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Off-plan, explained
How buying a home before it is built actually works in Dubai — the plans, the protections, the risks and the decisions you make along the way.
11 articlesStart here
Learn
Read it before you decide.
Everything we would want a client to understand before committing to a building that does not exist yet — how the plans work, what protects the money, how to judge a developer, what a yield really nets, and how to buy from abroad. None of it is gated and none of it is a sales page.
Four subjects
Start with the one you are stuck on.
Each is a numbered path through a subject rather than a feed. Read it in order if you are new to the market, or go straight to the article you need.
- 02
Buying in Dubai
The purchase process from first viewing to title deed, and every cost along the way.
2 articlesStart here - 03
Investing
How to read a yield, what a return really costs to earn, and which communities suit which objective.
2 articlesStart here - 04
International buyers
Buying from abroad — currency, transfers, documentation and the country-specific rules that shape a Dubai purchase.
2 articlesStart here
Latest
Recently written or reviewed.
Fees and rules move; every article carries the date we last checked it, and the newest checks sit here.
Off-plan, explained · 7 min
What off-plan actually means
Buying a home before it exists is a different transaction from buying a finished one — not a riskier version of the same thing. Here is what you are really choosing, and what you are not.
Off-plan, explained · 8 min
Payment plans explained: 20/80, 60/40, 50/50 and post-handover
The two numbers in a payment plan tell you when you pay, not how much a home costs. How to read a plan structure, what post-handover really means, and how to work out what a plan is actually costing you.
Off-plan, explained · 8 min
Escrow and buyer protection: what RERA Law No. 8 does and does not cover
Every dirham you pay on a registered off-plan project goes into an escrow account the developer cannot freely touch. Here is what that protects, what it does not, and how to check a project is properly registered before you pay.
Off-plan, explained · 6 min
Oqood and initial registration: what it is, when it happens, what it costs
Oqood is the Land Department's interim register for off-plan sales. Your contract is recorded in your name before the building exists, and the entry becomes a title deed at handover. What to expect and when.
Off-plan, explained · 8 min
How to evaluate a developer
When you buy off-plan you are buying a company's ability to finish a building. Delivery record, financial position, past delays, quality of finish — what to look at, where to find it, and what the brochure will not tell you.
Off-plan, explained · 8 min
Handover and snagging: what happens at the end
The building is finished and the developer wants the final instalment. What the completion notice means, how to inspect the unit, what to do if it is not right, and what starts costing money from the day you take the keys.
Tools
The arithmetic, shown.
Five calculators built on government-set fees and your own numbers. No login and no email to use them — we ask for an address only if you want a result saved or sent.
Cost of buying
The true acquisition cost of a Dubai property at a given price: DLD transfer fee, registration, trustee, agency and mortgage costs, itemised and explained. Off-plan and ready variants, because the fee structures differ.
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Yield calculator
Gross and net rental yield from a price, an expected rent, the service charge and the size — with the working shown, so you can see what sits between the advertised figure and the one you would bank.
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Golden Visa checker
Whether a property purchase could support a UAE residence visa, on the criteria as currently published — value, ownership, off-plan or ready, and mortgage status — with the criteria stated and where to verify them.
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Handover timeline
Enter a handover quarter and see the sequence between now and then, and just after: construction-linked payments, the snagging window, handover, title deed, Ejari and the first service charge invoice.
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Compare developers
Two or three developers side by side on what we can actually stand behind: our reading of finish relative to price band, the payment-plan structure that recurs across their projects we cover, and one line from our delivery commentary. We publish no delivery statistics, because none of these developers has given us figures we can audit.
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Also in Learn
- InsightsMarket notes from the advisorsWhere yields hold up, what service charges do to them, and what the brochures leave out.
- GlossaryThe vocabulary, in plain EnglishDLD, Oqood, escrow, NOC, usufruct and the rest, with the figures as they currently stand.
- FAQStraight answers, grouped by subjectBuying, off-plan, buying from abroad, costs, the Golden Visa and selling.
Reading is the easy part.
Twenty minutes with an advisor on which of this applies to you, and what it would change.