The Celestz @ Kebun Teh

One layout, mainly — and it is a big one. The Asteriaz offers exactly two floor areas, 560 sq ft and 915 sq ft, with nothing between them. The Celestz publishes four layout codes: Type A at 581 sq ft (one bed plus study), Type B at 753 sq ft (two bedrooms, three bathrooms), and Types C1 and C2 at 915 sq ft (three bedrooms, two bathrooms, with and without a balcony). Type B is the plan the first phase does not have, and for a couple or two sharing adults it is often exactly the right size.

The second difference is proportion. EXSIM publishes internal dimensions here, and Type B measures 10,650 mm wide by 7,300 mm deep — the only unit in the building wider than it is deep. More of it touches the facade, which is what daylight and cross-ventilation actually depend on.

The third difference is information, and it runs the other way. The Asteriaz has a published facilities plan and three quarters of dated site photographs. The Celestz has none of those yet. So: Celestz if you need the 753 sq ft two-bedroom or want to complete after the RTS is running; Asteriaz if you want verified build progress and the deepest set of price comparables. Ask me for both price lists and put them side by side.

No. Johor sets a minimum purchase price of RM1,000,000 for a non-citizen buying strata property, and the largest unit in this project is 915 sq ft. Nothing here has been quoted anywhere close to a million ringgit. There is no exemption for a serviced apartment, no MM2H route around a state price floor, and no structure a lawyer will sign off on. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either mistaken or hoping you will not check.

For completeness, the two costs that would have applied if it did clear the floor: the Johor foreign buyer levy of 3% of price or RM30,000, whichever is higher — except that on a serviced residence transacted below RM1 million, which is the only band The Celestz has, the state minimum is RM50,000 and not RM30,000 — and the flat 8% stamp duty on non-citizens since 1 January 2026. They are academic here, but they are the reason the RM1m floor is not the only number a foreign buyer needs.

If you are not Malaysian and you want Johor Bahru, the eligible options are a different shortlist — Arden at One Bukit Senyum on the new-build side, The Astaka on the resale side. Message me and I will send you the list you can actually buy from rather than the list that looks affordable.

EXSIM has not published either figure. I have checked the project website and the EXSIM group development page, and neither carries a unit count or a storey count for this phase.

What circulates in agent material is 735 units, 44 storeys and 1,085 car park bays. Those numbers are consistent across several sources, which usually means they came from a single briefing pack rather than from independent verification. They may well turn out to be right. But they are not on any page the developer controls, so I am not going to print them in the fact grid as though they were.

This matters more than it looks. Unit count drives your maintenance charge per square foot, your lift waiting time and the depth of your future resale competition. Car park ratio decides whether your unit comes with one bay or has to share. I ask the developer for all of it in writing, and I would want it confirmed before a booking fee, not after.

Get this in writing before anything else. The Celestz website’s own terms page names EXSIM Kebun Teh Sdn Bhd, 202101000935 (1401233-A) as the owner of the website — that is the same entity that develops the first phase on this land. The contact page of the same website separately lists EXSIM MX4 Sdn Bhd (1486857-W).

EXSIM develops through a separate company for each project, so the natural reading is that MX4 is the entity for this phase and Kebun Teh Sdn Bhd is the one behind Phase 1. I have not seen the developer licence or the advertising and sales permit confirming it, so I will not state it as fact — I am giving you both registered numbers instead.

The practical step: ask for the APDL number and check that the company named on it matches the company named as vendor in your sale and purchase agreement. Your legal recourse, your housing development account and your defect liability claim all run against that specific company, not against the EXSIM brand on the hoarding. It is a five-minute question that most buyers never ask.

EXSIM publishes internal width and depth for each plan, which is genuinely uncommon in a Malaysian launch and is the most useful thing on its website. Type A: 581 sq ft, 54 sq m, 6,200 mm wide by 10,200 mm deep, one bedroom plus study, one bath and one separate WC. Type B: 753 sq ft, 70 sq m, 10,650 mm by 7,300 mm, two bedrooms, three bathrooms, three A/C ledges. Types C1 and C2: 915 sq ft, 85 sq m, 9,800 mm by 10,800 mm, three bedrooms and two bathrooms; C1 has a balcony, C2 has an A/C ledge in its place. C1A and C2A are the mirrored versions.

Read those proportions rather than the areas. Type A is narrow and deep at roughly 1 to 1.65, so the back of the plan is the part to check for light. Type B is the reverse — wide and shallow, with the widest frontage in the building. Type C is close to square.

One caution, and it is the developer’s own inconsistency rather than mine: the floor plan page on the same website describes Type A as a two-bedroom and Type B as a three-bedroom, which contradicts the detailed specification table above. I have used the detailed table throughout. Confirm the room count against the plan attached to your S&P before you sign.

I can only tell you what the official images show, because the facilities plan page on the developer’s website still reads Coming Soon. From the ten artist’s impressions released so far: a Starlight Pool, a Grand Lobby, the Little Starlight Playground for children, a Starlight BBQ deck, a multipurpose hall, a reading lounge, a half basketball court and retail units at street level.

What that list does not tell you is which level any of it sits on, whether a gymnasium is included, how many lifts there are, or the car park ratio. On the first phase EXSIM published a full level-by-level facilities plan, so it will almost certainly publish one here too — it simply has not yet.

The practical point: a render is not a contract. What binds the developer is the facilities schedule attached to your sale and purchase agreement. Before you pay a booking fee, ask for that schedule and check that each item in the images you were shown actually appears in it. I do this for every client on an early-stage launch, and it is the single most useful thing an agent can do for you at this stage.

EXSIM has not published a price list, the tenure, the lease expiry year or a completion date for this phase on any page it controls. I am not going to fill those blanks with numbers from listing sites — on this project those sites do not even agree with each other on the unit count.

What I can tell you from the land itself: the first phase on this same Kebun Teh site is leasehold on commercial-category land, sold under the Housing Development Act. It is reasonable to expect the same for this phase, but reasonable is not confirmed, and tenure is the one thing you should never assume. A conveyancing lawyer can pull the title search in a day and it will tell you the category and the exact lease expiry year.

So the three questions to put to the developer, in this order: what is the tenure and the lease expiry year, what is the price for the specific layout and stack you want, and what delivery period is written into the S&P. I ask all three and send you the written answers. Message me with the layout you are interested in.

It is a real trade-off, and the honest answer is that it depends on what you are being paid to take it. Early buyers at a launch usually get the better stack selection and the earlier price. What they give up is verified information — and on this project that currently includes the facilities plan, the location map, the site progress, the unit count, the storey count, the tenure and the price schedule.

The way to manage it is not to guess, it is to convert questions into contract. Everything that matters to you should end up in the sale and purchase agreement: the layout drawing with its dimensions, the facilities schedule, the delivery period, the car park allocation, and the vendor company name matching the developer licence. If a point cannot be written into the S&P, treat it as marketing rather than a commitment.

And one thing genuinely works in your favour here. Because this is the second phase on the same land, you will be able to watch the first tower finish and hand over before you take keys. Very few early buyers anywhere get a full-scale preview of their own building, on their own street, built by their own developer. Use it.

It puts you at the back of a queue, and you should decide with that in mind rather than in spite of it. NAPIC’s first-quarter 2026 figures put the national serviced apartment overhang at 19,263 units, of which Johor alone holds 9,972 — the heaviest of any state. This project is a serviced apartment, and it is the second tower of serviced apartments on the same land, from the same developer, marketed to the same buyers.

That is the sharpest question on this page: the first phase adds 848 units to a category that is already the most oversupplied in Malaysia, and this phase adds several hundred more behind it. Neither tower is unusual in doing so — almost every Johor Bahru launch this cycle is in the same category — but a second phase is competing against its own first phase as well as against the rest of the state.

What actually protects a unit in that environment is scarcity you can point at. In this building that means the 753 sq ft two-bedroom, which the tower next door does not have; a high floor with a clear outlook; and a corner or end stack. A mid-floor unit with a common layout and an ordinary view is the one that will sit on the market. Buy the difference, or do not buy.