Free · 21 pages · 2026 edition
Buy off-plan
with your eyes open
Where your money actually sits. What happens if the developer doesn't deliver. Why the payment plan matters more than the price. And the part almost nobody explains: what it costs to get back out again.
- How escrow protects you under Law No. 8 of 2007, and exactly where it stops
- Construction-linked against time-linked plans, and why the difference isn't theoretical
- Real delivery records: who runs late, by how long, and how to check
- The 50% lending ceiling that catches most off-plan buyers out
- The exit maths: what a 10% paper gain is actually worth after costs
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Why this one is different
Written after the correction, not during the boom
Most off-plan guides were written when everything was going up. This one wasn't, and it shows in what it's willing to tell you.
Q2 2026
Q2 2026
handed over late
on 2024 handovers
Every figure is dated
Property data goes stale fast. Every number carries the period it covers and the source it came from, so you can check it or discount it.
No projected returns
Nothing in the guide is a guaranteed or projected return. Where a figure is a range, it says so, and where the source has an interest, that's flagged.
The exit is covered
Almost every off-plan guide explains how to get in. This one has a full chapter on how you get out, and what that actually costs.
What's inside
Sixteen chapters, first question to title deed
Every chapter answers something a real buyer asked me before committing to an off-plan purchase.
Where the market actually is
The 2026 picture, honestly, with every figure dated.
Off-plan or ready?
The real trade-off, argued both ways rather than one.
The supply pipeline
The risk nobody puts in a brochure, and where it bites hardest.
Where your money sits
How escrow actually works, and the honest limits of what it covers.
Oqood
The registration that makes you an owner, and how to check it yourself.
If the developer doesn't deliver
Delays, your rights, and the real data on who runs late.
Payment plans decoded
Construction-linked against time-linked, and why it matters more than the headline.
Mortgages on off-plan
And the 50% ceiling that catches most people out.
The true all-in cost
Every fee, at every stage, including the ones at handover.
Choosing the developer
Not the area. What I check, in the order I check it.
Getting out
Selling before handover, and the maths nobody shows you.
Handover and snagging
And your real warranty rights, which aren't what you've been told.
Communities worth understanding
Current data, with the honest caveats attached.
Who shouldn't buy off-plan
Read this one first.
Glossary
Every term you'll meet, in plain English.
Working with me
And what I won't do.
Who it's for
Written for buyers, not for the sales floor
If you're being shown a payment plan and you're not sure what you're actually looking at, this is the guide you want open beside it.
The first-time off-plan buyer
You've seen the renderings and the 1%-a-month plan and it looks straightforward. The guide covers what sits underneath it, and the questions to ask before you sign anything.
The investor running the numbers
You want the real cost of entry, the real cost of exit, and an honest view on what a hold period needs to look like for the maths to work.
The buyer doing it from abroad
You're not in Dubai and want to know how the process runs, where the money goes, and how to verify what you're told without taking anyone's word for it.
Who wrote it
Chris Channer
Real Estate Advisor · Aurabella Properties
I'm a real estate advisor here in Dubai. I spent years investing in and developing property in the UK before I moved out here, and I own in Dubai myself now. So I've made these decisions with my own money, and I've been through the buying process from your side of it, not just the agent's.
I've worked across both off-plan and ready property. That matters for a guide like this, because I'm not here to sell you off-plan. I can tell you plainly when ready property is the better answer, and chapter 14 does exactly that.
Everything in here I also say on camera, publicly, every week. If you want to sense-check whether I'm worth listening to, that's the quickest way.
Ready when you are
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