Once a Johor Bahru condo passes a by-law banning short-term rental, the ban binds every owner, including those who voted no. Your four realistic options are: check whether the by-law was properly made, switch the unit to long-term rental, convert it to coliving rooms, or move the homestay business to a building that still allows it. Here is how each one pays.
We manage 100-plus homestay units across Johor Bahru and Desaru, so this is not a hypothetical for us either. When a building we operate in votes to ban short stays, we lose that unit the same day the owner does. This article is what we tell owners when that happens.
Can a condo in Malaysia really ban Airbnb and homestay?
Yes. Under the Strata Management Act 2013, a Management Corporation (MC) or Joint Management Body (JMB) can make additional by-laws by special resolution at a general meeting, and the Federal Court confirmed in Innab Salil v Verve Suites Mont' Kiara Management Corporation (2020) that a by-law prohibiting short-term rental is valid and binding on all parcel owners.
Three details owners usually get wrong:
| What people assume | What the Act actually says |
|---|---|
| "A notice at the guardhouse is enough to ban it" | A ban needs a by-law passed by special resolution at an AGM or EGM. A circular or management "house rule" that was never voted on is weaker. |
| "My title is commercial, so they can't stop me" | Commercial or serviced-apartment title does not exempt you from a properly made by-law. Verve Suites itself was a serviced residence. |
| "They can only fine me RM200 and I'll just pay it" | The fine cap under Section 32 is RM200 per breach, and management can treat every booking as a separate breach, file at the Strata Management Tribunal, and deactivate guest access cards. The fine is the small part. |
A special resolution needs at least 21 days' notice and three-quarters of the valid votes cast at the meeting. If you own in a building where the AGM is coming up, that 21-day window is your only chance to organise; after the vote it is too late.
This article is general information, not legal advice. By-laws, council rules and tribunal practice change; check the actual documents for your building and speak to a strata lawyer before acting.
Option 1: Is the ban even valid? What to ask for before you give up
Before you furnish a different unit or sign a long-term tenancy, spend one week on documents. Ask the management office in writing for:
- The by-law text as passed, not the summary in the WhatsApp group.
- The AGM or EGM minutes showing the resolution, the number of votes for and against, and whether it was tabled as a special resolution.
- The notice of meeting and the date it was sent, to check the 21 days.
- The management body stage: developer period, JMB, or MC. The rule-making power is not the same at each stage.
A good number of the "bans" owners describe to us turn out, once the documents arrive, to be a house rule from the management office that was never put to a vote. Those can still be enforced through access cards and complaints, but they can also be challenged at the Strata Management Tribunal, which hears strata disputes up to RM250,000.
If the paperwork is clean and the by-law was properly passed, stop here and move on to the next three options. Fighting a valid by-law costs more than the unit earns.
Option 2: Switch to long-term rental - what does the income drop to?
This is the default route and the one that needs the least work. The question is how much income you give up.
Long-term asking rents in the buildings where we have units, from the current listings on PropertyGuru and Mudah (October 2026):
| Building | Unit type | Long-term asking rent (furnished) |
|---|---|---|
| Paragon Suites @ CIQ | 2-bedroom | RM2,300 - RM2,550 per month |
| KSL Residence 2 @ Kangkar Tebrau | 2-bedroom, 883 - 1,000 sq ft | RM2,000 - RM2,400 per month |
| Johor Bahru overall | 2-bedroom condo | RM1,300 - RM2,300 per month |
Compare that to the one real homestay statement we are allowed to publish: an owner with 10 units under our management grossed RM67,081 in December 2025 and received RM50,311 after all expenses and our share. That is about RM5,000 per unit in a peak month. The same owner's off-season months are published in our owner earnings article and are considerably lower, which is the honest part: build your full-year comparison on those months, not on December.
For the illustrative 2-bedroom unit used in the table at the end of this article, we assume a homestay nets the owner RM3,000 - RM4,500 a month averaged over the year; the same unit on a long-term tenancy brings RM2,000 - RM2,500. What you get back for the difference:
- No cleaning, linen, or consumables.
- No platform fees (Airbnb's host-side fee is about 3%, or 15.5% on the host-only fee model; Agoda and Booking.com take 15 - 18%).
- No management fee.
- One tenant to screen instead of 100 guests a year.
- Your furniture stops wearing out at homestay speed.
If you are a Singapore-based owner, long-term is also the only option where you can truly leave the unit alone. Do a proper tenancy agreement, stamp it, take a two-month deposit plus half a month utilities, and photograph the handover.
Option 3: Coliving rooms - is renting by the room allowed when homestay is not?
Usually yes, and this is the option most owners never consider. A short-term rental by-law targets stays measured in nights. A room tenancy of six or twelve months is a normal tenancy, and the Act treats a long-term tenant the same whether they rent the whole unit or a room.
Current room rents in Johor Bahru from iBilik and Mudah listings (2026):
| Room type | Monthly rent |
|---|---|
| Master room with attached bathroom, furnished | RM800 - RM1,700 depending on building |
| Medium room, shared bathroom | RM600 - RM850 |
| Average room rent across JB (iBilik) | around RM730 |
A 3-bedroom unit at One Tebrau or Dsummit let as three rooms at RM1,200 + RM800 + RM700 brings in RM2,700, against RM2,000 - RM2,300 for the whole unit to one family. That is a 20 - 30% uplift over plain long-term, with tenants on 6 - 12 month contracts, so the building's "no transient guests" concern is met.
The catches, in order of how often they bite:
- Some by-laws ban "subdivision" or "renting to unrelated persons" too. Read the by-law for the words "room", "bed space", or "lodging". A short-term-only by-law does not cover coliving; a lodging by-law might.
- You now have three tenants and three sets of problems instead of one. Utilities need a split rule in the agreement, cleaning of common areas needs a schedule, and one bad tenant affects the other two.
- Partition walls are a separate issue. Turning a living room into a fourth room is a renovation that needs management approval and is usually what gets owners into trouble, not the room rental itself.
For an owner who does not want to do any of that, a coliving operator in JB will typically take a master lease or a management fee. The economics are closer to homestay management than you might expect: the operator handles tenant sourcing, collection and turnover, and you receive a fixed or net figure monthly. Compare the operator's fee against the 20 - 30% uplift before signing; if the fee eats the whole uplift, plain long-term with one tenant is the simpler deal.
Option 4: Move the homestay to a building that still allows it
If the income gap matters more to you than the convenience, the honest answer is that the homestay business does not die with the by-law; it moves. In Johor Bahru, buildings fall into three groups:
| Group | Typical buildings | Short-stay status |
|---|---|---|
| Built or repositioned for short stays | Serviced suites near CIQ, parts of Tebrau and Mount Austin | Allowed, often with a guest registration system |
| Mixed, under pressure | Older condos with a majority of owner-occupiers | Allowed today, but a ban motion appears at most AGMs |
| Residential, owner-occupied | Landed strata, family-oriented condos | Banned or de facto banned via access control |
Before buying or renting a replacement unit for homestay use, do the same four-document check as in Option 1 on that building, and ask one more question: what percentage of units are investor-owned? A building where 70% of owners are investors rarely passes a ban, because the investors are the three-quarters. A building where 70% of owners live there will pass one eventually.
What moving costs you:
- Furniture and soft furnishings rarely transfer well; budget for replacing 30 - 50% of it.
- Your reviews stay on the old listing. A new listing starts from zero, and in our management agreement article we explain why listings under a management company's account are not portable either.
- Two to three weeks of zero income during the switch, longer in the off-season.
Which option pays best? One table
Illustrative example for a furnished 2-bedroom unit in a Tebrau-area condo, full-year basis. These are planning figures built from the rents above, not a quote.
| Route | Monthly income to owner (full-year average) | Work for you | Risk of a repeat ban |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homestay in the same building (now banned) | RM3,000 - RM4,500 | Low with management | Already banned |
| Long-term rental, whole unit | RM2,000 - RM2,500 | Very low | None |
| Coliving, three rooms | RM2,500 - RM3,000 | Medium, or low with an operator | Low, unless the by-law covers lodging |
| Homestay in a different building | RM3,000 - RM4,500 minus moving cost | Low with management | Depends on that building's owner mix |
The gap between the best and worst row is around RM1,000 - RM2,000 a month. That is real money, but it is not enough to justify running an illegal homestay in a building that banned it, where each booking can be a separate RM200 breach, access cards can be cut mid-stay, and your guests end up arguing with security at midnight. It is never worth it.
What should you do in the 21 days before the AGM?
If the ban is only proposed, not yet passed, this is the only time an owner has leverage:
- Count the votes. Ask the management office for the strata roll; the resolution needs three-quarters of votes cast, so turnout matters more than opinion.
- Offer the alternative that owner-occupiers actually want: a guest registration rule, a cap on guests per unit, a deposit held by management for damage to common property, and a minimum stay of two nights. Most ban motions are driven by one or two problem units; a registration rule addresses those without killing everyone's income.
- Show up or appoint a proxy. Investor-owners lose these votes by not attending, not by being outnumbered.
If your unit is under management with us and a ban motion appears on the AGM agenda, tell us before the meeting. We can give you the guest registration records and the house rules we already run (eKYC, guest cap, deposit, quiet hours) so that you are proposing a concrete alternative, not just objecting. It does not always work, but it works more often than silence.
What this means if your unit is under management with us
Being direct about the part that is bad for us: if your building bans short stays, our management of that unit ends at the last checked-out booking. We clear the calendar, cancel the forward bookings through the platforms, and hand the unit back with the furniture inventory and the final statement. What happens to the remaining term of your management agreement depends on the termination clause you signed; our 12-clause agreement article explains which versions of that clause protect the owner and which do not, so read yours before you need it.
If you want to keep the income, we will tell you which of the buildings we already operate in have no ban motion on the table, and what your unit type is doing there. If you would rather switch to long-term or coliving, we can point you to the right people for that too. Either way, start at /ownerenquiry and tell us which building voted.