Should You Buy Off-Plan?

Read the payment plan as a capital-deployment schedule

The headline label tells you less than people assume. On a 90/10 plan you pay 90% of the price before you hold the keys: that is the most capital-intensive structure available and it is why those launches have the lowest entry prices. On a 50/50, half falls at handover, so you deploy far less before completion. A post-handover plan pushes a slice beyond the keys entirely. If your strategy is to assign before completion, you want the plan that gets you to the assignment threshold with the least cash deployed, which is rarely the one with the smallest booking deposit.

Escrow

Buyer funds go into a DLD-controlled escrow account released against construction milestones. That is real protection, and the escrow account and bank for every project we sell is published on that project's page. It does not protect you from overpaying.

Assignment before handover

Most developers permit assignment once a stated percentage is paid, subject to a developer NOC and a fee. Both the threshold and the fee vary a great deal, from a flat AED 5,250 NOC charge on some Emaar schemes to AED 25,000 plus 2% of the original price, and on one launch here it is negotiated per contract with no published figure at all. Every one of them is on the project page. This is usually where the return is realised, not at handover, so check both numbers before you book.

Competing supply is the number that decides your exit

If four hundred identical units complete in your quarter, you are selling into your own competition. Every project page here publishes the units completing in that community in that handover quarter. It is the first thing we look at and the last thing most brochures mention.

When to say no

If the tower has hundreds of identical units completing in one quarter, if the developer has no delivered track record, or if you need rental income within two years, off-plan is the wrong instrument. We will tell you so.