Should you buy real estate in Johor now?

Get all the data you need about the real estate market in Johor

Should you buy real estate in Johor now?

Yes, but buying Johor real estate now only makes sense if the property already works at today’s price and rent.

Johor has one of Malaysia’s strongest property stories at the moment. The RTS Link is close to opening, the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone is bringing large investment commitments, and Johor attracted RM59.4 billion of approved investment in the first half of 2026 according to MIDA. Yet buyers are entering a market where almost 10,000 completed serviced apartments remain unsold.

That combination explains why Johor can look both attractive and dangerous. The economic story has become much stronger, while developers are adding property fast enough to keep scarcity from spreading across the whole market.

For us, the opportunity is concentrated in places with a real reason to attract residents: genuinely convenient access to Singapore, established employment areas, good landed neighbourhoods and completed properties bought at sensible prices. A generic serviced apartment needs much more scrutiny.

Is Johor property actually booming right now?

Johor property is doing well today, although the residential market itself is growing much more calmly than the headlines around Johor suggest.

Johor recorded 42,566 residential transactions in 2025, according to NAPIC data compiled by the REHDA Institute. The previous year had 42,565. In other words, transaction volume barely moved.

Residential transaction value increased from RM20.64 billion to RM20.94 billion. Buyers spent slightly more, but we are nowhere near a statewide buying frenzy.

The dramatic numbers are coming from business investment. MIDA says Johor attracted RM110.1 billion of approved investment across the whole of 2025 and another RM59.4 billion in the first half of 2026. That latest figure was second only to Selangor among Malaysian states.

So Johor is clearly booming economically. Residential demand is strengthening more selectively, and that difference will shape which properties actually perform.

Johor indicator	Earlier period	Latest figure	What we see
Residential transactions	42,565 in 2024	42,566 in 2025	Virtually no change
Residential transaction value	RM20.64bn in 2024	RM20.94bn in 2025	Small increase
Approved investment	RM110.1bn in 2025	RM59.4bn in H1 2026	Very strong investment pipeline
H1 2026 investment ranking	—	No. 2 in Malaysia	Johor remains a major investment destination

Is the Johor-Singapore RTS Link finally real enough to affect property?

Yes. The Johor-Singapore RTS Link has moved far enough toward operation that property buyers can now treat it as real infrastructure rather than a distant promise.

Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs said in May 2026 that the RTS Link was targeted to begin service in December. The line connects Bukit Chagar in Johor Bahru with Woodlands North in Singapore and is designed for up to 10,000 passengers per hour in each direction at peak periods.

The train journey itself should take roughly five minutes. More importantly for daily commuters, both countries’ immigration checks will be completed at the departure station.

That can make living in Johor considerably more practical for people who regularly travel to Singapore. Border unpredictability has always been part of the cost of living on one side and working on the other.

The property benefit gets weaker as we move away from Bukit Chagar, though. A unit genuinely walkable from the RTS station has a much clearer advantage than a project requiring a long drive through Johor Bahru traffic.

RTS feature	Current plan	Why property buyers care	What to watch
Route	Bukit Chagar–Woodlands North	Direct Johor-Singapore rail connection	Only one Malaysian station
Opening	Targeted for December 2026	Catalyst is close rather than theoretical	Actual opening and reliability
Peak capacity	10,000 passengers/hour/direction	Large potential commuter flow	Real ridership after launch
Immigration	Both countries cleared before boarding	Easier daily crossing	Peak-hour queues
Singapore connection	Thomson-East Coast Line	Access to wider Singapore rail network	Total door-to-door journey

Has Johor Bahru property already priced in the RTS?

Partly. Buyers near Bukit Chagar are already paying a serious premium for the RTS story.

Recent central Johor Bahru projects close to Bukit Chagar have been marketed around RM1,000 to RM1,400 per square foot in some cases. That is far above the pricing of many older Johor Bahru apartments and projects farther from the border.

Some premium is justified. There will only be one Malaysian RTS terminus, and true walking distance is scarce.

The harder question is whether today’s premium leaves enough upside for the buyer. Opening day itself will surprise nobody. Developers, investors and agents have been selling the RTS story for years.

The next repricing needs stronger evidence: high passenger usage, better occupancy, sustained rental premiums and resale buyers willing to keep paying extra for that location.

We would avoid paying almost any price simply to own an “RTS property.” Proximity has value, but entry price still decides whether that value belongs to the buyer or has already gone to the developer.

Can Singapore commuters push Johor property prices higher?

Yes, Singapore commuters can push parts of the Johor property market higher, especially where living in Johor genuinely makes the daily journey easier.

The financial logic is powerful. Housing prices and rents in Johor remain dramatically below Singapore levels, while some Johor residents earn their income in Singapore dollars. Even rents that feel expensive by local standards can remain attractive to a household comparing them with Singapore housing costs.

The RTS should enlarge that group because commuting becomes more predictable.

Still, its 10,000-passenger hourly capacity should not be confused with 10,000 new tenants. Many riders will already live in Johor. Others will be tourists, shoppers or occasional travellers.

What interests us most is where commuters choose to live once the railway is operating. If walkable central JB apartments develop consistently higher occupancy and rents than similar units elsewhere, the RTS premium becomes easier to justify.

That is much more useful evidence than another property advertisement claiming Singapore is “five minutes away.”

Is the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone really creating housing demand?

The Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone is making Johor’s long-term housing case stronger, although approved investment still needs to turn into actual jobs before it fully reaches the property market.

MIDA’s latest figures are hard to dismiss. Johor received RM59.4 billion of approved investment in the first half of 2026, representing roughly 27% of Malaysia’s RM218.5 billion total.

Johor had already attracted RM110.1 billion across 2025.

Singapore is deeply connected to this investment story. It was Malaysia’s second-largest foreign investment source in the first half of 2026 at RM25.9 billion. Johor offers companies something difficult to reproduce elsewhere: large development sites and lower Malaysian operating costs immediately beside Singapore.

Manufacturing, logistics, digital infrastructure and data centres are all part of this expansion. These sectors can create new housing demand through employees, contractors, suppliers and service businesses.

We still need to look at the type of investment, though. A billion-ringgit data centre does not employ the same number of people as a billion-ringgit labour-intensive factory. Huge capital spending can therefore produce less residential demand than the headline amount suggests.

MIDA itself now emphasizes implementation, noting that 86.3% of Malaysian manufacturing projects approved since 2021 have moved into implementation. For Johor property, that transition from approvals to operating businesses is the part we care about most.

Investment measure	Latest figure	Context	Property relevance
Johor approved investment, H1 2026	RM59.4bn	No. 2 Malaysian state	Large future economic pipeline
Malaysia total, H1 2026	RM218.5bn	Up 11.7% YoY	Strong national backdrop
Johor share of total	About 27%	Calculated from MIDA data	Very high concentration
Johor approved investment, 2025	RM110.1bn	Full-year MIDA figure	Strength predates latest period
Singapore investment into Malaysia, H1 2026	RM25.9bn	Second-largest foreign source	Supports cross-border integration

Is Johor’s property oversupply problem actually getting better?

No. Johor still has a serious serviced-apartment supply problem, and the latest NAPIC data make it difficult to argue otherwise.

NAPIC currently lists Q1 2026 as its latest property-market-status dataset. Johor had 9,972 completed unsold serviced apartments at that point, the highest amount of any Malaysian state.

Completed units are only one part of the picture.

Another 8,491 unsold serviced apartments were under construction, while 4,116 units remained unsold in projects that had not yet started construction. Together, that gives us roughly 22,579 unsold units across the pipeline.

The equivalent total one year earlier was about 16,795 units. That is an increase of roughly 34%.

This is probably the single strongest reason to reject the idea that Johor property will rise automatically. Demand has improved, but developers are chasing that demand aggressively.

Johor serviced apartments	Q1 2025	Q1 2026	Change
Completed unsold	9,507	9,972	+4.9%
Unsold under construction	6,967	8,491	+21.9%
Unsold, construction not started	321	4,116	More than 12×
Total unsold pipeline	16,795	22,579	+34.4%

Does Johor’s condo oversupply make buying a condo a bad idea?

No, but Johor condos now need a very clear edge because tenants and resale buyers have so many alternatives.

A typical one- or two-bedroom investor unit can face competition from dozens of near-identical apartments in its own building, hundreds elsewhere in the neighbourhood and additional launches still coming to market.

That makes generic features much less valuable. A nice pool, furnished package or rooftop lounge can be copied by the next project.

What cannot be copied as easily is genuine walking distance to Bukit Chagar, a mature neighbourhood, an unusually low purchase price, a layout tenants strongly prefer or a view protected from future construction.

Those are the advantages we care about.

Johor already has nearly 10,000 completed unsold serviced apartments. A buyer entering this segment needs a convincing answer to one basic question: why would a future tenant or buyer choose this exact unit instead of all the others?

If the answer is unclear, we would skip it.

Are landed homes a better Johor investment than condos right now?

In many parts of Johor, we would rather own good landed property than another generic high-rise unit.

Landed property has a broader local buyer base. Malaysian families buying for their own use can support resale demand, while many central high-rise projects depend much more heavily on tenants and investors.

Supply also behaves differently. A single condo project can add 500 or 1,000 similar units on one site. Established landed neighbourhoods cannot usually be duplicated at that density.

That does not make every terrace house a good investment. Large peripheral townships can produce plenty of landed supply, and a cheap house becomes less attractive if residents spend hours commuting.

We like landed property most where the neighbourhood already works today: established schools, retail, employment, roads and a sizeable owner-occupier population.

In those locations, the investment does not depend entirely on what the RTS or JS-SEZ might deliver later.

Is Johor property still cheap today?

Johor still contains plenty of affordable property, but some Johor Bahru projects are already expensive by Malaysian standards.

The Singapore comparison makes almost everything in Johor look cheap. A RM1 million home is roughly SGD250,000 if the ringgit trades around RM4 to the Singapore dollar. Singapore private housing can cost several times that amount.

That comparison helps explain demand, especially from Singapore-linked households. It tells us much less about whether a Johor property itself is good value.

We need to compare a JB apartment with nearby JB resale units, achievable Johor rents and local alternatives.

That becomes particularly important near Bukit Chagar, where some new projects have reached four-digit ringgit prices per square foot. Buyers can sometimes find older properties nearby at a large discount.

A large Singapore-Johor price gap can survive for decades. It does not guarantee that a RM1,200-per-square-foot Johor unit will outperform a RM700-per-square-foot one nearby.

Can Johor rental yields still reach 6% or 7%?

Yes, 6%+ gross rental yields are still possible in Johor, but the attractive deals usually depend on getting the purchase price right.

Take an apartment bought for RM600,000 and rented for RM3,500 per month. Annual rent is RM42,000, giving a 7% gross yield.

Pay RM750,000 for exactly the same rental income and the yield falls to 5.6%.

If rent comes in at RM3,000, the RM750,000 property gives just 4.8%.

Those differences are huge once maintenance fees, sinking funds, vacancy, repairs, agent fees and furnishing replacement are deducted.

Borrowing also raises the bar. Bank Negara Malaysia’s OPR currently stands at 2.75%, but actual mortgage rates sit above that benchmark. An apartment producing only 4–5% gross may leave very little cash return after financing and operating costs.

We therefore prefer completed Johor properties where we can see real tenancy contracts and current asking rents. Projected 7–9% yields in a sales brochure are much less useful.

Purchase price	Monthly rent	Gross yield	Our reading
RM600,000	RM3,500	7.0%	Strong starting yield
RM750,000	RM3,500	5.6%	Reasonable, less exciting
RM750,000	RM3,000	4.8%	Thin after costs
RM1,000,000	RM4,000	4.8%	Needs strong appreciation or another advantage

Will the RTS make Johor rents jump?

The RTS should lift rental demand near the border, but we would not price in a huge Johor rent jump yet.

Transport improvements can bring more tenants into a neighbourhood. Johor’s problem is that those tenants will have a lot of apartments to choose from.

That should create a bigger gap between strong and weak buildings.

Someone commuting into Singapore five days a week may pay noticeably more to walk to Bukit Chagar than to live in a project that needs a 20-minute drive before reaching the station. Good building management, practical layouts and reliable access can also become more important once the commuter market matures.

Occupancy may show the change before headline rents do. Owners of the best-located units could find tenants faster and face fewer vacant periods, even if rents do not suddenly surge.

For now, we would buy using current rent and treat any RTS rent increase as upside.

Could Johor property prices rise faster once the RTS opens?

Yes, selected Johor properties could rise faster after the RTS opens, especially if real commuter behaviour confirms the premium investors are already paying near Bukit Chagar.

Right now, almost everyone is trading expectations. After operations begin, we will finally have real passenger volumes, actual rental behaviour and measurable differences between buildings close to the station and those farther away.

If rents and occupancy around Bukit Chagar consistently beat comparable JB areas, buyers will have much stronger evidence for paying a premium.

If thousands of available apartments absorb most of that extra demand, prices may move much more slowly.

This is why we would never justify an expensive purchase by saying “the RTS opens soon.” The property should already look reasonable without that future increase.

Are Johor new launches too expensive now?

Some are. We would be careful with Johor new launches where the developer has already priced in several years of future growth.

New projects can include premiums for better facilities, modern layouts and prime locations. They also price in the RTS, JS-SEZ, Singapore demand and the expectation that Johor will be considerably wealthier in a few years.

That can leave buyers paying tomorrow’s price today.

Suppose a new project sells for RM900 per square foot while a completed building nearby trades around RM650. The new unit costs roughly 38% more.

We would want something substantial in return for that premium: much better rent, a materially better location, lower operating costs, stronger management or a type of property that is genuinely scarce.

Completed buildings also let us inspect what matters. We can see how the common areas have aged, how many units are dark at night, what tenants actually pay and how many listings compete for each renter.

In a market with heavy high-rise supply, that information is worth a lot.

Is Johor still attractive for foreign property buyers?

Yes, Johor remains one of Malaysia’s most interesting markets for foreign buyers, but the cost of entering has become much harder to ignore.

Malaysia raised the stamp duty on transfers of residential property to foreign companies, non-citizens and non-permanent residents from 4% to 8% from the beginning of 2026. Malaysia’s Inland Revenue Board has confirmed that the 8% rate applies to relevant instruments presented from that point.

On a RM1 million residential purchase, 8% means RM80,000 of stamp duty before legal fees, state consent costs, financing expenses and other charges.

Johor also applies foreign-purchase rules and minimum price thresholds that can vary by property category. A foreign buyer should check the exact unit rather than assume every RM1 million property is automatically eligible.

The higher entry cost changes the investment maths considerably. A foreign buyer who plans to sell after three years needs a meaningful price increase just to recover transaction costs.

For us, the strongest foreign-buyer case is therefore a property that can be held for years, produce decent rent and remain useful to Malaysian as well as foreign tenants.

A unit bought mainly because another overseas investor may later pay more is far less convincing.

Could Johor repeat the old Iskandar property crash?

Parts of Johor could repeat the mistakes of the old Iskandar cycle, although today’s economic foundation is much stronger.

The old lesson was simple: developers can build homes much faster than a new economic corridor creates residents.

Johor still carries that legacy. Total unsold serviced-apartment inventory across completed and future stages has climbed above 22,000 units.

The current cycle does have more substance behind it. The RTS is close to carrying passengers. The JS-SEZ is backed by Malaysia and Singapore. MIDA is recording tens of billions of ringgit of approved investment, while factories, logistics operations and digital infrastructure are being built.

That makes us more confident in Johor’s long-term economy than we would have been during a development cycle driven mainly by property speculation.

Investors can still lose money inside a booming city, though. Paying RM1 million for a unit that later competes with hundreds of similar apartments can produce a mediocre return even if Johor itself keeps growing.

Where in Johor would we actually buy property now?

Central Johor Bahru and strong established residential corridors are the places we would look first, but we would buy them for different reasons.

Around Bukit Chagar and JB Sentral, the investment case is convenience. True walking distance to the RTS has a hard geographic limit. That makes the best-located sites interesting, provided we do not overpay for them.

Elsewhere in central JB, we would look for established tenant demand, access to jobs and a clear price discount compared with the newest developments.

Farther west, areas connected to Iskandar Puteri and the Second Link can make more sense for families, professionals and landed-home buyers. There, the appeal comes from neighbourhood quality, schools, employment centres and Singapore connectivity rather than the RTS itself.

We would also pay close attention to genuine employment clusters created by industrial and logistics investment. The number and salary level of workers matter far more for housing than the headline capital expenditure of a project.

The best Johor location depends on who will live in the property. That sounds obvious, but it eliminates a surprising number of developments marketed simply as “close to Singapore.”

What kind of Johor property would we refuse to buy?

We would avoid any Johor property where the numbers only become attractive after assuming higher future rents, higher future prices and perfect occupancy.

Imagine a condominium selling for RM900,000 with a projected rent of RM4,500. That gives a neat 6% gross yield on paper.

If real rent turns out to be RM3,500, the yield falls to 4.7%. At RM3,200 it drops to about 4.3%, before maintenance, vacancy, repairs and other costs.

That is where oversupply becomes painful. A landlord cannot simply demand the projected rent when hundreds of similar owners are competing for the same tenants.

We would also be wary of large premiums over nearby resale property, unusually high maintenance charges and developments whose supposed RTS advantage disappears once we look at the actual journey to Bukit Chagar.

When several of those problems appear together, we would move on.

So, should you buy real estate in Johor now?

Yes. We would buy Johor real estate now, but we would be much more selective than the bullish headlines suggest.

The current case for Johor is strong. MIDA’s latest release shows RM59.4 billion of approved investment in the first half of 2026. The RTS is approaching operation. Singapore and Johor are becoming more economically connected, and Johor is already Malaysia’s second-largest residential market by transaction volume.

The main risk is equally visible. Johor had almost 10,000 completed unsold serviced apartments in the latest NAPIC data, with the broader unsold pipeline above 22,000. Supply can absorb a surprising amount of future demand.

Our favourite Johor purchases today would be genuinely scarce properties: a sensibly priced home within easy walking distance of the RTS, established landed housing with a broad owner-occupier market, or completed stock bought cheaply enough to generate a strong yield at rents tenants already pay.

We would be much less interested in expensive new serviced apartments whose entire investment case comes from the words “RTS,” “Singapore” and “JS-SEZ.”

For foreign buyers, the new 8% residential transfer stamp duty makes price discipline even more important.

Johor looks capable of becoming considerably more valuable over the coming years. That still leaves plenty of individual properties that are already too expensive.

Our rule is simple: buy a Johor property that makes sense today and let the RTS, the JS-SEZ and stronger Singapore links improve the return later.

Who is the author of this content?

BAMBOOROUTES

A team specialized in real estate investing in APAC countries (Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, etc.).

We are a team of financial experts, legal professionals, developers, and local real estate specialists dedicated to helping people like you avoid mistakes when investing in real estate in a foreign place, particularly in Johor. If you’d like to learn more about us, you can check our presentation page.