Setia V Residences Review 2026 — Gurney Drive Freehold Without the Hotel-Brand Premium

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.

Against the W Residence and the Marriott further along the same seafront, Setia V Residences is the Gurney Drive tower that asks you to pay for the address and the developer — and nothing else. No hotel flag, no loyalty-programme crossover, no hospitality fee stack. SP Setia put 178 units into two towers of 48 and 43 storeys, handed the building over in 2017, and it has been trading as freehold sub-sale ever since, from roughly RM1,580,000 at RM1,000–1,400 a foot.

That is the whole pitch, and for a certain buyer it is exactly the right one.

Key takeaways:

• 178 units on Gurney's waterfront — thin for two towers of this height, which is why the facilities feel generous rather than crowded.
• RM1,000–1,400 psf, from RM1,580,000; the 4,118 sqft end of the range has asked near RM3.96M.
• Nine years old in 2026 — a finished, inspectable building, with the sinking-fund and lift questions that age implies.
• Stack and aspect decide the price here, not just floor level; two same-floor units can be priced very differently.
• Foreign buyers qualify at every unit — the RM1,580,000 entry is well past the island's RM1,000,000 floor.

Two Towers, 178 Doors, and a Facilities List Built for Three Times That

SP Setia gave a 178-unit building a common-area programme that many 500-unit towers would envy: infinity pool, children's pool, sky deck, sky lounge and sky garden, gym, badminton and squash courts, games room, dance studio, yoga deck, sauna and steam room, jacuzzi, community and multi-function halls, BBQ area, a concept kitchen and 24-hour security. Spread across 178 owners that is a lot of amenity per household — pleasant to live with, and a recurring cost to check: ask for the service charge per square foot and the sinking-fund position.

The layouts run 1,300 to 4,118 sqft. There is no compact investor stack here — even the smallest unit is a proper family apartment, which is why I treat this as an own-stay or long-let building rather than a yield product.

Same Floor, Different Price — Why the Stack Matters More Than the Level

Most Gurney towers price by height. Setia V prices by height and by which way the unit looks, because two towers on one plot cannot all face the water cleanly. A seafront-facing stack carries a real premium over a unit looking toward Kelawai or across to the neighbouring block, and that gap shows up in resale PSF, not just in the brochure render.

Practically, this means an asking price means very little until you know the stack. If you are shortlisting from portal listings, get the unit number and facing before you decide whether RM1,200 a foot is expensive or fair. On this building, it can be both on the same floor.

Walking Distance, Not Valet Distance

Setia V sits at the Kelawai end of Gurney Drive, which puts the everyday amenities on foot rather than behind a car park gate: Gurney Paragon Mall at 0.5km, Gurney Plaza at 0.8km, Midlands Park Centre at 1.5km. For families, SMK Convent Pulau Tikus is 1km and Tenby International School 1.5km. Healthcare is unusually close — Gleneagles Penang 1.2km, Island Hospital 2km, Penang General Hospital 3.5km. The wider Pulau Tikus and seafront context is in my Gurney Drive area guide; the short version is that this is the walkable end of the strip, not the car-dependent branded end.

The Branded-Tower Comparison, Straight

Gurney Drive's premium stock now splits in two. On one side, hospitality-managed residences — W Residence Gurney Bay, Marriott Residences — with a brand's operating standard, a loyalty crossover, and the higher maintenance that comes with it — though title class differs between them, so check the specific project rather than assuming. On the other, a listed developer's freehold tower with conventional strata management: Setia V.

Neither is wrong. If your thesis is "let it to travellers under a global flag," the branded towers are built for that. If it is "live here, or let it conventionally, in a building a listed developer put its name on," Setia V is the simpler instrument and costs less to run month to month. I've written up the fuller three-way read in the Marriott vs Setia V comparison and the W Residence vs Marriott piece.

What a Foreign Buyer Actually Pays Here

At RM1,580,000 entry, every unit clears the RM1,000,000 island minimum, so eligibility is not a question — cost is. The 3% state levy on that entry price is RM81,000, before the foreign-rate stamp duty, legal fees and financing. On exit, RPGT is 30% if you sell in years one to five and 10% from year six, so this is a hold-for-the-long-run purchase, not a flip; the RPGT calculator will show you how much the sixth-year boundary matters. State consent typically takes three to four months; MM2H holders go through the same process.

My Read on Who Should Actually Buy It

Picked, not pitched: Setia V is for the buyer who wants Gurney's waterfront, a developer they recognise, and a unit large enough to live in properly — and who is content to be a conventional strata owner rather than a hotel residence participant. The trade-off is that you give up the branded rental machine, and you accept a nine-year-old building at RM1,000+ a foot, which puts some burden on inspection.

It is not for the bargain hunter — Gurney rarely is — and not for the buyer whose spreadsheet starts with short-stay yield. For those buyers the Marriott Residences or W Residence are the better fit. For everyone else shortlisting here, the Setia V Residences listings are where to start, and the first question to ask on any of them is: which way does it face?

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. MM2H tiers per MOTAC. Rental yields derived from our own tracked asking rents and prices — directional, not an official benchmark. Figures move with the market — confirm current details with the developer or your solicitor before committing.