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Will you be arriving with your wife. Penang is a lovely place for couples to live.

@wyngrove60   If I decide to remain, I will be accompanied.  For this visit, I want to explore options including MM2H and the possibility to visit three months at a time rather than taking full-time residece especially as I assume that it maty take some time and bureaucracy to obtain MM2H.  It would be good to be able to meet others who have gone through thr process while in MY. 

When I got my MM2H in 2008 I used a good agent ad the process was very fast. Fortunately I only needed to place RM60k for my MM2H Fixed Deposit, which might be impossible these days. From 2003 to 2008 I lived in Kuala Lumpur but either did visa runs or spent months travelling around Asia - China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore etc and never had any problems but it seems it is not so easy anymore. I only decided to get the MM2H because immigration was giving my Indonesian wife a hard time whenever she visited Malaysia. Her having the MM2H changed that.

If I wanted to live in Malaysia, I too would prefer to just stay for a few months at a time and then travel to other places for a month or two before coming back.

@wyngrove60 Thanks for your perspective on MM2H and experience with its implementation.  Consequently, I may place a post in the Accommodation forum.  I am very much looking forward to my (first) visit to Malaysia next month and will hope to be able to meet with expats as well as locals during my stay.

@wyngrove60

Thanks indeed for your positive perspective. 

It's great news that you were able to achieve a solution that resolved the issue.

I will make more enquiries when I get to MY.

Kind regards,

I haven't been to Malaysia for 4 years but it's a great country for English speakers to retire to.

... if you can afford the MM2H thing.

I wasn't a massive fan of Penang but I loved Malacca. Nothing wrong with the Island - just preference.

Horses for courses- Explore the place and see what turns up.

Ipoh was interesting, but I wouldn't say it's a place to retire.

@Fred Thanks indeed Fred.  I decided on Penang for my first visit because so many people  were positive about it as a retirement destination but for sure I will be checking out other places before I decide where to settle down or have a pied-a-terre more likely, which would allow me to travel and visit more destinations.  I understand that if I didn't go for MM2H, I could come and go for a limited time each year and,for me that would probably be more suitable at first.

Upcoming trip will include a long weekend in KL and a couple of days and a big social event in Ipoh.  Looking forward to checking out the train, ferry and all that.  What else do you think I should not miss during my trip of not much over 2 weeks?

BTW, what took you to Indonesia after MY?  I trust it's all going well for you.

Thanks again and take care.

I felt that in Malaysia people saw me for my money. Malaysia is not a cheap place although definitely a lot cheaper than Singapore. Schooling is ridiculously expensive if you are not employed as an expat with a full expat package. Living in KL is basically like living in any other big city with traffic jams etc. I'd been living in KL for 12 years and it was long enough that it started to get boring. The good things are the food and shopping and that people speak English.

Why choose Indonesia? Firstly my wife is Indonesian. After that Indonesia is a stunningly beautiful country with amazing landscape, rich culture, friendly people and somewhat underdeveloped in a good way. Malaysia is basically flat with hundreds of miles of palm oil plantations everything. Malaysia in my opinion lacks culture although each ethnic group does have it's own. It doesn't compare to Indonesia in my opinion. People are genuinely friendlier in Indonesia than in Malaysia (apart from Bali). The cost of living is much lower than in Malaysia. In restaurants expect to pay 2 or 3 times more for food.

What is good about Malaysia is that medical insurance is cheap and good, much better than in Indonesia. Doctors in Malaysia often have a medical certificate from Edinburgh in the UK, whereas in Indonesia it's nearly always local.

Although the Indonesian language is pretty easy to learn, I spoke some Malay/Indonesian since I was a toddler as my father lived and worked in Singapore in the 1960's when Singapore was English and Malay speaking as opposed to being English and Mandarin speaking today. So the language is not an issue.

Living in Indonesia is much more of an adventure. In Malaysia you can only visit the various towns and cities so many times and then it kind of get's repetitive. Penang is nice and certainly interesting for expats as there are quite a lot of them there, but I've been visiting there since the early 80's and it's not so interesting anymore. Good thing is that Penang has an airport so you can travel to other SE Asian countries easily.

I've actually lived in a few countries in Asia and right now Indonesia is the nicest. I like to travel to other countries like Japan, Thailand, Malaysia (eating and shopping), Singapore, Taiwan etc. But I still find Indonesia the best place to live. I'm living in a city which is 'normal' and not full of foreign tourists, where nobody tries to rip you off, and which has a nice climate compared to other parts of the country.

BTW, what took you to Indonesia after MY? I trust it's all going well for you.Thanks again and take care. -@CyMan

Read the post above mine and you pretty much have it.

I really like Malaysia, but I absolutely love Indonesia.

Thailand iis supposed to be the land of smiles, but they are amateurs when you compare them to Indonesians.

There's plenty more but I have a meeting so that's that for the moment.

I'll add a correction to my above comments. People in Bali are extremely friendly, but there are some Balinese and some non-Balinese who target foreigners for their money. It's natural for people to try to make money  (or business) in the tourist industry, but there are lots of snatch thefts, scams, cheating money changers and so on in Bali and there are often very different prices for tourists compared to Indonesians. So the Balinese are generally beautiful and friendly people but it's just that there is quite a lot of targeting of foreigners and tourists in Bali.

@Fred Thanks again for your kind advice and observations.  I am very much loking forward to my upcoming visit to Malaysia and will be exploring all otions (including MM2H) while I am there and wil hope to be able to add some comments here on my return.

@wyngrove60 Thanks again for the useful information and perspectives especially on the subject of medical care, which will be a big issue for me.

I am planning to explore Penang mainly next month but will spend a little time in both Ipoh and KL and am wondering whether, if i only plan to be in Malaysia for between 3 and 6 months in each year, would I be permitted to buy a pied-a-terre and stay without needing to acquire MM2H?   Take care y'all!

From 2003 to 2008 I didn't yet have MM2H, but by 2008 I had bought four apartments. The first I bought with cash and the other three with mortgage loans from HSBC Malaysia and I did that with a tourist visa. However, it did not give me any special rights to remain in Malaysia, but just provided me with a home and some properties to rent out for extra income. Hopefully you can still buy property there as a tourist.

When it came to applying for the MM2H, since I had invested funds of at more than MYR 1 million in property, the required Fixed Deposit for the MM2H was greatly reduced, actually down to MYR 60,000. Again, not sure if that still applies as it was so long ago.

As for buying property, last I heard which was many years ago, foreigners were not allowed to buy properties that cost below MYR 1 million. I think the SMM2H might have different rules and thresholds though. Not sure.

@wyngrove60  Thanks for this info.  I will be making enquiries from Penang when I get there mid-November.  I think ideal for me would be to be able to rent or buy a small property without applying for MM2H and visiting for just 3 months at a time; and then see how it goes.  Need to look for property sales agents, initially in Penang.  Also need to understand the law for non-MM2H visitors first I assume; maybe place an advert here on ½ûÂþÌìÌà .........

For checking property and agents, in my opinion the best way is to look online on some of the Malaysian property websites such as iProperty, Property Guru, star property etc. You can enter Penang and use the filters to choose apartments, how many bedrooms, and even set your budget. There will be listings made by property agents and you will be to see their contact numbers and able to contact them via WhatsApp to ask any questions.

These are the links for these three property sites in Malaysia:

You can make some appointments with agents from the above three sites, probably all of them would be happy to bring you around to see lots of properties in Penang within your budget, and they will work with other agents who might have exclusivity for certain properties and split the commission if there is a deal. Agents typically try to make you sign an agreement that you will only go through them for any property they show you. I always refuse to sign these, because other agents may have the same property but at a lower price. Property agents in Malaysia are nice, but very tricky...

You should know that there is a big oversupply of property in Malaysia so I would say that prices are negotiable. Property owners may need to pay mortgages and having an empty apartment is a big problem for them, especially with this oversupply which is why you should try to bargain down the price.

Finally I'd also warn you against dealing with property agents who might contact you or offer their services here in the forum. It's much better to use agents who belong to a reputable firm and not those freelance agents/middle men who try to make a commission any way they can without having any principles.

I'm sorry, Expat Blog have put the three links for the property sites in Malaysia under review and they are really slow and sometimes take a few days to check so I apologise. You can actually just google the names of those sites and easily find the links.

@wyngrove60

Thanks indeed for this very useful information.  I will be sure to try to get to see some peoperties while I will be in Penang and a friend in KL has offered to show me the areas where most expats live (although that may not be what I would be  looking for).  I will at least have the chance to see some example properties and hopefully get some advice about requirements for MM2H as well as other options.  Thanks again.