JC3

I found this chart interesting.

It shows a dramatic 35% fall in MM2H approvals in 2015 to January - November, compared to the previous year. Down by almost 1,000 participants on a like-for-like basis.

Source: www.mm2h.gov.my

Another chart shows the number of new MM2H participants from the UK and Northern Ireland was just 71. The lowest figure in the table (i.e. since 2002).

JC3

SushiFan

This statistic is in line with what the (Japanese) agent told me during my application. I can't judge for other countries, but apparently has the interest from Japanese for MM2H waned substantially compared to a few years ago.

Edit: looking at the data per country it can be seen that not only has the number of Japanese gone down, but there is also a big drop in the number of Chinese. Almost half compared to last year. This has the biggest impact on the overall number.

bakedbean

It would be interesting to see a Net figure. How many have dropped out per year.

InVinoVeritas

Be interesting to know why. Presumably applications were down rather than the approval rate. Japan may be down due to the tsunami effect. The haze and oil price collapse probably came too late to have much effect.

Possible contenders are:-
1. Minimum property purchase price is set too high
2. Muslim extremism elsewhere creating a negative perception
3. Suggestions of political corruption within Malaysia
4. Other countries competing for expat retirees
5. Currency instability making relocation decisions difficult
6. Asean airline safety concerns

Anyone else got any theories?

JC3

In a 2012 acadamic study entitled “An examination of Malaysia as a destination for international retirees” the following were listed as important reasons for choosing Malaysia as a retirement destination:

• absence of language barrier
• friendliness of locals
• amenable climate
• political stability
• quality of medical services at competitive rates
• no natural calamities and
• stability of currency rate

See: http://www.researchgate.net/publicat...ional_retirees

Four years after this study was conducted, perhaps not all of the above hold quite so true, as your list of contenders suggests.

I think other contenders might include:

• China jitters (i.e. economy fears, and global effect)
• Over-development (especially in Penang, increasing over-crowded with tower blocks).
• Property bubble fears

JC3

JC3

I agree. It's a key piece of data that's consistently missing, and makes the total multi-year MM2H participant count meaningless.

JC3

SushiFan

I was being told that this is the reason why the number of Japanese applications has dropped.

eCdD

The numbers for Central Europe are still growing very good. And I think the is still an enourmous potential.

But maybe they include England in Central Europa and not Northern Europe, who knows.

SushiFan

On the website is one table showing numbers per region, and a separate table for the top ten countries.

columbine

I wonder why? Better places elsewhere or MM2H requirements are harder to fulfill since they revamped the requirements?

www.apartment-penang.com/2016/04/mm2h-applicants-down-by-half.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&u tm_campaign=Feed:+ApartmentPenang+(Apartment+Penan g)&m=1

bakedbean

They're not actually saying which countries have dipped down, are they? So, no clues.

Maybe they need to up the marketing a bit. I think a lot of folks, and quite often Brits, are a bit clueless about Malaysia.

JC3

Some possible reasons for the decline in MM2H Participant numbers were discussed in another thread entitled: MM2H Approvals Down 35% (Jan 2016).

In the ApartmentPenang link above, the graphic ‘MM2H Approvals from January 2007 to November 2014' (Source: TheEdgeProperty.com / MM2H) looked odd to me at first glance.

Initially I thought the numbers related to MM2H Participant Approvals. But on reflection I think it relates to the number of property purchases made.
If so, the 1,308 UK MM2H participants (between 2007 and 2014) bought 302 properties.

JC3

Hovite

Interesting to note the big increase in 2011. The number of Japanese increased dramatically at that time - Programme Statistics - MM2H Official Portal. One Japanese family in KK left Japan after the 2011 earthquake, fearful of the radiation - maybe that was one of the reasons for the spike which continued for a few years. The numbers for last year appear good compared generally with 2010 and earlier, mainly due to the increase in the number of Chinese.

bakedbean

It would be good to know the Those Leaving figures as well.

I know of quite a few that have left. The younger ones just move on elsewhere (and why not). The more senior of MM2Hers seem to veer "back home" in their older years, especially if they have family "back home".

SushiFan

This seems to be also very common among the senior Japanese: they tend to live a couple of years in Malaysia on MM2H after retiring from work and then move back to Japan when they consider themselves to be of "real old age". The years in Malaysia help them to save quite some money for that later period.