Wave Serviced Apartment @ Marina Cove

Only if the specific unit is priced above RM1,000,000, and state consent is still required on top. Johor’s minimum purchase price for a non-citizen buying strata property is RM1,000,000, and it applies to completed property exactly as it applies to a new launch.

IOI’s published entry price for this development is RM395,900. That tells you immediately that most of what is on offer here is out of reach for a non-citizen. The largest layout is 1,344 sq ft, and whether any remaining unit of that size is priced above RM1 million is a unit-by-unit question that changes with the price list — I will not guess it for you.

If you are buying, budget the extras: the Johor foreign buyer levy of 3% of the price or RM30,000, whichever is higher, in force since 1 July 2025 — the minimum becomes RM50,000 where the property is a serviced residence transacted below RM1 million, and with an entry price of RM395,900 most of the stock here is in exactly that band; RM1,000,000 is the line that separates the two minimums — and the flat 8% stamp duty on transfers to non-citizens since 1 January 2026. Consent fees are separate again.

The practical advice: before you pay a booking fee, get it in writing that the unit is above RM1,000,000. On a completed building it is also worth asking whether the seller is the developer or an existing owner, because the consent process and the timeline differ.

Both names are correct, but they are not the same role, and the difference is worth understanding before you sign anything.

The company on IOI’s own Marina Cove contact panel is Adawan Development Sdn Bhd (197801000714 / 37729-T). IOI Properties Group Berhad (201301005964) files Marina Cove under “Managed Development” in its own navigation — a separate category from the projects it develops and sells on its own account.

So IOI markets it, staffs the galleria and runs building services, and Adawan is the entity behind the development itself. Listing portals credit the project to one or the other more or less at random, which is why you will see the same building attributed to two different developers on two different sites.

Does it matter? On an off-plan project it would matter a great deal, because you would be underwriting a balance sheet for four years. Here the buildings are already standing, which removes most of the risk that the question was asking about. Still: read the vendor’s name on your sale and purchase agreement, and do not assume you are contracting with a listed group because a listed group’s logo is on the brochure.

It is finished. IOI’s own project page states “ready to move in”, and the images it publishes are photographs of the built facilities rather than artist’s impressions. That much is settled.

The completion year is not settled, and I would rather show you the disagreement than pick one. IOI publishes no completion date at all. Among the listing portals, some state 2017 and at least one states 2019. Those cannot both be right, and neither is sourced to a certificate of completion and compliance.

This is not a trivial detail. The completion year drives the defect liability period (long expired either way), the age used in a bank’s valuation, and how you read the building’s maintenance record.

What I do instead of guessing: I ask the management office for the date on the CCC and the strata title issuance status, and I send you what the document says. That is a five-minute question with a documentary answer, and it beats copying a year off a portal.

Nine layouts, all published by IOI, from 526 to 1,344 sq ft.

The one-bedroom band: Type 1A at 526 sq ft and Type 1B at 553 sq ft, both 1+1 bedrooms with one bathroom.

The two-bedroom band, which is the deepest: Type 2A at 793 sq ft (2 bedrooms, 2 baths), then 2B at 933, 2C-1 at 942, 2C-2 at 942 and 2D at 952, all 2+1 bedrooms with two bathrooms. 2C-1 and 2C-2 share an area but not a plan — always ask which one you are being quoted.

The family band: Type 3A at 1,103 sq ft (3 bedrooms, 2 baths) and Type 3B at 1,344 sq ft (3+1 bedrooms, 3 baths), the only layout in the development with three bathrooms.

IOI has not published how many units of each type exist, or the tower-by-tower breakdown. On a completed building that gap is easy to close — the management office knows, and so do the transaction records.

About 4.5 km to the CIQ and about 4.3 km to the future Bukit Chagar RTS station, both measured as straight lines from the coordinate IOI publishes on its own page. The road distance is longer than both, and in the morning peak the time matters far more than the kilometres.

I am giving you straight-line figures because IOI does not publish road distances for this project at all — it names the highways, malls, schools and hospitals nearby without attaching a single number to any of them. Rather than borrow distances from a listing site, I have measured the two that matter and marked everything else as unmeasured.

The honest characterisation: this is an EDL location. Nothing here is walkable. You reach the checkpoint, the malls and the schools by car, and the site’s value proposition is the highway access and the water, not proximity to a station.

On the RTS Link itself: civil works are targeted for completion by end-2026, with passenger service at Bukit Chagar expected in early 2027 and a journey of about five minutes to Woodlands North. If you want a real drive-time test rather than a map figure, message me and I will time the run for you.

IOI’s published entry price is from RM395,900*, checked on 4 August 2026. The asterisk is the developer’s own — it signals that the figure applies to selected units under prevailing terms, not to the stock in general.

That is the only price figure I will put on this page. Resale asking prices in the same building span a wide range depending on size, floor and condition, and quoting a range from listing portals would tell you nothing useful about what the developer will actually accept next week.

The maintenance fee and sinking fund contribution are not published by IOI anywhere on its project page. On a completed building this is the single most important number after the price, because it is a permanent monthly cost and because its level tells you whether the management body is funded well enough to keep 32 facilities running.

So here is what I get for you, in writing, before you decide: the current developer price list with unit numbers, the management’s current rate per square foot, the sinking fund balance, and the last three months of rental transactions for your layout. Message me and I will start with the maintenance figure, because that is the one that changes people’s minds.

Run both, always. In a completed development where the developer still holds stock, you have two sellers competing for the same buyer, and that is an advantage most buyers never use.

Buying from the developer gives you a first-owner title with no chain, a unit that has typically never been tenanted, and a seller who can move on package terms — legal fees, rebates, furnishing — more easily than on headline price. Financing paperwork is usually cleaner.

Buying resale gives you the actual unit rather than a floor plan: you see the light at 4pm, the water pressure, the neighbours, the corridor. You can often buy a higher floor or a better facing than what the developer has left, because the good stacks tend to have sold first. Renovated and furnished units can also work out cheaper than a bare unit plus a fit-out.

The deciding factor is usually not the price. It is which specific stack and facing is available on each side. Tell me your budget and I will pull both lists — developer stock and current resale — and lay them out together rather than pushing you toward whichever one pays better.

IOI counts 32 lifestyle facilities on a Level 7 podium of over two acres. Named or photographed by IOI: swimming pool, play pool, spa pool, kid’s pool, sauna, gymnasium, basketball court, badminton court, putting green, BBQ pavilion, multi-purpose hall, games room, karaoke room, conference room, meeting room, reading room, study room, kid’s corner, children’s playground and landscaped gardens.

Two acres for the facilities deck is generous by Johor Bahru standards, and the eight-units-per-floor density means fewer households are sharing it than in a typical JB high-rise.

And yes — you can and absolutely should check the condition. This is the one project on my list where the facilities are a fact rather than a rendering. Go on a Saturday afternoon and look at what is actually open: whether the sauna works, whether the second pool is fenced off, whether the gym equipment has been replaced since handover, whether the karaoke room has been converted into storage. A facilities list is a promise; a maintained facility is a management record.

What IOI does not publish is the facilities area in square feet beyond “over two acres”, or the current condition report. I ask the management office for the maintenance schedule when a client is serious.

Both, and you need to hold the two ideas at once.

The context first. NAPIC recorded Johor holding 9,477 unsold completed serviced apartment units worth RM8.35 billion at the end of 2025 — 50.5% of the national total of 18,752 units, and more than twice the next worst state. Nationally the count rose again to 19,263 units worth RM16.52 billion in the first quarter of 2026. Wave is one building inside that statistic, not an outlier.

The opportunity side is real. You are buying from a motivated seller in a market with visible inventory, with no construction risk, no waiting, and full information about the building’s actual condition and its actual rents. You can hold out for a specific stack. You can insist on seeing the maintenance accounts. On an off-plan launch you would have none of that leverage.

The risk side is equally real. Whatever softness keeps units unsold today will still be there when you try to exit, and you will be selling into a building where the developer may still be discounting against you. Rental competition inside the same block is direct — dozens of similar units chase the same tenant pool at any given time.

How I would frame it: buy here to occupy, or buy on a yield calculation using a conservative rent and the real maintenance fee, with a holding period you are comfortable extending. Do not buy here expecting the exit to be quick. If a fast exit is your requirement, I will steer you somewhere else, and I would rather do that than sell you the wrong building.