Analysis of online room rental listings reveal majority are racially discriminatory

PRESS STATEMENT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

12 March 2026

Analysis of online room rental listings reveal majority are racially discriminatory

• A study of 35,367 Klang Valley room rental listings on iBilik in February 2026 found that 42.8% explicitly exclude at least one racial group, making discrimination the single most common landlord stance on the platform.

• Indian renters face the most severe exclusion. 31.7% of all listings in the Klang Valley explicitly exclude them, compared to 7.6% for Malay renters and 3.9% for Chinese renters.

• The top five most discriminatory areas are Ampang (57.5%), Taman Desa (56.2%), Klang (54.8%), Setapak (51.1%), and Bangi (50.5%), where more than half of all listings carry racial exclusions.

• Listings that do not discriminate against Indian renters are on average 11.2% more expensive than those that do, meaning Indian renters are not only excluded more often but are being shut out of listings that would be cost-effective.

• No area in the Klang Valley is free from discrimination. Even in Sentul, the area with the lowest Indian discrimination rate, 8.5% of listings still exclude Indian renters.

Architects of Diversity (AOD) today releases Room Rental Discrimination. Volume 1: The Klang Valley Report, the first systematic quantitative study of explicit racial discrimination in Malaysia's room rental market. Using data scraped from iBilik, the country's largest room rental listing platform, the study measures how frequently landlords and agents use the platform's built-in race preference function to filter out prospective tenants by race.

Discrimination is the norm, not the exception

Across all 35,367 listings analysed, 42.8% carry explicit racial exclusions. This exceeds both the share of listings that welcome all races (22.6%) and those with no stated preference (34.6%). A renter browsing the platform is statistically more likely to encounter a listing that excludes a racial group than one that is explicitly open to all tenants.

Indian renters bear the greatest burden

The disparity between racial groups is stark. While 96.1% of listings are open to Chinese renters and 92.4% to Malay renters, only 68.3% of listings accept Indian renters. The most common discriminatory pattern on the platform is the exclusion of Indian renters alone, while accepting Malay and Chinese tenants, a pattern that accounts for 21.3% of all listings in the dataset.

The five most discriminatory areas in the Klang Valley

Discrimination rates vary significantly across the 34 areas studied, but five areas stand out for having rates above 50%:

1. Ampang — 57.5% of listings are discriminatory

2. Taman Desa — 56.2%

3. Klang — 54.8%

4. Setapak — 51.1%

5. Bangi — 50.5%

These are large, well-populated residential areas with substantial listing volumes, meaning the absolute number of discriminatory listings in these localities is very high. By contrast, areas closer to the Kuala Lumpur city core, such as KL City Centre (31.3%) and Titiwangsa (25.7%), tend to record lower discrimination rates and higher shares of inclusive listings.

Discrimination carries a price premium

The report also finds that listings not discriminatory towards Indian renters are priced, on average, 11.2% higher (RM735) than those that exclude them (RM661). This suggests that the cheaper segments of the rental market are disproportionately closed off to Indian renters, leaving them with a smaller and more expensive pool of available housing.

Platform design enables discrimination at scale

The findings raise serious questions about the role of digital platforms in facilitating racial discrimination. iBilik's listing interface includes a built-in race preference function that allows landlords and agents to explicitly select which racial groups they are willing to accept as tenants. This feature makes racial filtering a routine, normalised part of the listing process.

"We are looking at a failure on two fronts. First, Malaysia still has no law that explicitly prohibits racial discrimination in the private rental market. Landlords can openly refuse tenants on the basis of race, and renters who are excluded have no legal avenue for redress. This has to change. Second, platforms like iBilik have made racial filtering a built-in feature of how housing is listed and searched in this country. When a platform designs a system that lets landlords tick a box to exclude an entire race from seeing their listing, that platform is not neutral. It is actively enabling discrimination at scale, and it should be held accountable for that design choice."

• Jason Wee, Executive Director, Architects of Diversity

About the study

Rental listing data was collected between 2–3 February 2026 from iBilik's publicly accessible listings using a custom web scraper. The final dataset comprises 35,367 valid room rental listings across the Klang Valley, covering both Kuala Lumpur and Selangor. Listings were classified as discriminatory if the landlord had activated the platform's race preference function and explicitly excluded one or more racial groups (Malay, Chinese, Indian, or Other). Price bounds of RM200 to RM1,500 were applied to filter out non-room-rental entries.

Because this analysis captures only cases where landlords explicitly state racial preferences through the platform's interface, the true prevalence of racial discrimination in the rental market is likely higher than what is reported here.

The full report can be accessed at https://www.aodmalaysia.org/rrdv1