room five-star hotel, not strata-titled and not for sale. Zenith Lifestyle Centre is a two-storey retail podium of about 55,000 sq ft.

“Shama Suasana Johor Bahru” is a fourth thing: an 87-suite serviced-apartment operation run by ONYX Hospitality Group inside the Suasana Residences tower. It opened in 2018 as Suasana All Suites Hotel Johor Bahru, became Suasana Suites Johor Bahru, and was rebranded to Shama Suasana in July 2024 when ONYX took over its management. It shares the address, the Level 33A facilities and the Suasana Suites Cafe with strata owners.

So: 87 hotel-operated suites, 339 strata units and 242 Amari rooms are three separate inventories. If someone offers you “a unit in Shama Suasana”, ask them for the strata title details. What they mean is a Suasana Residences unit.

No. The developer is United Malayan Land Bhd (UMLand), company registration 4131-M. This is confirmed on UMLand’s own portfolio page, its own corporate profile, and in trade press coverage of UMLand’s press release for the project. UEM Sunrise Berhad has no involvement in this development whatsoever.

I am flagging this loudly because the error is widespread, and it has a practical consequence: a buyer who researches UEM Sunrise’s annual report, gearing and unbilled sales is researching a completely different company’s finances and drawing conclusions about the wrong balance sheet.

UMLand is privately held and not listed on Bursa Malaysia, so there are no public financials at all — no revenue, no gearing, no unbilled sales. I could not verify a single financial metric, and I will not describe a private company’s financial strength on the basis of nothing. Its delivery record, which is verifiable, includes Suasana Sentral Loft, Suasana Bangsar, Seri Bukit Ceylon, Suasana Bukit Ceylon, Somerset Puteri Harbour and Star Residences, plus the townships Bandar Seri Alam, Taman Seri Austin, Bandar Seri Putra and Mahkota Hills.

For a completed building this matters much less than it would for a launch. The developer has been paid, the tower is standing, and your counterparty in a sub-sale is a private seller. The only place it still bites is resale narrative — a private developer is harder for the next buyer to look up than a listed one.

Only above RM1,000,000, which in practice means the three-bedroom tier and the very top of the two-bedroom tier. Johor’s minimum for foreign acquisition is RM1 million for strata property, and the Johor land office applies that floor to sub-sales exactly as it does to developer sales.

On 4 August 2026 the asking range across 20 sale listings ran from RM630,000 to RM1,555,000. One-bedroom units at 644-700 sq ft were asking RM630,000-918,000 — all below the threshold. Two-bedroom units at 900-988 sq ft were asking RM850,000-RM1.10 million, so only the very top of that band qualifies. Three-bedroom units at 1,115-1,240 sq ft were asking RM1.00-1.555 million, averaging about RM1.32 million. If you are not a Malaysian citizen, you are effectively shopping in the three-bedroom tier.

Here is a nuance specific to this building. The land title is recorded as commercial strata. But the Stamp Act’s definition of residential property, inserted by the Finance Act 2025, covers a house, condominium, apartment, flat, serviced apartment or SOHO used solely as a dwelling — and this is a serviced residence. So the 8% stamp duty on transfers to non-citizen individuals and foreign companies, effective 1 January 2026, applies here. On a RM1.3 million unit that is roughly RM104,000.

Add the Johor state levy on foreign acquisition — since 1 July 2025, 3% of the JPPH or transacted value with a RM30,000 minimum for both residential and commercial categories, so about RM39,000 on RM1.3 million — and note the tier under that, because Shama Suasana is a serviced apartment with listings from RM630,000: where a serviced residence is transacted below RM1 million the minimum is RM50,000, not RM30,000. RM1,000,000 is the dividing line, and above it the 3% exceeds either minimum on its own — plus RM2,000 per title for the consent application. State consent under section 433B of the National Land Code is mandatory and takes 2-3 weeks to 3 months. One point to raise with your solicitor: PTG Johor’s definition of foreign interest includes Malaysian permanent residents, which is stricter than the federal position.

I cannot tell you, and I would rather say that plainly than invent a number. Zero verified transacted figures could be obtained for this development.

Here is exactly what I tried. The main transaction database’s project page was blocked to automated access. A second portal’s project page renders its data client-side and could not be read. A third portal’s own transaction module reports zero transactions and a last transaction price of RM0 across a five-year window. The national property data centre publishes no project-level page. That is four dead ends.

Two figures circulate that you should not use. One search summary attributes a median of RM530,000 at RM362 psf across 1,254 transactions to this project — that is actually Johor Bahru district-wide data from a portal’s landing page, not this building. Another snippet quotes an average of RM958 psf over 48 months with a range of RM922-1,073 psf; I could not open or confirm the underlying page, so I am not citing it as fact.

What this means practically: every price on this page is an asking price, captured on 4 August 2026 and labelled as such. Anyone who quotes you a confident transacted median for this building should be asked to name their source and show you the transaction table. When a client of mine is genuinely at the offer stage, that table is exactly what I go and pull — and on a building with this little public data, it is worth more than any brochure.

At or below, for most of the building. The project launched publicly in August 2018 from RM1,100 per square foot, which is a reported figure from the trade press covering the launch event.

Eight years on, asking prices on 4 August 2026 work out at roughly RM900 to RM1,350 psf excluding outliers. By type: one-bedroom units of 644-700 sq ft average about RM1,146 psf; two-bedroom units of 900-988 sq ft average about RM1,012 psf; three-bedroom units of 1,115-1,240 sq ft average about RM1,122 psf, with the lowest at RM806.

So the two-bedroom tier is asking below its launch psf, and the other two tiers are asking around it — and these are asking prices, before negotiation, in a market where the buyer has 20 listings to choose from and no transaction record to anchor the seller’s expectations. In practice that means the achievable price is likely lower still.

One caution: because there is no transacted data, this comparison is asking-price-to-launch-price rather than transacted-to-launch. It tells you where sellers are positioned, not where deals are closing. It is still a useful signal — eight years of no visible upward movement in asking psf, in a building 480 metres from the RTS station, tells you something about how much of the RTS story is already in the price.

339 strata units is the best-supported figure, and it comes from UMLand’s own press release for the project. Listing portals give 336, 355 and 335 depending on where you look, and UMLand’s own website gives no number at all. I use 339 and I would still verify it against the strata plan before committing.

On storeys, the developer’s own website contradicts itself on a single page: the overview section says 36 storeys and the Suasana Residences section on the same page says 35. The press release says 35. The most likely explanation is 35 residential levels within a 36-level count, but that is inference. It is a small thing, and it is also a useful reminder that the developer’s own published material is not internally consistent here.

Unit mix, which is consistent across the developer and the operator: Type A one-bedroom, 644-707 sq ft, seven layouts. Type B two-bedroom, 823-988 sq ft, four layouts. Type C three-bedroom, 1,115-1,238 sq ft, two layouts. The operator’s own suite sizes corroborate this: 60 sqm, 90 sqm and 115 sqm, which convert to roughly 646, 969 and 1,238 sq ft.

One error to avoid: a 2024 press release describes the three-bedroom suite as 1,935 sq ft. That is inconsistent with every other source including the operator’s own 115 sqm. Treat it as a typographical error and use about 1,238 sq ft.

None that I could verify, and you should not assume one exists. No published guaranteed rental return scheme and no owner rental-pool arrangement could be found in any source for this development.

That absence is more telling than it might seem. A Singapore agency site that explicitly advertises guaranteed rental returns for competing Johor Bahru projects lists this development with no such claim attached. If a GRR existed and were still running, that is exactly where it would appear.

The question that is genuinely open is whether an individual owner can place a unit into the Shama operation’s pool, and on what commercial terms. That is not published anywhere I could reach. It is a reasonable thing to ask the operator directly, and I would ask before buying rather than after — because if the answer is no, your unit competes with 87 professionally run suites in the same building for the same short-stay demand.

In short: if anyone selling you a unit here mentions a rental guarantee, ask to see the agreement, check who the counterparty is, check its term and check whether it survives a change of ownership. Do not take it on a brochure line.

The only figure I found is RM0.45 per square foot per month, and it comes from a single listing portal’s fact box with no second source and no management corporation document behind it. I would treat that as unverified.

There is a reason to be sceptical. RM0.45 psf is low for a Johor Bahru city-centre serviced residence on commercial title that shares a hotel-standard facility floor and lift cores with two hotel operations. It has the shape of a launch-era marketing figure rather than a current rate. On a 900 sq ft two-bedroom that would be about RM405 a month, which for this specification would be cheap.

The sinking fund is not published anywhere. Neither is the identity of the management corporation or its managing agent.

So this is what I would do at the offer stage, and what I do for clients: ask the seller for the last two years of maintenance invoices, the most recent AGM minutes, the current audited accounts and the sinking fund balance. On a building where the strata owners share common property with two hotel operations, the cost-apportionment schedule between the strata component and the hotel components is a document worth reading closely. That is the number that determines your holding cost for the next decade.

Asking rents on 4 August 2026 ran RM2,400 to RM3,900 a month across 33 rental listings on one portal, with a second portal showing RM2,500-3,500 across 11. By type: one-bedroom RM2,400-2,800, two-bedroom RM3,000-3,400, three-bedroom RM3,900.

These are asking rents, not signed tenancies. Dividing asking rent by asking price gives a gross yield of roughly 3.5% to 4.0%. That is asking-on-asking, so treat it as an upper bound on both sides of the fraction.

Now the deductions. Maintenance, sinking fund, quit rent, assessment at commercial rates, fire insurance, agency commission on each new tenancy, and vacancy — with 33 units advertised for rent at once in a 339-unit building, roughly one in ten, vacancy is not theoretical. A realistic net yield here is meaningfully below 3%.

The offsetting factor, and it is a real one, is the location. At 480 metres from the RTS station and 190 metres from KOMTAR JBCC, this is genuinely walkable to the crossing — which matters most to exactly the tenant profile that pays a premium: Malaysians working in Singapore. When the RTS opens, that walkability is the thing most likely to move rents here, more than any refurbishment would.

Straight line, calculated by me from the coordinate on the developer’s own contact map: RTS Link Bukit Chagar station about 480 metres, the Johor-Singapore CIQ about 720 metres, KOMTAR JBCC about 190 metres, Persada Johor about 200 metres, JB City Square about 430 metres, JB Sentral about 630 metres, Hospital Sultanah Aminah about 1.45 km.

The operator publishes a different set, and both are correct. Its own location page gives JB Sentral as 2.2 km and 7 minutes, Berjaya Waterfront ferry terminal 3.8 km and 12 minutes, Larkin Sentral 7 km and 13 minutes, LEGOLAND Malaysia 14.9 km and 23 minutes, and Senai International Airport 29.1 km and 29 minutes. Those are driving routes through Johor Bahru’s one-way system, which loops considerably.

So when a listing says “walking distance to JB Sentral and the CIQ”, that is accurate on foot and misleading by car. If you drive daily, budget for the loop. If you walk to the crossing, this is one of the shortest walks available from any completed strata building in the city.

On the RTS opening date: reporting points to the first quarter of 2027, with the JS-SEZ blueprint expected in the fourth quarter of 2026. Neither is settled, and I would not underwrite a purchase against a specific month.

Yes, and this building sits in the segment most exposed to it — though its own supply is unusually thin, which is its defence. On the national property data centre’s most recent published quarter, Q1 2026, Johor held 9,972 unsold completed serviced apartment units, the largest of any state by a wide margin, against Kuala Lumpur’s 4,181 and Selangor’s 2,407. That is roughly 51.8% of the entire national serviced-apartment overhang concentrated in one state. Johor also had 3,852 unsold completed residential units, second nationally, and led the country in new launches with 2,693 units against a national sales rate of just 11.5%.

Reading the same data, CIMB Research counts an existing stock of 108,863 serviced apartment units with 41,832 more coming to 2030 and 18,712 planned to 2031. The article does not state whether that is Johor state or Johor Bahru district, so I am not going to present it as a city-level figure.

The consultant commentary is worth quoting because it is attributed and specific. CBRE|WTW puts Iskandar Malaysia’s high-rise future supply peaking in 2029 at 32,783 units and names 2027-2029 as the pressure years, when a large volume completes just after the RTS and JS-SEZ narrative has already been priced in. Olive Tree warns that the volume of new serviced apartments concentrated in a small area poses significant absorption risk, with projects nearest the station thriving and others facing downward pressure. Rahim & Co notes that trophy-asset mentality and speculative purchase factors are present.

Where this building sits in that picture: with 339 units and about 20 listed for sale, its own supply is a fraction of a 838-unit or 3,584-unit competitor, and it is one of the projects nearest the station — the category Olive Tree expects to hold up. Against that, new launches at the Bukit Chagar node are pricing at around RM1,500 psf while this building asks RM900-1,350. You are buying below new-launch pricing in a completed building with a hotel operator maintaining the common areas. That is the honest case here. It is not a growth story.