The Cantonment Review 2026 — Which of 71 Units Are You Buying?

Part of my Pulau Tikus 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 5,500 sqft apartment in Pulau Tikus — and is that the same person who buys a 1,000 sqft one in the same lift core? At The Cantonment, the answer is no, and that is why I treat this as two reviews wearing one name.

The facts first. The Cantonment is 71 freehold units on Jalan Cantonment, completed 2015 by Malton. Verified asking runs RM1,234,500 to RM5,250,000, or RM900–1,480 psf, on layouts from 1,000 to 5,500 sqft. Fivefold in size, fourfold in price, inside a single building.

Key takeaways:

• Two products, one address. A 1,000 sqft compact and a 5,500 sqft near-house share the lobby and nothing else.
• 71 owners is rare in this postcode — most Pulau Tikus towers carry several hundred.
• Every unit clears the RM1M foreign threshold, from the entry layout upward.
• 2015 completion puts it at eleven years — old enough that the sinking fund is a real question.
• Three look-alike names on two roads. Check the completion year, not the name.

A 1,000 sqft Compact and a 5,500 sqft Near-House Under One Roof

The compact end — 1,000 sqft at about RM1.23M — is a Pulau Tikus apartment at the entry-level of the neighbourhood's price band. Its competition is newer stock like Codrington Residence and the older sub-sale that fills the roads around Jalan Burma.

The top end — 5,500 sqft at RM5.25M — is a different animal. That buyer is weighing this against landed housing or a whole-floor apartment elsewhere on the island. Different financing, different resale pool, different reasons to say yes.

So when the psf lands anywhere between RM900 and RM1,480, that is not a confused market. It is two markets priced side by side. A quoted "Cantonment price" without the floor area attached tells you nothing; insist on the square footage before you react to any number.

The Cantonment listing page carries the current units; I would filter by size first and by price second.

Seventy-One Owners Share Everything — Including the Bills

Facilities punch above the unit count: swimming pool, wading pool, gymnasium, sauna, BBQ area, children's playground, sun deck, rooftop terrace, community hall and a car wash bay. Spread across 71 households, that ratio means the pool is usually empty and the gym rarely has a queue.

Low density also delivers quieter corridors, short lift waits and a management committee that actually recognises its owners. Those are real quality-of-life gains and the main reason people choose this over a 400-unit tower.

The flip side bites harder in a building that turned eleven this year. Lifts, façade repairs, roof and podium waterproofing — when that work comes due, the cost is split 71 ways instead of 400. Ask the management for the sinking fund balance and what has been drawn in the past five years, whether any major works are scheduled in the next three, and the maintenance rate per square foot. If the 5,500 sqft unit is the one you love, multiply that rate out monthly before you fall for the floor plan.

Cantonment, Cantonment Residence, Codrington — Not the Same Building

Buyers muddle these constantly, and it is understandable:

Two of them sit on the same road and there are fifteen years between the oldest and the newest. Cantonment Residence is a separate BSG and VST project. The single question that settles any listing is the completion year — if the agent says 2015, you are looking at this building.

Foreign Buyers Are In From the First Unit

Because even the smallest layout asks RM1,234,500, the whole building sits above the RM1,000,000 Penang Island floor for foreign purchasers. At entry, budget roughly RM37,000 for the 3% state levy and about RM99,000 for the flat 8% foreign stamp duty on top of the price. The hospital cluster — Island Hospital, Gleneagles and Loh Guan Lye — is close, which is exactly why a share of the international buyer pool looks at this stretch in the first place; the Pulau Tikus area guide covers that catchment in more depth.

Where I Would Say No

• If you want new. Codrington completed 2026; this building is 2015 and shows it in the ways eleven-year-old buildings do.
• If you are buying for yield. Pulau Tikus runs around 4% gross on ordinary stock, and a 3,000–5,500 sqft unit will not rent at anything near that.
• If you need a clean comparable. With a 1,000-to-5,500 sqft spread, benchmarking this building against its neighbours is messy; a single-product tower gives a cleaner decision.
• If a concentrated special levy would hurt. Seventy-one owners on a mid-life building is a small pool to absorb a big invoice.

Where I would say yes: space buyers who want 3,000 sqft or more in Pulau Tikus without going landed, low-density buyers who have priced the shared-cost risk, families anchored to the hospital and school belt, and foreign buyers who need a building where the entry unit already qualifies.

Sources: Asking prices, PSF, sizes, unit count, tenure, developer and completion year from our tracked dataset. Sub-sale asking verified from live portal listings using the median-anchored method, August 2026. Pulau Tikus area PSF band derived from verified sub-sale asking. Foreign-buyer threshold, 3% state levy and 8% foreign stamp duty per Penang state and federal rules.

Tell me the square footage you are after and I will tell you whether what is listed is worth taking — including when the honest answer is that the compact units are better value a few streets away.