A weekly thread to discuss financial matters - from personal all the way up to global.
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Notes -
Spousal visa for me. I met my wife in Australia but she's a Malaysian citizen. I've got friends using the MM2H golden visa which is solid if you're not looking to work in the country but requires a solid 6 figure investment to get.
Your mileage may vary but the first year or so in the country I was able to chain 3 month entry visas without flagging anything. All I had to do was leave every 8 weeks or so, stay out for a couple days then get a fresh 3 months on return.
Lucky you! :)
I looked briefly at the MM2H thing. Do they require you to buy real estate if you go for that? I'm also wondering if the rest of the money you put in a Malaysian bank account can be invested in any way or does it just have to sit there.
If you have the time, I'd appreciate hearing more about the country. Upsides and downsides.
I haven't done a MM2H deep dive personally but have been looking into it for my parents. You can use up to half of the money you put in the bank towards a mortgage down payment towards the property. They do require a property purchase but the value required for the deposit and the property varies by state.
Allegedly they don't track the state-residence requirement for the Borneo states MM2H particularly rigorously and people do get away with buying over there and spending most of their time on the peninsula. Not that there's anything wrong or particularly rudimentary with Kuching or Kota Kinabalu they're just a bit small and boring.
What do you want to know? I've lived here about 2 years now. IMO best deal in the world in terms of COL and real estate. The culture/politics a bit funny but rarely infringe on me.
Since you ask!, I have lots of questions! :)
How much would a 1 or 2 bedroom apartment or small/medium size house cost in a livable area? How many percent down payment do they require in those regions?
Is built-in A/C the standard? How bad does the heat and humidity get? And the air quality?
How's the social scene for a white westerner? Would you expect them to make friends with locals, or just expats, or neither? Would he have a decent chance at marrying someone there?
Do you face discrimination as a foreigner? Will you ever feel accepted as one of them? Do you feel legally secure in your residency?
Are the federal and municipal governments relatively sane and stable?
How do you suppose the country will deal with the coming decades of developments, climate change, geopolitical turmoil, etc?
Have you had to use the (private) healthcare system for anything serious? How did it go? Were you able to get insurance without issues?
Is there anything that would happen to you and yours there that would require you to go back to Australia?
I've heard that the food culture is great there. Would you find it easy to find healthy food, allergy specific food, specialty products like gluten free food or lactose free food?
What do you wish someone had told you about before you moved there?
The MM2H minimum property will get you something very liveable. I paid approx 1m MYR (250k USD) for a 5br in a gated community in an upper middle class 'local' area in outer KL. Expat centric areas tend to trend higher and the minimum buy in Selangor is 2M but that'll get you something exceedingly liveable. 10% is required down payment.
I prettymuch haven't been anywhere without good AC. Unless you're somehow managing to move into a 50 year old house in a shitty area, there'll be AC. Air quality is fine. Humidity can be annoying during the spikes but generally polite society avoids going outside midday.
Social scene is good. I mostly rely on BJJ for my non-family socialization and it's very strong and English speaking. My personal social circle is mostly local/Malaysian Chinese but I'm like 40 mins away from the peak expat region. Dating culture is quite conservative but also foreigner friendly if you're dating to marry and seem to have your shit together. Generally the 30% or so Chinese are more inclined. The 50% or so Muslim Malay population are friendly but you'd be expected to convert to Islam to get married (On paper at the very least, mileage may vary depending on girl/family) since there is legally no such thing as non-Muslim Malay. It's not Thailand/ideal for sex tourism but it's also not ultra conservative.
As a white foreigner I feel pretty solid. Malaysian internal racism stuff tends to focus more on skirmishes between the local Indians/Chinese/Malays. There's definitely prejudice against the abundant unskilled foreign worker population from India, Indonesia, Bangladesh etcetera. Rohingya get a lot of complaints in the media, but I've never experienced anything I'd consider anti-white.
I'm on a spousal visa and have no real intention of ever working in the country. I don't feel 100% firm in never getting kicked out but I would be highly surprised. The politics have had a lot of reform/cleaning up since the massive embezzlement scandals about 10-15 years ago. There's very strong positive discrimination for Malays in government and govt adjacent business, but they're nice enough and don't tend to be receptive to particularly radical Islam. The Chinese have had friction historically due to being overwhelmingly economically successful inside the country, but there's never been sufficient political will to do anything dramatic like in Thailand or Indonesia.
I think Malaysia is in a good position to take advantage of the world pivoting more towards China. Singapore has reached capacity for non-financial investment and the bordering region of Malaysia is picking up a ton of overflow. I'm more bullish on Malaysia for the next 50 years than Australia.
Only real healthcare engagement was birth of my youngest child. Cheaper (approx half) and higher service than Australia. I'm looking at moving my parents over presently as they're getting elderly and cost of in-home care is considerably lower here, though I don't know enough about the trade-offs if somebody's got a particularly intense/difficult to treat condition.
Can't imagine relocating back to Australia in foreseeable future unless the country randomly collapses or avoiding a war or something.
Food culture is good, usually pretty comparable to Australian cafe culture. Grocery availability is good but haven't had to deal with any particular sensitivities on my part.
I'd done 2 month long trips before pulling the trigger so I felt pretty solid before moving. IMO if you're on the fence about Asia just look at chaining 2 weeks in Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and get a feel for each of them.
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