Nasser likened the phenomenon to other prosperous border regions including Hong Kong and Shenzhen, as well as Basel in Switzerland and neighbouring German towns, where income differentials spill over into housing and consumer markets.
Nowhere is this more evident than housing.
While Malaysia does not publish official state-level housing affordability rankings, property portal New Projek estimates Johor’s median housing price to median annual income ratio, known as the median multiple, at 7.4.
This places it among the highest in the country and firmly in the “severely unaffordable” category, based on a method recommended by the World Bank and United Nations to gauge housing affordability.
Property consultant Tan believes the situation may be worse than the headline figures suggest.
This is because state-level income data includes Johoreans who reside in Malaysia but earn salaries in Singapore dollars, masking the affordability challenges faced by workers paid entirely in ringgit, he argued.
Using the median annual income figures for local workers and median condominium prices in Johor Bahru, Tan estimated that affordability ratio in some cases could be between 17 and 19 — levels he described as “crisis territory by any global benchmark”.
He added that condominium prices in Johor Bahru have risen by as much as 20 per cent since 2024, outpacing wage growth.
“The Singapore factor is structural, not cyclical,” Tan said.
“Johoreans earning in Singapore dollars effectively operate in a different price ecosystem. Someone earning S$4,000 a month has roughly three times the purchasing power of a local earning RM4,000.”
The affordability challenge is not confined to Johor Bahru.
Democratic Action Party (DAP) assemblywoman Gan Peck Cheng said housing prices in Batu Pahat – about 120km northwest of Johor Bahru – have climbed sharply in recent years, narrowing the gap with the state capital.
“Life is hard. In Batu Pahat, even if you’re a university graduate, your salary is only slightly above RM2,000,” said Gan, who represents the Penggaram constituency.
Read the full article here
