Salary and expenses in Malaysia?

Hi Srinivas,

Thanks for getting in touch.

 

To answer your first question, I think what constitutes "decent pay" can change from person to person and lifestyle to lifestyle. However, if you were to look up crowd-sourced statistics on sites such as Expatistan or Numbeo, you can gauge how much you might be spending.

The most expensive part of living in Kuala Lumpur will most probably be your rent. With that in mind, I think you and your wife could easily find a spot to suit your needs. There are many apartment blocks and houses built in and around the city with excellent facilities.

Of course, it depends on your location, but if you take a look on some online property portals, your desired accommodation type seems to be going from between RM1,200 to around RM3,500. This is also the rough estimate given by Numbeo. They indicate that average rent is around RM1,000 more when residing in the city centre.

Some of the regions we recommend can be found on our areas and suburbs page. It mentions places like Ampang, DarmasenaI and Taman Tun Dr Ismail. think it would be a helpful place to start your search.

Is living close to your offices quite important?

You can start looking through listings on sites like Property Guru, iProperty, Durian Property and The Edge Property. Just always beware of fake listings. It's almost impossible for any site to escape them.

 

Hope this helps you on your way!

 

Regards,

Brett

Hi Brett, Thank you for your response and some detailed information. It is not very important for me to stay near to office. I was wondering what can be the best suitable places to live with a family in a decent locality. Do you have any inputs on the taxation part and net salary? Thank you for your quick response Regards, Srinivas

Hi Srinivas,

No problem. Happy to help.

In coming up with an answer to your income tax question, I visited the site of the Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia. You can have a look through yourself as it does have a button at the top right to change the text to English. Those in your salary bracket (RM5,000 - RM20,000) are expected to pay 1% in taxes. So you can deduct that from your exact salary.

But you may also want to inquire about healthcare in Kuala Lumpur. The country, and city in particular, provides excellent public and private services. But if you do decide to invest in private health insurance, you should obviously take that into account when calculating your net income.

In addition to this, don't forget to deduct pension if you are currently in the habit of doing so.

The best places to live with a family are, in my opionion, Mont Kiara and the area which includes Mutiara Darmansara, Darmansara Perdana and Taman Tun Dr Ismal. All have great mixes of town houses, apartments and high-rise buildings. But the latter three might be more to your liking as, while they are a little bit more expensive, it's a typical suburban setting characterised by a number of old-style buildings.

If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask!

 

Regards,
Brett