11 Gurney Drive Review 2026 — 59 Units, Freehold, Family-Scale

Part of my Gurney Drive 2026 buyer's guide. For the full corridor read — every project, PSF band, foreign-buyer angle and honest catch — start there. This piece drills into one specific decision within it.

Who actually buys a 59-unit building on Gurney Drive? Not the short-let investor, not the flipper, and not the buyer who needs to be able to sell in a hurry. 11 Gurney Drive — freehold, completed in 2007 by Ikatan Awana Sdn Bhd — is a home for households who want the strip's address with almost none of the strip's crowd, and are prepared to accept a slow resale market as the price of that. Once you know that, the RM2,700,000 entry and the RM767–1,001 psf make sense.

Key takeaways:

• 59 units, freehold, finished 2007 — one of the smallest resident populations of any building standing directly on Gurney Drive.
• From RM2,700,000 at RM767–1,001 psf, with every unit a 3+1 or 4+1 — there is no studio tier and no investor stock to dilute the building.
• Thin transaction history is the trade-off: with so few homes, months can pass without a comparable sale, so pricing needs a fresh check each time.
• Gurney Paragon (264 units) is the liquid alternative; 1 Persiaran Gurney is the cheaper one — 11 Gurney Drive is neither, by design.
• Best held long, by a family that wants the waterfront as a daily backdrop rather than as a trading position.

Fifty-Nine Households on Penang's Busiest Strip

Gurney Drive is where Penang goes to be seen — the promenade, the hawker centre, Gurney Plaza and Gurney Paragon Mall all within a walk — and most of the towers facing it are built to match, with several hundred units apiece. 11 Gurney Drive is the exception. With 59 homes in the whole building, you share the lifts, the pool and the lobby with a small, stable group of neighbours, and the building runs more like a private club than an apartment complex. That is the entire appeal, and for the right buyer it is worth more than any facilities brochure.

The wider context — what sits behind the strip in Pulau Tikus, where the schools and hospitals are, how the corridor prices against the rest of the island — is in the Gurney Drive and Pulau Tikus area guide.

3+1 and 4+1 Only — No Investor Tier Next Door

Every unit here is a large 3+1 or 4+1 layout. That matters more than it sounds. In a mixed building, the compact units set the tone: higher turnover, more tenants, more short-term occupiers, and a resale market where your family-sized apartment competes for attention with a dozen studio listings. At 11 Gurney Drive there is no such tier. The owner profile is homogeneous — families and long-term residents — and the building's character follows from that. If you are buying to live in, that consistency is a quiet advantage you will feel every day.

The Liquidity Cost of Scarcity

Here is the honest downside. Scarcity cuts both ways, and at 59 units it cuts hard on exit. When you decide to sell, there may be no other unit on the market in the building to set a reference, and the pool of buyers who want a RM2.7M-plus family apartment on Gurney Drive at that precise moment is not large. Sales can take time. That is fine for an owner who planned to hold for a decade and is selling on their own schedule; it is a genuine problem for anyone who might need to exit quickly. Gurney Paragon, with 264 units on the same strip, trades far more freely — the cost of that liquidity being a far busier building and a higher entry.

Pricing a Building Where Almost Nothing Trades

The RM767–1,001 psf range is our tracked figure, but in a building this size a "range" is built from a handful of data points, some of them old. Before you make an offer, get the latest actual transaction — not the latest asking price — and look at which floor and which orientation it was. A unit that has been refreshed will sit at the top of the band; an original 2007 fit-out at the bottom. Do not let anyone, including me, quote you a building-wide psf as if it were a price list.

For a foreign buyer, the RM2,700,000 entry sits well above Penang Island's RM1,000,000 threshold, so eligibility is straightforward; the 3% state levy (around RM81,000 at entry) is the line to add to your cost stack.

A 2007 Build Against 2026 Expectations

Completed in 2007, 11 Gurney Drive is a mature building rather than an old one. It predates the current generation of Gurney towers, so expect finishes and systems of their era unless a specific unit has been updated — and ask the management about the maintenance record and sinking fund, as you would anywhere approaching twenty years. What you gain is a building with a long, visible history: nearly two decades of occupation, a known management pattern and a settled community, none of which a new launch can offer.

Where This Sits on the Strip

If the quantum is too high, 1 Persiaran Gurney offers a cheaper freehold entry on the same street in exchange for a much older building. If you want choice and easy resale, Gurney Paragon is the obvious call. 11 Gurney Drive is for the household that looked at both and decided that a small, family-only building on the waterfront was the thing they actually wanted — and is happy to wait for the right unit, then hold it. Current listings and the spec sheet are on the 11 Gurney Drive project page; if you are shortlisting a specific unit, I will pull the most recent comparable before you decide.

Sources: Project prices, PSF, sizes, unit counts, tenure, land title, developer and completion year from our tracked dataset, compiled from developer price lists, official project sites and public listings. Sub-sale asking verified from live portal listings using the median-anchored method, with bait listings and relisted units excluded. RPGT rates and the s.21B retention per the Real Property Gains Tax Act (LHDN). Stamp duty per the Stamp Act (LHDN) — a flat 8% for foreign buyers, tiered 1–4% for citizens. The foreign-buyer minimum purchase price, 3% island / 2% mainland state levy and state consent requirement per Penang state policy and s.433B of the National Land Code. Figures move with the market — confirm current details with the developer or your solicitor before committing.