Front-loaded
70% or more falls due during construction. Heavier while you build, but you reach handover owing very little — an easier position to refinance or exit from.
On a AED 2,000,000 budget, what you pay before handover ranges from AED 800,000 to AED 1,600,000 depending purely on the developer's payment schedule. That gap is the part nobody puts on the brochure.
70% or more falls due during construction. Heavier while you build, but you reach handover owing very little — an easier position to refinance or exit from.
The balance concentrates at handover. Frees your capital during the build, but leaves a large sum to fund on one date.
Part of the price falls due after you take possession. You can be holding the property — potentially renting it — while the balance is still being paid.
No structure is better in the abstract. The right one depends on your liquidity, your financing, and how long you intend to hold.
Enter your budget and see every developer's structure costed side by side — what leaves your account before handover, what waits at the end, and how many separate payments you'd make.
Open the comparisonYou pay a booking deposit and sign the Sale and Purchase Agreement. A 4% Dubai Land Department registration fee applies on top of the price, plus an Oqood registration fee for off-plan.
Off-plan payments go into a project escrow account regulated by RERA. The developer draws from it only as construction milestones are verified — your money is not theirs to spend freely.
You pay the developer directly across the build, interest-free. No lender is involved during this period, and your schedule is fixed at signing.
The remaining balance falls due, or continues on a post-handover schedule if the plan allows it.
I'm a licensed real estate broker specialising in off-plan across the UAE — Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah. I work with Emaar, Damac and Sobha, along with every other major developer in the market. I built the tools on this site because the payment schedule is the part buyers understand least and it costs them the most — and no portal will show you that comparison honestly. I also run the DXB Property Guide channel, explaining the market in English, Hindi and Urdu.
The full fees checklist, every payment structure compared, the buying-from-abroad steps and the 10 questions to ask before you book — free, sent over WhatsApp.
Tell me your budget and what you need answered, and I'll come back with the two or three structures that genuinely suit — and the ones I'd tell you to skip. Not a brochure.
+971 52 188 9956