Building trust in the unbuilt: a buyer’s guide to off-plan properties
If you’re partial to Rembrandt and have millions of dollars smoldering in your wallet, take note: Young Lion Resting, a 17th-century drawing by the Dutch master, is heading to auction next year. The seller hopes to eclipse the current record for a work on paper – Raphael’s Head of a Muse, which fetched $48 million in 2009.
Fifty million for a sheet of paper? On the face of it, absurd. Yet in the art world, a sheet is never just a sheet. It’s story, status, investment. A similar sentiment governs off-plan real estate.
Buying a home that hasn’t yet broken ground means staking capital on blueprints – the 3D version exists only in the architect’s imagination. Still, these deals run not on blind faith but on logic. Confidence rests on a scaffold of reassurances: a developer with an unblemished track record, a market with steady demand, contracts and legislation that protect every deposit, and high-tech renderings that make future rooms feel tangibly present. Layer by layer, those factors turn paper promises into bankable reality, so when you sign for an off-plan home, the deal already feels concrete – even if the concrete itself has yet to set.
Reputation
Developer credibility is the ultimate make-or-break factor. Builders known for on-schedule handovers and high-quality results give buyers peace of mind long before a single contract clause is drafted.
“There’s always a bit of unease when you’re dealing with two- or three-year timelines,” says Rod Woelfle of Slifer Smith & Frampton, who is the Director of Sales for the upcoming East West Partners development, Stratos, in the Colorado ski resort town of Snowmass Base Village. “But nothing quiets hesitation faster than proof,” he says, and in Snowmass, there’s proof everywhere of our developer’s continued success.”
East West Partners’ last Snowmass launch – Cirque Residences – sold 41 of 46 slope-side condos in eight days, topping $150 million in contracts before the drywall even arrived. By the time Stratos hands over its 89 homes in 2027, East West will have delivered more than 1,000 bedrooms across seven separate projects in the valley – reliability you can ski past, photograph and audit.
Across the Ionian Sea, Roula Rouva – founder and CEO of Roula Rouva | Forbes Global Properties – notes that Greece’s surge in luxury development has elevated a select group of developers, whose reputations now precede the blueprints. Ten years ago, off-plan luxury barely registered, limited to a scattering of speculative builds along Athens’ southern coastline. Today, projects like the 90-hectare Elounda Hills eco-enclave in northeastern Crete and the €8.2 billion Ellinikon smart-city outside Athens are reshaping Greece’s residential landscape – one megadevelopment at a time.
Blueprints and photoreal CGI offer a glimpse of the finish line, but it’s the developer’s assurances (backed by airtight contracts) that chart how the journey from ground-break to grand opening will actually proceed. (Shutterstock)
Rouva, whose firm holds a variety of exclusive listings of the Phase 1 villas within Elounda Hills, says the homes are only half the story. “Clients these days buy the developer’s narrative as much as the villa,” she notes. “Show them a spotless delivery record and you’ve done most of the work in gaining their trust.” In this case, that narrative belongs to Mirum Group, whose track record now functions as a kind of collateral – reassurance that what’s on the page will rise, faithfully, from the ground.
Reassurances
But no matter how reputable a developer may be, a promise backed only by paper can still be brittle. Successful jurisdictions convert that faith into statute and habit. Dubai set much of the modern template in 2007, mandating third-party escrow for every off-plan dirham. Funds move from buyer to developer only as milestones pass municipal inspection. After a spate of post-recession delays, lawmakers raised the minimum buyer deposit to 20 percent – quadruple the level of a decade ago – creating real financial ballast.
“Dubai’s regulatory landscape has come a long way in protecting off-plan investors,” says founder and CEO of Driven Properties | Forbes Global Properties, Abdullah Alajaji. “Rules have become much stronger and more transparent, which has helped build trust and stability in the market.”
Greece relies on a different architecture of trust. Investors can often enter a bespoke payment schedule directly with the construction company, releasing funds in step with tangible milestones – foundation pour, structural frame, enclosed shell, interior fit-out. This stage-aligned plan keeps developer and buyer moving in lock-step, ensuring money flows only as concrete, steel and finishes do.
In the United States, resort developers weave smaller but meaningful protections into homeowners association bylaws: complimentary storage if delivery slips past ski season, association dues waived until receipt of the occupancy certificate or credits toward closing costs. What links all these geographies is a single message: what-ifs have been pre-written into the deal.
Region
Context can either amplify or evaporate faith. In some cities, buying off-plan feels daring. In others, a safe bet. Dubai stands as a prime example of the latter. The city logged AED 160.46 billion (around $43.7 billion) in off-plan volume during 2023 – up 72% year-over-year – and a record 68,783 off-plan transactions, making up three-quarters of its entire residential market. Abu Dhabi moved in parallel, with AED 35.6 billion in off-plan deals accounting for 81% of total residential sales, a 174% jump in just one year.
With capital pouring into Dubai, off-plan projects now form the most direct on-ramp to the city’s ultra-luxury tier. (Driven Properties | Forbes Global Properties)
Alajaji observes that Dubai’s impressive record with off-plan projects magnetizes investors who have never so much as glimpsed the Burj Khalifa in person, requiring brokers to bridge oceans as readily as neighborhoods. “We host regular roadshows across key cities worldwide and have established a strong international presence. These connections allow us to meet clients where they are, walk them through Dubai’s investment potential, and offer hands-on support throughout the process,” he says. The city’s momentum has turned skepticism into something closer to FOMO. Lock in today’s price, collect capital appreciation tomorrow or risk being priced out entirely. Other hotspots are following suit.
Renderings
Of course, nothing validates a promise like firsthand experience. While off-plan properties can’t offer a physical walkthrough, high-tech visuals fill the sensory gap – and the industry is racing to adopt them. A recent poll by the National Association of REALTORS found that 25% of agents believe AR and VR already shape transactions, with another 68% expecting them to become a meaningful influence within five years.
The capital flows mirror the sentiment. Market analysts expect global VR revenue in real estate to hit over $12 billion this year – nearly triple its total just a few years ago. For developers, the return on that investment is immediate: headset tours cut long-haul flights, photoreal daylight simulations settle arguments about view corridors, drone-fed progress videos reassure that Tuesday’s slab pour truly happened.
In the case of Elounda Hills, Rouva argues that reputation may open the door, but vivid renderings usher buyers across the threshold. “Virtual images give the buyer a chance to visualize themselves inside the home, and that’s the most crucial step in selling any home.”
Off-plan property will always ask for such leaps. Yet the gulf narrows when the developer’s credibility is clear, contracts come with built-in exit ramp and the market has already shown an appetite for fresh construction. Trust, then, is not a handshake. It is an edifice built layer by layer: verifiable numbers, enforceable rights, visible progress. Buyers can then step onto that platform with confidence.
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