How Do You Know If a Property Will Be Easy to Sell Later?

One of the questions buyers ask me most often is:

"Henry, if I buy this property today, will it be easy to sell 5 or 10 years later?"

Nobody can know for certain.

I cannot tell you who will buy your unit eight years from now, what interest rates will be, or exactly how much your property will be worth.

But I can ask a more useful question:

"Eight years from now, WHO would buy this property — and why would they choose it over everything else?"

For me, that comes down to four things: Who is the future buyer? Why would they want this property? What else can they buy? Why would they pay your price?

Cheap Property Doesn't Automatically Mean Easy Resale

It sounds logical. A RM500,000 property should have more potential buyers than a RM1 million property. So shouldn't it be easier to sell?

Not necessarily.

In Q1 2026, Malaysia had 32,801 completed-unsold conventional residential units worth RM16.37 billion. According to government figures based on NAPIC data, 15,401 units — 46.9% — were priced RM300,000 and below.

This does not mean affordable properties are harder to sell. It means affordability alone cannot explain whether buyers want a property.

A RM250,000 home may have an affordable mortgage.

But what if living there means a long commute?

What if the household needs two cars?

What if schools, childcare, groceries or healthcare are inconvenient?

What if the layout doesn't suit the intended buyer?

This is why I distinguish between price and effective affordability.

Affordability isn't only the price of buying the home. It's also the cost of making your life work from that home.

So instead of asking "How many people can afford RM500,000?" — I ask:

"How many people who can afford RM500,000 actually want THIS RM500,000 property?"

WHO Will Buy This From Me?

Before thinking about resale price, define the future buyer.

A family? A young professional couple? A retiree? An expatriate? A Singapore commuter? Another investor?

Because different buyers pay for different things.

Good for whom?

WHY Would They Want This Property?

For an owner-occupier buyer, one of the first things I look at is livability.

Imagine your future buyer visiting your unit on a Saturday afternoon. They're thinking about the commute, the schools, whether groceries are nearby, the traffic, whether the bedrooms actually fit proper furniture, whether someone can work from home, whether there's enough parking, and whether they'd still want to stay here after having another child.

These questions aren't as exciting as "Future MRT" or "Integrated township" or "High-growth corridor." But they're much closer to what somebody experiences after actually moving in. That's what I mean by livability.

There is evidence consistent with this idea. Malaysian property-market observers have pointed to distance from employment, schools, public transport, retail and family-support networks when explaining why some lower-priced completed homes still struggle to find buyers.

But I would not turn this into "Good livability = guaranteed resale." The Malaysian data isn't granular enough to prove that. I use livability as a decision principle — especially when I believe my future buyer will be an owner-occupier.

But a Good Property Can Still Be a Bad Buy

Imagine a genuinely good family property. Good neighbourhood. Practical layout. Useful amenities. People genuinely want to stay there.

Comparable completed properties nearby: RM1.1 million. New project: RM1.5 million.

The question isn't "Is the new project better?" The question is: "Is it RM400,000 better?"

When you eventually sell, your next buyer will make the same comparison. That's why:

Good property is not automatically a good investment.

A very livable property can still become a weak investment if the entry price already assumes too much future appreciation.

WHAT Else Can They Buy?

This is where I think property discussions about "supply" often go wrong. People ask "How many units?" Then: 500 units = good. 1,500 units = bad.

I don't think it's that simple. A better question is:

"How many acceptable substitutes does my future buyer have?"

And this leads to one of the resale risks I care about most: the 43-unit problem.

The development may still be desirable. But you're competing against your own neighbours. That's why I care more about direct substitutes than simply counting the number of units in the development.

High Density Isn't the Same as Oversupply

M Vertica in Cheras is a useful counterexample.

M Vertica doesn't prove that high density is good. It proves that unit count alone is a poor shortcut for buyer demand.

So if you show me a 1,500-unit project, my first response isn't automatically "Too many units." I want to know how large the real buyer pool is, what product those units are offering, how many nearby projects offer essentially the same thing, and how many sellers could eventually compete for the same buyer.

"Oversupply" of What?

This is why I don't particularly like blanket statements such as "Johor is oversupplied" — oversupply of what, for whom, at what price?

Local market monitoring recorded 10,560 unsold high-rise units versus only 825 unsold landed units in Johor, Q4 2025.

The more useful question isn't "Is Johor oversupplied?" It's:

"Is there too much of THIS product relative to the buyers who actually want it?"

WHY Would They Pay My Price?

Suppose we've established that a future buyer exists. They like your property. There aren't too many close substitutes. Good.

We still have one problem. Price.

At RM800,000, your property may be their first choice. At RM950,000, the older condominium next door may look more attractive. At RM1 million, a larger unit may become available. At RM1.1 million, they may start considering another neighbourhood.

Resale isn't just about whether somebody likes your property. It's about:

Whether they like it enough to pay your required premium over everything else they could buy.

The more premium I pay today, the more I'm assuming that a future buyer will recognise and pay for that premium later. Sometimes they will. Sometimes they won't.

One High Transaction Doesn't Mean You Have Liquidity

Suppose someone tells me: "Don't worry. One unit here already sold for RM1.2 million." Okay. My next question is: how many?

One RM1.2 million transaction tells me: one buyer was willing to pay RM1.2 million. Repeated transactions tell me something more useful: there may actually be a buyer pool around that price.

This is why I care about transaction recurrence, not just the highest recorded price. A record price is price evidence. Repeated transactions are much closer to liquidity evidence.

What If the Future Buyer Is an Investor?

Investment-oriented property needs a slightly different test. Maybe the project offers small units, fully furnished packages, dual-key layouts, short-term rental, rental management, commuter demand, or projected rental returns. That doesn't automatically make it a bad investment.

But if my likely future buyer is another investor, I want the investment economics to stand on their own.

Suppose I want to sell for RM900,000 and the unit realistically rents for RM3,000/month. The next investor is going to calculate rent, maintenance, vacancy, management, net yield, competing projects, alternative investments.

If the numbers don't make sense at RM900,000, they can offer RM800,000. Or buy something else.

So personally, when I buy an investment-oriented product, I don't want the thesis to be "The yield isn't great now, but somebody will pay me much more later." I want the cash-flow proposition to make sense independently.

That doesn't mean investor-oriented properties are proven to be harder to resell. The available Malaysian data isn't strong enough to establish that. It simply means:

Know which future buyer your return depends on.

Owner-occupier? Understand why they would want to live there. Investor? Understand why the numbers would still make sense to them.

Henry's 4-Question Resale Test

Run these four before you commit to a purchase you plan to exit later. If you can't answer one of them, that's the thing to investigate before buying, not after.

RM650k vs RM1.1 Million — Which Has Safer Resale?

Take two hypothetical properties.

Which one is easier to sell eight years later — A or B?

I don't know.

And anyone choosing purely from the information above shouldn't know either. A isn't automatically safer because it is cheaper. B isn't automatically safer because it has fewer units and appears more livable.

Run the same four questions. For A, maybe the investment economics are excellent. For B, maybe families genuinely value the location. Maybe A has 3,000 directly competing units nearby. Maybe B has several older family condos selling RM300,000 cheaper. Maybe A's entry price produces an excellent yield. Maybe B is already priced far above comparable completed homes.

Only after answering those does the exit thesis start becoming defensible.

Henry's Take

Nobody can tell you exactly what your property will sell for eight years from now. I can't either.

But I don't think that means resale is completely unpredictable. I can still ask: who is supposed to buy this from me? Why would they want it? What else can they buy? Why would they pay my price?

A cheap property isn't automatically liquid. A high-density property isn't automatically oversupplied. A leasehold property isn't automatically difficult to sell. A service residence isn't automatically a bad investment. And a property that increases in value on paper isn't automatically easy to exit.

So when buyers ask me "Henry, what price do you think I can sell this for in eight years?" — I think there's a more important question to answer first:

Don't predict your future selling price first. Predict your future buyer first.

Then ask: "Eight years from now, WHO would buy mine — and why would they choose it over everything else?"

If I cannot give myself a convincing answer before buying, I don't want to assume the market will give me one later.