The Closer You Get, the Further Away the Target Moves

The building boom ever goes on... Dubai Marina, 11/2008.

It would almost seem to be a truism in UAE off-plan property purchases, that the longer one waits for a project to complete the longer yet one still must wait. On a tower project, for example, 30, 40, 50... 100+ stories or so, the projected completion date on launch is invariably 2 to 2 1/2 years off. In reality, these towers are taking on average 5 years to complete. So, at launch with money down, the buyer is given a 2 1/2 year projected completion date. One year lapses and construction on the project has barely even commenced.

A bit of realism begins to set in. The newly projected completion date is extended by a year. So, after a year of waiting and having paid 40% of the purchase price, one still has 2 1/2 years to go.


A project that defies the norm: quickly rising Dubai Marina Mall & Hotel complex, 11/2007.

Another year on and work has begun. The tower has just reached ground level, after a year of descent as a deep pit is dug and then painstakingly built up with the basement/podium structure. A renewed sense of realism sets in and so another year gets added to the waiting game. You'd be back to where you were on day one with 2 and 1/2 years to go, but experience by now informs you that another year never means another year only.

You prudently add six months to the calculation. So now, two years on from launch, by which time you've paid 80% of the purchase price, you realize that you in fact have 3 more years to go. The waiting game has gotten ever longer with the passage of time.

Real Case Scenario


The 64-story MAG 218 tower, exemplary of the ever-receding completion date, 11/2007.

I offer support to the scenario presented above with my own case in point. In June 2005 I lay out my 10% deposit on a property launched in April of that year and due for a mid-2008 completion--a 3-year projection. By June 2006 work is ongoing on excavation of a pit, but the project is clearly behind schedule. By November 2006 a revised completion date of mid 2009 is announced.

As the second year since initial payment sets in, June 2007, the completion is still 2 years off--although two years of a 3-year projected schedule has already lapsed. A couple of months later another set-back occurs and by December 2007 another six months is added to the projected completion date, now up to the end of 2009. My better sense tells me that this is clearly on a mid-2010 footing. The current tally for me 2 and 1/2 years on and 70% down since an initial down-payment, it is still a completion date 2 and 1/2 years off.

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