Speculative residential developers and foreign retirees’ market segment in Malaysia

• The new housing market segment for foreign retirees is still small.
• Developers usually sell houses to them well above the government set floor price.
• Houses designed for locals are usually sold to foreign retirees uncustomised.
• Customisation in terms of product, price, place and promotions is best refrained.
• The 5Ps notion is apt to reflect dissimilar nationality-specific buying patterns.

Over the last decade in particular, there has been a steady stream of foreign retirees, and more recently foreign high net worth individuals, who have joined Malaysia's My Second Home (MM2H) Programme which provides them with long-stay period visas. This opened up a new but small market segment for residential developers. A study was conducted to determine how the developers accommodate the MM2H participants by using the 4Ps framework. Data was collected using the mixed method of postal questionnaire survey and follow-up interviews. Customisation for the MM2H residential segment was generally limited to promotion of new dwellings. Total customisation in terms of product, price, place and promotion was found to be highly risky. Another ‘P’ for people cannot be excluded from 4Ps framework as speculative developers associate different nationalities with different house purchasing tendencies.