01 / Journal
Off-plan is cheaper per square foot, pays in instalments and produces nothing for three years. Secondary is dearer, mortgageable today and earns rent from month one. The answer depends on whether you need income.
In Dubai Creek Harbour a current off-plan release runs AED 1,900 to 2,400 per sq ft while secondary stock in the same district trades at AED 1,600 to 2,400. The cheaper number is not reliably the off-plan one, and the unit that pays rent from the transfer date never is.
If you need income inside three years, buy secondary. If you are deploying capital you do not need back and you want the lower entry price, buy off-plan and accept the developer risk you are being paid to take. Most buyers already know which they are before they ask.
The question underneath is about timing, not about value. Both markets are priced by the same buyers and the same lenders, so neither is systematically cheap. What differs is when you need the money back, and that is a fact about you rather than about the market.
A secondary purchase asks for the deposit, the 4% registration charge and the agency fee at once, and then a mortgage payment every month. An off-plan purchase asks for a booking amount and then instalments on a published schedule. The second looks easier and is harder to model, because the instalments do not stop when your circumstances change.
Model the worst twelve months, not the average. An instalment schedule does not pause for a job change, a school fee year or a currency move, and the penalty tiers are set by the agreement rather than by goodwill. Knowing the heaviest year before you sign is most of the exercise.
On secondary you can stand in the room, look at the ceiling height, open the windows and hear the road. On off-plan you have a render, a floor plan and a specification sheet. Savanna at Creek Beach and The Crestmark are the two developments on our books you can actually walk through, and that changes the negotiation.
A specification sheet is a promise and a room is a fact. Read the annexed specification for grades and brands rather than adjectives, and ask what may be substituted and on whose judgement. On secondary, ask for the service-charge budget during the same visit.
Three years of nothing versus rent from the transfer date is the whole difference on a ten-year hold. Run both as cash flows rather than as headline prices before you decide the off-plan discount is a discount.
Three years of nothing is a real cost. Put the foregone rent into the off-plan column as a number rather than a footnote, and the discount usually looks smaller than it did. It is still sometimes the right purchase. It is rarely the obvious one.
Emaar has been handing over at scale for more than twenty years and its buildings have a known maintenance cost. Nakheel delivered Palm Jumeirah and also let The World and the first Palm Jebel Ali stall for over a decade. A first-time developer is a different risk again. Price the difference; do not ignore it.
Judge a developer on delivered buildings, not on renders. How many handovers, on what programme, and what do those buildings cost to run five years later? All three are answerable before you reserve, and the third one is the question almost nobody asks.
On secondary the charge is a fact you can obtain in writing before you offer. On off-plan it is an estimate the developer publishes at handover. Comparable Creek Harbour towers run AED 16 to 19 per sq ft per year, which is a guide, not a commitment.
An estimate is not a commitment. Ask what comparable buildings by the same developer charge today, and put the cooling arrangement into the same question. That is the closest thing to evidence available before a building exists.
An assignment market is thinner than the open secondary market and it depends on the developer’s no-objection process. Dubai Marina resells faster than anywhere in this city; a pre-handover assignment on a frond villa in a district with no infrastructure yet does not.
Test the exit before you take the entry. Ask what share of the price must be paid before an assignment is permitted, what the developer's transfer fee is, and how long a no-objection certificate takes. If the answers are vague, treat the holding as illiquid and price it that way.
Dubai Creek Harbour’s current releases run AED 1,900 to 2,400 per sq ft against secondary stock at AED 1,600 to 2,400. In Dubai Hills apartments trade at AED 1,400 to 2,500 per sq ft and villas at AED 1,600 to 3,500. The gap is district-specific and it is smaller than most buyers assume.
Compare like for like, per square foot, inside one district. A tower and a villa community are not the same market and their ranges cross, so a citywide average tells you nothing you can act on. The comparison only means something within a district and a unit type.
A relocating family that needs to move in September should buy or rent secondary. An investor with a five-year horizon and no income requirement can take the off-plan discount and the programme risk. Neither is the clever answer; they are answers to different questions.
Most people are one of these and describe themselves as the other. Write down when you need the capital back, and what you would do if the handover slipped by a year. The answers to those two questions usually settle it before any development is discussed.
Holding one income-producing secondary unit and one off-plan commitment spreads the risk sensibly. Holding two off-plan commitments with overlapping instalment schedules is how people end up selling one at a loss to fund the other.
The test is the calendar, not the count. Lay both instalment schedules side by side and look at the months where they overlap. If a single quarter is uncomfortable on paper, the second commitment is the one to leave.
Where this leads next
Design-led homes for sale in Dubai
02 / Keep reading
A 70/30 plan is not 70% during construction and 30% at the end. It is a schedule of dated obligations, and the first year is heavier than the headline suggests. What each structure actually asks of you, and when.
You get an appointment, a set of keys and a defect liability period that starts running immediately. What you do in that first week decides whether the developer fixes the problems or you do.
03 / The guest list
One article a month, the listings before they are advertised, and an invitation when we are running an evening at the showroom.