Our Take: Malaysia Is the World’s Third-Best Country to Live In — 0.6 Points Behind Singapore, and 9 km Away

WeirdKaya reported this week that Malaysia has been ranked the third-best country in the world to live in for 2026, scoring 72.0 out of 100 in the Rumavi Global Relocation Index — one place and 0.6 points behind Singapore at 72.6, with Estonia first at 72.8. Rankings like this are easy to wave around and easy to dismiss. We read the full scorecard instead, and the interesting part is not the medal — it is what each country scores badly on, and how the two neighbours cover each other’s gaps.

By the Stone Group Development advisory desk · 13 September 2026 · 4 min read

What the index actually measures

Rumavi is a relocation advisory, and its index scores 192 countries on 24 factors grouped into four pillars: financial and tax, livability and health, safety and stability, and settling and opportunity. Malaysia’s pillar scores are 82.7 for financial and tax, 70.9 for livability and health, 64.2 for safety and stability and 67.3 for settling and opportunity. Underneath those sit the numbers that matter to a property buyer: affordability 97.8, housing affordability 82, foreign-income tax treatment 85, visa ease 78, healthcare quality 71 and property rights for non-citizens 68. The same index ranks Malaysia first in the world for retirees (75.8) and for digital nomads (79.1). Singapore scores 80 on safety and takes the top tax-friendly spot, but Rumavi flags its severe housing costs and limited routes to permanent residency. In other words: one neighbour is cheap to live in and easy to enter; the other is safe and expensive. That is not a coincidence — it is a trade.

Medini is where the two scorecards overlap

A 0.6-point gap between two countries is a rounding error on paper. On the ground it is the Second Link. Medini sits 9 km from the Tuas checkpoint, which means a household can take Malaysia’s 82-point housing affordability and 85-point foreign-income treatment while keeping Singapore’s 80-point safety, its hospitals and its salaries within a commute — and, from January 2027, a five-minute RTS ride from Bukit Chagar. Housing affordability is the pillar where the two countries diverge most, and it is also the one where the gap is widest in cash terms: a two-bedroom at Bodaiju Residences starts at RM440,000, roughly S$138,000, in a district exempt from the RM1 million minimum that Johor applies to foreign buyers elsewhere. Rumavi’s retiree and digital-nomad rankings describe exactly the two tenant profiles our hosted portfolio already serves — long-stay remote workers and cross-border retirees — which is why we treat this index as a demand signal, not a vanity metric.

The scores we would not gloss over

Rumavi is blunt about Malaysia’s weak spots, and so are we: street safety 52, rule of law 57, business opportunity 39, and property rights for non-citizens 68. Two of those are why buyers should choose the asset and the district, not just the country. Property rights at 68 is the reason we steer foreign buyers towards commercial-titled serviced apartments in Medini with a clear foreign-purchase framework, a Japanese developer and a strata-managed, gated tower with a guardhouse — the things that turn a national average into a specific address you can underwrite. Street safety at 52 is a national number that a gated, single-entry residential tower with round-the-clock security is designed to sit well above. And business opportunity at 39 is a reminder that Johor’s economy is being pulled by the JS-SEZ and the Singapore border rather than by the national average — which is the case for Medini, not for Malaysia at large.

Our take

Third in the world is a good headline. The better story is that the world’s No. 2 and No. 3 share a land border, and the district on the cheaper side of it is inside a special economic zone with a train to the expensive side opening in months. If you are a Singaporean weighing the Rumavi retiree ranking, read our note on retiring early in Johor; if you are a Korean or Taiwanese investor reading the digital-nomad ranking, the tenant it describes is the one who rents a furnished one- or two-bedroom by the month. Either way, the index is measuring demand that already shows up in our bookings.

Opinion & disclosure: this commentary reflects the views of the Stone Group Development advisory desk, which markets property in Medini and therefore benefits when the district does well. Figures are drawn from the third-party reports linked above; verify current numbers before acting. Nothing here is financial advice.