Is KL, Malaysia A Good Option?

Although I've lived more than half my life in the Far East, back in 2003 I had been stuck in the UK for around 2 - 3 years, and decided to move to Malaysia. Reasons I chose Malaysia are that property is much cheaper than say in Singapore, everyone speaks English and the food and shopping is good. I got the MM2H in 2008 because I married an Indonesian girl so that she could stay in Malaysia long term.

For advice, I'd make sure to have an HSBC Premier account in the UK which if you don't already have one then you can probably get or upgrade to once you sell your house. Once you have that you can open a Premier account in Malaysia. I managed to get a total of five housing loans over the years with no proof of income required just by being a Premier customer. The mortgage loans were only 50% and 60% though. I also made friends with people at HSBC including a branch manager and regional manager. With Premier you get a few benefits such as preferential exchange rates, free global transfers between Premier accounts etc. But I would still open a local bank account say with Maybank or CIMB.

When you apply for the MM2H you need to prove your income of MYR10k or more unless the requirements have changed. I also bought a tax free new car in 2008 because of the MM2H but again, not sure if that benefit still exists. Instead of the normal Rm147k that I would normally have paid, I only paid Rm91k.

As long as you live in a condo or apartments building where expats like to stay, you will easily find friends. Also in KL there are lots of bars and pubs where expats hang out. I was into photography so joined photo shoots with others and made friends. Then there are Facebook groups for expats where they used to have meetups, I guess this kind of thing still goes on.

The drawbacks for us was that we got bored living in Malaysia. I lived there for 12 years, my wife for 7 years, and we just got bored visiting the same places again and again - Melaka, Penang, Cameron Highlands, Port Dickson and even Singapore. KL started to feel small and costly. We moved to Indonesia which we prefer as it is less developed, genuinely nice people who are 'not' after your money (apart from in Bali), much more beautiful terrain and so on. But KL would be a good base if you plan to travel around the region and you are not very familiar with Asia.

We love the choice of food that you can find in KL. Shopping is really great too. That is why from time to time we fly to KL to eat and shop. I sold all my properties in Malaysia because it seems the property market has still not recovered. I sold apartments in 2014 for more than I could have gotten today....

Forgot to mention, if you do decide to buy an apartment or condo, as an owner you can try to join the owner's committee which overseas the running of the building. You won't get paid for it, but you and the other members decide on how the place is run. Unless the rules have changed, there can be a maximum of 14 members on the Council, but usually there are less. It's also a good way to meet friends as they are mostly educated and friendly people who care about the building and the way it's managed. I joined three committees, made a few enemies as well as friends but got a good understanding of how things run.

@wyngrove60

Thank you so much for your reply and the valuable information supplied which will help us immensely. We are planning on going back to places like Penang, Langkawi and Kota Kinabalu and few other places which we have now visited at all, plus Japan which has long been on my list of places I really want to visit, so the connections on both Malaysian Airlines & Air Asia will be fantastic. I do not think we will get bored as we have always lived in the UK so this will be something we will enjoy especially as the weather will be far more appealing even though it other side of world where we know absolutely nobody.

That is also a good idea to join committee of owners in an apartment block and good way to meet people.

I shall look into HSBC as we bank with different banks in the UK.

Thank you so much for all your help and information, I really appreciate it. We hope we are doing the right thing by moving 🤞.

You're welcome.

Japan is also probably our favourite place to visit and hopefully we'll live there one day. The population is ageing, people are not having so many children as before, so the Japanese government is letting people come to live and work more easily than before. We were there for 2 weeks in November....

As far as banks go, even though I did not yet have the MM2H from 2003 until 2008, I was allowed to open an HSBC Premier account in Malaysia in 2003 as I already had one in the UK. In other words, for most foreigners in Malaysia, you'd need to have the MM2H otherwise you cannot open any bank account at all, but if you already have an HSBC Premier account in the UK or somewhere else, then you can automatically open one in Malaysia (unless the rules have changed) even as a tourist as I was back then. The advantage of this is that you can instantly transfer money from the UK to Malaysia using the global transfers feature without any charges or deductions so while you are waiting for the MM2H to go through, you will have money which I think is important. I believe the rule still exists that unless you have MM2H you wouldn't be able t open a bank account in Malaysia, so this  could be quite useful. They will also give you a Premier Mastercard and a Visa Signature card straight away.

The other thing which I think is useful is to open a Wise account online. What I do several times a month is transfer my pensions from my Lloyds Bank account in the UK to my Wise account (also in the UK), and then transfer the funds to my banks in Malaysia or Indonesia or wherever. Wise have by far the best exchange rates and the lowest transaction fees, and very many expats are using Wise, so it's worth checking them out.

Yes it's definitely worth moving out to Asia, not just because things don't seem to be as nice in the UK as they used to be, but when you live in Asia, every day feels a bit like being on holiday.

Thank you so much for all this valuable information, I had not heard of Wise before so that is something we need to look into as we are going for the Mm2H on retirement scheme so our pensions will need to be paid into a bank in Malaysia. We are planning on purchasing a property anyway but also another requirement of MM2H in order to receive some of the money back which we have to pay for the scheme. It is a rather a high amount now, so previous versions would be more favourable than now from what I can tell.

That is lovely, which part of Japan are you going to ? I used to work for Japanese company at Heathrow Airport so became very interested in their culture and ethics from there.

UK has changed for the worse since 1997, sadly Blair started the destruction and the current government will finish it off, I say that as a Muslim Asian, my husband is white English and feels the same way. My Asian friends say the same but unfortunately far too many brainwashed people in the UK who have helped with this and think Labour are great and cannot see how they are controlled by corrupt politicians & media.

The safety aspects are another reason, crime is sky high here and mostly not investigated. From what I have seen crime is much lower in Malaysia and I felt safe enough to wear my jewellery out which I never do in the UK.

I am slightly concerned about leaving friends & family behind and having absolutely zero people to fall back on or when things are tough but I guess time will tell.

I think you are definitely right about everyday feeling like a holiday in Asia, for some reason KL resonated with since our very first visit in 2008, we have visited every 2 years since then except lockdown. Only recently my husband loved it too, though we need to keep away from Secret Recipe 😂

In Japan, we usually visit for photography or to see bands playing or just for a change of scenery. Generally we are in Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, Kobe, Mishima, Numazu, all around the Mt. Fuji area. We still have so many other places to visit but we have many friends in the places mentioned above.

Yes Malaysia feels safer than the UK but you still need to be careful. A lot of scammers target Malaysia. But in general it is pretty safe.

Another good thing about Malaysia is the medical insurance (which you will need for MM2H). It is very reasonably priced. I used it for a slipped disc operation and absolutely everything got covered, and the premium was not all that expensive. Here in Indonesia the coverage is a lot less with many exclusions and the premiums are really high. KL has a few really good hospitals too and most doctors have qualifications from Edinburgh.

I have recently moved to Malaysia as a British Muslim but am working in the education field. I have been here 5 months and have been enjoying it since.

One of my biggest concerns has probably been the lack of cleaner healthier food (shows how small most issues are if that's my biggest!). I struggle to find healthier food such as salad leaves and everything seems to have loads of sugar in it. Other than that it's been great. Happy to discuss more if you wish.

Hi there, thank you so much for your reply. I am British Muslim but my husband white English and we are leaving behind friends who we have known all our lives and any support network for somewhere where we know absolutely nobody so that is the really scary part for me. We have only ever lived in UK.

I agree about the sugar and oil too, but we are going to be cooking at home and rarely eat out although it is extremely cheap compared to UK. But we are going to have to be rigid and go to the gym regularly.

Have you and your family settled there ok ? Made friends? Are you working or retired? Did you purchase a property? If so what is the process like? Sorry so many questions 🙈

We know we want to buy a place around Bukit Bintang or KLCC area.

Alhamdulillah we are settling in ok. I am working and and living on my work site so my colleagues are in the same apartment block as me. I have made friends within my working group and my wife with wives of colleagues and children with children of colleagues. I haven't really made much of a circle outside of that but am trying to. Unfortunately I am living about an hour away from KL. So that makes it more difficult for me. I'm sure once you're here, you can. I'm looking to make a FB group for British Muslim expats in Malaysia maybe and hopefully it can help with that.

I haven't bought a property but it's something I plan to do once I know I want to be here more long term.

@wyngrove60

hello everyone here,

sorry to jump in, I sort of understand why you feel bored after a while;  London is or should I say was a fascinating place to be many years ago at least (my husband is British too)... so many Art gallerias so many theaters, each weekend one can see different shows, drams, stand up comedy not to forget Ballet and Concerts!!  Eat in so many different cuisine restaurants (nearly bankrupt)... so my question is are there sufficient culture evens happening in KL if not KLCC?

or one has to read books and learn something new to stay brain active, sorry if you all have to work, different story.

@Rchaudary

I guess a clean choice is go to shopping mall where they have food courts; in general, the Japanese food counter are clean and healthy and they do have green salad... get fresh fruits and back home clean and peel to eat to substitute some missing green.

London was alright I guess, too congested and stressful these days as I am old. But I went to university in London and had a great time back then. Also lived there for a years studying again. These days it's only good to visit for say a week or so and then I get tired.

KL has lots of events. Food and shopping are great.  If you like shopping malls then you'll be in heaven. That's not the issue. KL is just a small city, with Bukit Bintang, KLCC, and a couple of other smallish areas. Outside of KL it's easy to get bored because all you see is miles and miles of palm oil plantations. But for cultural events, there are plenty. I lived in Singapore for 9 years, Hong Kong for 7 years, Taiwan for 2 years, France 7 years, Indonesian 9 years. But I lived in Malaysia for 12 years, and while life is easy in Malaysia, 12 years is a really long time. I felt so bored that I cancelled my MM2H there.

There are lots of exhibitions in KL, we'd go to the theatre at the top of Lot 10 in Bukit Bintang You can see different cultures in the city. It is definitely a comfortable place to live.

If you compare it to Jakarta, well Jakarta is amazing. My wife was recently at an event at the Malaysian Embassy in Jakarta and met with the Ambassador and many of the Embassy staff. Those Malaysians who work in Jakarta absolutely adore Jakarta and Indonesia. When they go back to Malaysia they just cannot wait to return back to Jakarta.

In terms of a comfy lifestyle, sure KL is nice. But if you desire more out of life such as visiting more interesting countries with stunning landscapes and genuinely nice people and with more of an adventure, then Indonesia (and Thailand and a few other places) would be far more interesting in my opinion. Also, I love experiencing living in different places and it felt like a change was long overdue.

We only have one life, so don't settle for some place that is just comfortable but keep moving to find places that are exciting and new before you get too old. For me it is currently Indonesia but I absolutely love Japan too....

@peaceatwood

Thank you, London is no longer as good as it used to be when I was growing (it was the best city in the world IMO once upon a time) up though admittedly the cultural side with amazing theatres, shows, restaurants, art galleries, museums have all more or less been visited. Safety aspects are paramount to most people which sadly London or UK in general does not provide.

We are planning on being based in KLCC or Bukit Bintang area, we love the city life as born and bred Londoners. KL seems much safer, you can freely wear your jewellery and use the phone if you need to.

I am hoping people are friendlier than UK but that is yet to be experienced. We will know better when we come to visit for 2 months in September and October to stay in various buildings to see how they are run and suitability. We are not applying for the MM2H until around November this year.

Hopefully we are all making the right choices. 🤞

I don't think you can go wrong with Malaysia. KL is also a great place to fly from to visit other nearby countries.

I owned some apartments in the KLCC area at the beginning of Jalan Ampang close to where the old British High Commission used to be located, but sold those off. Also had a couple in Bukit Bintang which I find a lot more of an interesting place to live. I don't know your age so not sure if you are retiring, but there are also other nice areas to live in KL. One of the nicest is in Bangsar which has some older (and some new) apartment buildings. The one I lived at had tennis courts, squash courts, pool, gym, minimarket, salon, restaurant, and magnificent views over the city. That building has to be at least 40 years old now and was well maintained, but it was really nice living there. It's a freehold building rather than leasehold. There are shopping malls nearby and lots of banks, restaurants etc in the area. Even though I first lived in Bukit Bintang when I moved to KL, I preferred to live in Bangsar in the end which is much more civilized, relaxed and where there are a lot of expats living.

That condo I lived in was called Sri Wangsaria and the nearby malls are Bangsar Village, Bangsar Shopping Centre, and there's a huge one a few minutes taxi drive away called Mid Valley Megamall. I belonged to the Owners Committee at that place until 2015.

I am not sure if Bangsar is served by MRT which we want to be close to as we are not going to buy a car, neither of us fancy driving around KL as you cannot get anywhere due to the traffic and some erratic driving 😊. So we picked Bukit Bintang and KLCC for the city view and ease of getting around. Also they are close to my favourite malls of TRX and Pavilion. We are making lists of places to stay ( buildings in those locations) to see what they are like to live in, how they are run, what people are like but a week here and there may not be sufficient but at least we will have a vague idea which is better than right now. We are coming in October & November on a fact finding mission. Then we will apply for MM2H after we stayed there and spoken with some estate agents.

We are under 60 and planning on retiring there. So no job or business just plan to enjoy life after spending all lives working extremely stressful jobs in both our cases.

Thank you so much for all the information you have given me. We may well try to stay in a building in Bangsar to guage how it compares to our preferred locations.

There is another area called Bangsar South which has an apartment building above a shopping Mall and is right next door to an LRT station. It's called KL Gateway. But anyway if you are set on being more central then go for it. Also, since we no longer live in Malaysia, when visiting KL we usually use Grab to get around, never use taxi's as there were too many bad experiences.

Good luck!

Funny you should mention bad experiences with taxi in KL but we did use Grab a couple of times and the drivers were so much better than the taxi drivers.

We are thinking Bukit Bintang as we have stayed there several times and love the area, also the newly opened Conlay MRT is a great addition to BB MRT and Raja Chulan is extremely close too.

Hopefully you are enjoying life in Indonesia, we have been to Bali and really liked it. We plan to visit Jakarta one day soon 🤞

Bali is alright but becoming far too touristy in my opinion and not as enjoyable as it used to be. I've been visiting Bali since the early 80's, I used to lived there too for a couple of years in the 90's. Nowadays would never really want to live there as it's far too commercial. However, I do visit Bali 2 or 3 times a year for short holidays.

We live in Bandung which is a lovely place since we hardly ever see foreigners, mostly the tourists are locals from Jakarta and other places. So prices are not pushed up and the people here don't see us simply as a source of money.

Jakarta is nice, but after you have visited the local attractions then it we just like it for getting away from Bandung and staying in a nice hotel and going out to shop and eat or if my wife has a project there.

I actually lived in Bukit Bintang for 9 years. I was Chairman of a condominium there for 3 years. The condo was one of the worst in the area I guess, we had to deal with murders, suicides, lots of burglaries, gangsters, prostitutes etc. But the location was really nice, a couple of minutes walk to Jalan Alor.  It could get dangerous at night too sometimes since there were a lot of bars in the area. When my last tenant moved out of my apartment in Bangsar, we just decided to go live in Bangsar as we were expecting our second child.

Yes we only use Grab in KL. Taxi drivers were like gangsters in KL, lots of stories about them, so happy that Grab is around. Good thing about the centre of KL is that it's quite small. you can easily walk from KLCC to Bukit Bintang and to Jalan Petaling and Little India. We'll probably visit KL next month for a few days shopping and eating...

Where about in Bukit Bintang was your condo? The burglaries, suicide, murder, gangster sounds like London and not the safe place I was hoping for which is a worry. Of course there is crime everywhere and as foreigners are we more of a target for crime of any kind?

We have walked from Bukit Bintang to KLCC and some surrounding areas like Conley. Easy to walk around. Not walked around Little India but will do when we are out there for longer in September October. Petaling Street area looked a bit run down years ago but it could be different now as we have not been since Covid.

Sounds as though you are enjoying life in Indonesia which is great to hear and some places sounds

really lovely.

Taxi's always seemed unfriendly and unhelpful whenever we tried to get one so we have always avoided them and hence the reason public transport is essential for us as driving there is so chaotic and not sure if they observe the rules.

Well I don't really want to name the condo, but it was in a fantastic location as far as bars, food goes. If you have a a grill gate in front of your apartment then you are pretty safe. The location and price make it interesting though. Those kind of problems don't occur every day. And of course they have security guards at the condo. There is a pool, gym etc. Back then I bought one 2 bedroom place for Rm200k and another for Rm280k. Sold them both for around Rm600k maybe in 2012. I remember though that a young western guy who they say was walking back from a pub late at night in a side alley just near the condo and he got hit on the head and robbed. I think he died. But in the condo, there was once a french guy who jumped from a high floor, and another person who was pushed through a window. These are people with issues though. We knew the gangster, I once had to go visit his apartment to complain about some leaking form his bathroom and he was alright with me...lol

It's actually just the one condo that has a not so good reputation. I'm not sure what the prices are of apartments there these days and if still below a million I guess you cannot buy them as a foreigner. That's something to ask your lawyer. That's another thing, lawyers often give discounts when doing property transactions. Mine became a kind of friend, for example, she did the certification for the kids renewel of their UK passports. Whenever I sold apartments her fees were about half of other lawyers fees.

One last note when buying properties, be careful of the tricks that property agents get up to. Don't sign exclusivity agreements with any of them for apartments they show you, just refuse no matter what they might say.

Thank you so much for all your help and information, I maybe in touch nearer the time as there are bound to be things which crop up unexpectedly especially with this kind of move.

Although I've lived more than half my life in the Far East, back in 2003 I had been stuck in the UK for around 2 - 3 years, and decided to move to Malaysia. Reasons I chose Malaysia are that property is much cheaper than say in Singapore, everyone speaks English and the food and shopping is good. I got the MM2H in 2008 because I married an Indonesian girl so that she could stay in Malaysia long term.
For advice, I'd make sure to have an HSBC Premier account in the UK which if you don't already have one then you can probably get or upgrade to once you sell your house. Once you have that you can open a Premier account in Malaysia. I managed to get a total of five housing loans over the years with no proof of income required just by being a Premier customer. The mortgage loans were only 50% and 60% though. I also made friends with people at HSBC including a branch manager and regional manager. With Premier you get a few benefits such as preferential exchange rates, free global transfers between Premier accounts etc. But I would still open a local bank account say with Maybank or CIMB.

When you apply for the MM2H you need to prove your income of MYR10k or more unless the requirements have changed. I also bought a tax free new car in 2008 because of the MM2H but again, not sure if that benefit still exists. Instead of the normal Rm147k that I would normally have paid, I only paid Rm91k.

As long as you live in a condo or apartments building where expats like to stay, you will easily find friends. Also in KL there are lots of bars and pubs where expats hang out. I was into photography so joined photo shoots with others and made friends. Then there are Facebook groups for expats where they used to have meetups, I guess this kind of thing still goes on.

The drawbacks for us was that we got bored living in Malaysia. I lived there for 12 years, my wife for 7 years, and we just got bored visiting the same places again and again - Melaka, Penang, Cameron Highlands, Port Dickson and even Singapore. KL started to feel small and costly. We moved to Indonesia which we prefer as it is less developed, genuinely nice people who are 'not' after your money (apart from in Bali), much more beautiful terrain and so on. But KL would be a good base if you plan to travel around the region and you are not very familiar with Asia.

We love the choice of food that you can find in KL. Shopping is really great too. That is why from time to time we fly to KL to eat and shop. I sold all my properties in Malaysia because it seems the property market has still not recovered. I sold apartments in 2014 for more than I could have gotten today.... - @wyngrove60

MM2H has totally changed - no income requirement but you need approx 250k USD min for a 5 year visa, and need to buy a house.

On the lower level MM2H you cannot work or run a business of course.

Well that's a lot of money. I cannot see Malaysia being worth it as far as retirement goes if you need to fork out 250k USD. Plenty of other countries in Asia that are far cheaper to move to and just as nice.

Well that's a lot of money. I cannot see Malaysia being worth it as far as retirement goes if you need to fork out 250k USD. Plenty of other countries in Asia that are far cheaper to move to and just as nice. - @wyngrove60

It's going to be too much for most. It looks like Malaysia is hunting for high spenders.

The figures are really high and you would not see 50% of it ever unless you leave Malaysia so we are wondering if it is worth losing so much of our hard worked money. I personally think they need to rethink as you say they are pricing themselves out, even Dubai seems like a better option short term until Malaysia realises that they need to lower their expectations.

I guess you wouldn't be losing any money because you can invest it in time deposits in the bank. You just cannot take it out except for a few certain reasons. I am wondering why you are considering places like Malaysia and Dubai? There are many more interesting places to live in Asia and the cost of living is lower and you don't need to make such a huge investment.

Yes they seem to be pricing themselves out at the moment, but the Ministry of Tourism has always made changes to the MM2H requirements as and when it suits them. But with a US$250k requirement, I am sure that the majority of retirees would quickly lose interest in Malaysia.

As for the requirement that you buy a house, the property market has never recovered since Covid so probably you could buy something but it could be difficult to sell later. I certainly would never be interested in buying property again in Malaysia.

@wyngrove60

You do receive 50% back to purchase a property but the other 50% you do not see again unless you terminate the visa and leave Malaysia. We cannot use that money again or see it again which to me is losing, it is added to your estate upon your death, that is my understanding of it.

Dubai and Malaysia were always top of our list as we have travelled there several times and like both the places but somewhat put off by Malaysia's criteria. Other thing with Malaysia is the visa charges for 2 people are £8.5k which is more expensive than Dubai. Dubai has similar criteria and really expensive health insurance. Swings and roundabouts.

We have visited Bali and liked it but nowhere else in Indonesia. Also visited Hong Kong & Macau but not at all appealing to live in those places. Singapore seems really expensive. Thailand is ok we have visited Bangkok but much prefer Malaysia. So we are running out of options 😅.

I can't really answer your question since MM2H seems to have completely changed. I know that the fixed deposit is refundable when you quit MM2H. I remember having to write to the Ministry of Tourism saying I no longer wanted to be part of the program and they sent me back a confirmation letter which I present to the bank and my fixed deposit was subsequently released.

Apparently there are different MM2H categories, some are easier and more affordable than others but the length of the Visa differs too. Also I think you are obliged to purchase a property and they give minimum purchase prices with each category, and in some categories you are limited to where you can buy (eg you may have to buy from a Developer and in a specified area.

I lived in Hong Kong for around 7 years back in the 80's & 90's. Back then it was great. More recently it has become a complete zoo. However, I lived in a place called Discovery Bay on Lantau Island which had a 25 minute fast boat journey to Central District. In Discovery Bay they had a club house, tennis courts, shops, a beach where I used to keep my windsurfing boards, and people got around on the bus or bought golf carts. It was a sweet life. We used to take the hydrofoil from Hong Kong to Macau on weekends to eat seafood.

I lived in Singapore for 3 years as a kid, and another 6 years or so and again in the early 80's. It was brilliant back then. My sister lived there up until last year and she had a luxury apartment all paid for by her employer. Later they changed her terms and she rented a 3-bedroom apartment on Marine Parade herself. It's still a good lifestyle and I think a nice place to live.

Bali is alright, I used to live there for a couple of years in the late 90's.I lived in Sanur. Nowadays I go there 2 or 3 times each year, but I wouldn't want to live there anymore because it's too hot and too busy and too many foreigners, tourists and residents.

I have never been interested in Dubai but I do like the Middle East in general and the Mediterranean area. Some of the Greek islands are really nice.

Getting back to Malaysia, I find the current options for MM2H far too expensive and targeting not really people looking for retirement but for rich people looking to have a second residence. When I lived in Malaysia I enjoyed the eating and shopping, but eventually found the place too boring. I mean if you just want a relaxed lifestyle I guess it's fine, but if you want something more exciting then look elsewhere.

Apart form Bali, there are other decent places to live in Indonesia. There's a place called BSD City outside of Jakarta which is pretty nice, but quite hot there. It was one of the places we considered when we first decided to move to Indonesia. Finally we decided on Bandung in West Java which is in the highlands and has a cooler climate than all those other hot places. The cost of living is not expensive, it's a normal city not full of foreigners, lots of universities and fantastic for food. We've been here for 10 years and still loving the place. The only other place I would really like to experience living is in Japan. We were there for a couple of weeks in November, but prior to Covid we would visit there at least twice a year.

Gosh you really have moved around and experienced plenty of places to live, whilst we have spent some of our spare time in Dubai & Malaysia hence the reason we picked Kuala Lumper. But it is somewhat priced out for us, buying a property is a not a problem as we are selling our place in the UK but it is money going to bank to stay there which is big problem as we cannot access 50% of it, which makes it KL far more difficult. Hopefully Malaysia will lower the figures otherwise trying to attract wealthier people may not be as successful as they initially hoped unless of course they do not want too many people coming to live there.

We have been to Bali but nowhere else in Indonesia so it is very much an unknown quantity and therefore moving lock stock and barrel to an unfamiliar location is not an option, we do not want to make a huge mistake and regret the decision. The other places we have visited are rather unappealing like Hong Kong, Singapore, Macau. Do not fancy Vietnam although I heard it is beautiful but again unknown to us. It would be great to visit but not to live.

If we can get 5 years visa for Dubai, we could visit some places in Indonesia and see how it compares to KL. KL has always been my wish to live in and my husband prefers Dubai. After 4 years we will need to probably move as the medical insurance in Dubai is rather high so that is when we can make our final decision where to move to for good. Hopefully by then Malaysia will wake up and smell the coffee rather than pricing people out. 🤞But we will not hold our breath for that. So perhaps you may have directed me more towards Indonesia.

Thank you so much for taking the time and giving me so much valuable information, I really appreciate it. It is invaluable to have someone who has experienced these places who can give us an insight the way you have.

No problem, it's just my experience and my own personal opinions.

Well I've only moved around a lot because I wanted to leave the UK, and my first few jobs allowed me to live and work overseas, also I studied some Mandarin at the Mandarin Training Center in Taipei. Being able to speak Mandarin made it easy to get jobs in Hong Kong back in the 80's.

My brother who currently lives in the UK comes out to visit us for a few weeks each year and as he is old and worried about his health and not having family nearby he wants to come and live in Indonesia near us. So we are just checking the requirements for the old persons visa. I think the requirement is to have a monthly income of at least US$1500, health insurance, life insurance and rental of a property with a 12 month contract. I'm not sure what else, but we'll be speaking with immigration next week to get a clearer picture on what his possibilities are.Maybe it is more difficult than that or maybe there is an easier way of doing it. About 3 or 4 years ago I had health insurance here with I think it was with Prudential and paid around IDR20 million per year for myself. But there were so many things not included and the premium jumped up a few million for the second year so I didn't continue and now use BPJS, the local inexpensive insurance that was started by the government. It costs less than US$10 per month per person for the highest type.

Anyway, Indonesia has it's advantages and disadvantages, but the people here are very nice and the country is beautiful and exciting. We love living in Bandung.

Have you looked at the S-MM2H, the Sarawak MM2H? The requirements are different and easier than the normal MM2H, no requirements to buy a property as far as I can see. The biggest negative is that you need to place RM500,000 into a Fixed Deposit but you can withdraw half of that after one year. You have a choice of proving a monthly income of RM10,000 per month for a single person or combined RM15,000 for  a couple OR show that you have liquid assets of RM100,000 for one person or RM200,00 for a couple.

You only need to spend 30 days in Sarawak per year and I think in the past people here have said that S-MM2H would allow you to live on the mainland, but perhaps someone more familiar with S-MM2H could confirm whether that is true or not.

We did look into that one too and again the deposit is too high and having to spend 30 days every year is bit of a bind if truth be told. At this moment in time Malaysia has priced itself out for us but we are hopeful that they wake up and smell the coffee and reduce the requirements. Going after only wealthy people limits foreign investment as most wealthy people are more inclined to go elsewhere and the people who are more likely to want to move to Malaysia are put off unless requirements are changed.

We were always going to buy a property in KL should the visa requirements change but I am sure other people are also in the same boat as us. Regular middle of the road people like us are the ones who are likely to want to move to KL rather the wealthy ones who have far more options.

I very much doubt that they will make things easier in the future. I believe they will continue to target more and more wealthy people in the future and making the requirements even more unreasonable.

I have this horrible feeling you are right. Sad but true that only wealthy people are wanted in parts of the world, and other 95% of the world's population are ignored.