Resilience in Malaysia’s Housing Demand Among Foreigners Amid Global Uncertainty
Malaysia's housing demand has demonstrated remarkable resilience despite global uncertainties. According to the DataSense by PropertyGuru For Business, the Demand Index for all residential properties in Malaysia increased by 2.0% year-on-year (YoY) in July 2025. In contrast, the Supply Index contracted by nearly 13% YoY in July 2024 (Figure 1), contributing to increased market friction.
Figure 1: Demand and Supply Analytics of All Residential Homes in Malaysia
The strength of the residential market, bolstered by robust second-quarter economic growth, is likely to draw significant interest, particularly from foreign buyers. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Malaysia's economic stability is making it an attractive destination for Chinese buyers, especially as other countries offer fewer educational and business opportunities.
Additionally, the revamp of the Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) residency visa scheme in June has made it mandatory for foreign residents to purchase property in the country. Besides Chinese buyers, there has also been a notable interest from property seekers in the United Kingdom. Separately, Singaporean buyers have been actively purchasing homes in Malaysia, particularly following the completion of the Rapid Transit Link (RTS) between Johor and Singapore.
In this article, we utilise the Foreign Demand Analysis Module in DataSense to validate these hypotheses. This module works based on the internet protocol (IP) addresses of property seekers on PropertyGuru.com.my and iProperty to approximate the origin of the property seekers.
Considering that Chinese property seekers might be searching for properties from Malaysia, Singapore, or through a virtual private network (VPN), those originating from China represent a subset of the broader population. Therefore, analysts typically focus on trends rather than the absolute share of foreign regions when using the Foreign Demand Analysis Module.
Based on the IP addresses tracked through DataSense, we observed that visits from China increased by nearly 19% between January and July 2024 (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Foreign Demand for Residential For Sale (Chinese IP addresses)
Chinese property seekers primarily focused on Kuala Lumpur, Johor Bahru, Timur Laut, and Iskandar Puteri (Figure 3). In terms of price segments, properties priced between RM 1 million and RM 2 million were the most popular, followed by the RM 2 million to RM 3 million range.
Figure 3: Foreign Demand Top Share Split from China
Since the reopening of borders in 2022, there has been a consistent rise in property seekers from Singapore. The announcement of the Special Economic Zone and the ongoing completion of the RTS have further spurred demand from Singapore (Figure 4).
Figure 4: Foreign Demand Trend from Singapore
As expected, a significant proportion of Singaporean property seekers were looking for residential properties in Johor Bahru and Iskandar Puteri as of July 2024. Approximately 9.1% of these seekers were interested in homes priced between RM 1 million and RM 2 million, while about 37.6% were looking at homes within the RM 100,000 to RM 1 million range, a group likely to include non-Singaporeans due to the existing quota.
An interesting observation from anecdotal evidence is the spike in property seekers from the United Kingdom. There were two significant surges: the first towards the end of 2021, where the number of UK property seekers increased sharply and stabilised at a new level, and the second towards the end of 2023 (Figure 5). Unlike Singaporean seekers, those from the UK exhibited a more evenly distributed interest across various markets.
Figure 5: Property Seekers Originating from United Kingdom
Concluding Thoughts
The resilience of Malaysia's economy continues to attract foreign buyers, bolstering residential markets in Kuala Lumpur, Johor, Selangor, and Penang. However, DataSense indicates that domestic demand still accounts for the majority of property searches in Malaysia, particularly in these key markets. Although the market size for foreign buyers is not significant, their demand could potentially trigger market shifts due to spillover effects on the overall market.
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