Is Sabah property a good investment in 2026? Kota Kinabalu vs Sandakan

Until recently, Sabah barely registered on the radar of buyers comparing new launches across Malaysia — the state's property market ran almost entirely on local demand, with none of the branded, Klang Valley-style launches that dominate KL, Penang or Johor Bahru. That changed in late 2025, when EXSIM — the developer behind 16 current projects across the Klang Valley, Johor Bahru and Penang — broke ground on its first two Sabah developments within weeks of each other: The Bedrock in Kota Kinabalu and Sejati Sentral in Sandakan.

Both are genuinely different products in genuinely different cities, so this isn't a single "Sabah property" story — it's two.

Why developers are suddenly building in Sabah

Two separate forces are at work. In Kota Kinabalu, it's a landowner-led waterfront transformation: Suria Capital Holdings Bhd, the port operator that owns the land around Jesselton Point, is redeveloping a 75-acre stretch of the city's waterfront — Jesselton Waterfront City, a RM9.2 billion GDV masterplan that will eventually include a cruise terminal, an international school, a wellness centre, the Aquaria KK oceanarium and a cultural island park. Rather than develop it alone, Suria Capital brought in EXSIM's Sabah subsidiary, BEDI Development, as its residential joint-venture partner — The Bedrock is Precinct 1 of that masterplan.

In Sandakan, the driver is different: Sandakan Airport itself. Sejati Sentral sits roughly 400m from the terminal, positioned to capture tourist and business-traveller footfall passing through — the first GreenRE-certified project in the city, and BEDI Development's first Sabah commercial launch.

Kota Kinabalu: The Bedrock @ Jesselton Docklands

The Bedrock comprises 1,080 waterfront suites across 2 towers on a 6.15-acre site, directly beside Jesselton Point Ferry Terminal and within walking distance of Suria Sabah Mall. It's a leasehold development, developed via EXSIM's subsidiary BEDI Development in joint venture with Suria Capital Holdings Bhd — the landowner and port operator behind the wider site — with seven layouts from a 351 sq ft studio to a 700 sq ft dual-key suite, gross prices from RM532,400. Groundbreaking took place in October 2025.

The case for Kota Kinabalu specifically: it's Sabah's state capital and the commercial heart of Borneo's west coast, with an established tourism economy, an international airport, and a genuine shortage of new waterfront-facing stock in the city centre itself — most of KK's recent supply has been on the outskirts.

Sandakan: Sejati Sentral's airport-gateway play

Sejati Sentral is a different kind of asset entirely — a 149-unit commercial development on a 16.85-acre site in Taman Fajar, comprising 141 two-storey shop-office units released across four phases, 6 pavilion-style link shops, a standalone drive-thru restaurant lot, and the 5-storey MOMO boutique hotel anchoring the precinct. It's leasehold, developed by Sejati Sentral (Sandakan) Sdn Bhd — part of BEDI Development, 52.5%-owned by EXSIM Borneo Sdn Bhd — with gross prices from RM1,331,800 to RM3,785,800.

Sandakan is Sabah's second-largest city and the gateway to Sepilok and the Kinabatangan River — a smaller, more tourism-and-logistics-driven economy than Kota Kinabalu, and Sejati Sentral is a commercial play on that footfall rather than a residential one. It's the more specialised of the two: buyers here are underwriting a specific location thesis (proximity to the airport terminal), not a broad city growth story.

Tenure, price psf and what to check before buying

Both projects are leasehold. Sabah runs its own land law framework — the Sabah Land Ordinance — separate from the National Land Code used across Peninsular Malaysia, and this extends to foreign ownership: Sabah sets its own price thresholds and typically requires state authority consent for foreign buyers, on top of the standard project-level approvals. None of this is a reason to avoid Sabah, but it is a reason to verify tenure, remaining lease term and foreign-eligibility status for the specific unit you're looking at, rather than assuming Peninsular Malaysia rules apply.

Because both projects are new — groundbreaking only in late 2025 — there's no completed secondary market in either precinct yet to benchmark resale liquidity against. That's normal for a first-mover launch, but it's a real consideration: you're buying into the first phase of a location thesis, not a proven track record.

Who Sabah property actually suits

Kota Kinabalu suits buyers who want exposure to Sabah's tourism and lifestyle economy through a waterfront residential product, backed by a substantial landowner-developer partnership (Suria Capital, the actual port operator, isn't a passive land seller here — it's a JV partner with a long-term stake in the precinct succeeding). Sandakan suits a narrower, more deliberate buyer — someone underwriting the airport-footfall thesis specifically, most likely for commercial use or long-term hold rather than quick turnover, given the thinner comparable market.

Neither is a like-for-like substitute for an established Klang Valley or Penang address, and that's the point — Sabah is a genuinely different risk-and-opportunity profile, not simply "the same product, further away."

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