How do you model a Dubai off-plan investment before you commit?

An off-plan model holds four things together: the payment plan (booking, instalments through construction, the balance at handover), the build years in which value may move but no rent arrives, the yield and growth you assume after handover, and the exit. Our free calculator at daviesandharrison.com/calc runs all four from a price and five assumptions, and returns the instalment split, value at handover, yearly rent, exit value and a compound annual rate (Davies+Harrison, 2026).

Key facts

• The D+H calculator takes a price, a 40/60 to 80/20 plan, one to four years to handover, growth, gross yield and a one to ten year hold; free, no login (Davies+Harrison, 2026).
• It applies a flat 20 per cent booking, Emaar's figure at purchase (Emaar, 2026), and a 4 per cent Land Department fee, 2 per cent from each side (Dubai Land Department, 3 Sep 2026).
• Advertised gross apartment yields for the first half of 2026 ran from 4.48 per cent on Palm Jumeirah to 9.06 in Discovery Gardens (Bayut, 2 Sep 2026); market-wide, near 7 per cent (Khaleej Times, 30 Jul 2026).

Why is a mortgage calculator the wrong tool for off-plan?

A mortgage calculator answers one question: what a loan costs each month. The one we read takes a price, a deposit, a term and an interest rate, and returns a monthly repayment (Betterhomes, 2026). Nothing in it describes a purchase paid in instalments against a building that does not yet exist, on which the Central Bank caps any loan at 50 per cent (Central Bank of the UAE, Circular 31/2013). A model has to carry money out through the build, rent and value through the hold, and bring both back to one figure.

How does the payment plan meet the build?

The calculator offers five splits of construction share against handover share: 40/60, 50/50, 60/40, 70/30 and 80/20, with 50/50 as the default. It divides the price into three amounts: a flat 20 per cent booking, the rest of the construction share as instalments before handover, and the balance at handover (Davies+Harrison, 2026). Twenty per cent is Emaar's figure at purchase (Emaar, 2026); other developers set their own, so pick the split nearest your SPA. A plan with instalments after the keys is entered by its construction share; the tool treats the rest as paid at handover.

Beside the plan sits the cash the price does not show. The tool adds the Land Department fee at 4 per cent and a typical AED 5,250 allowance for trustee and administration charges, and reports the sum as total cash required at purchase, kept apart from the return figures as entry costs, not performance (Davies+Harrison, 2026). The Department charges 2 per cent from each side (Dubai Land Department, 3 Sep 2026) and by convention the buyer carries both (Property Finder, 27 Apr 2026). If the launch carries the 4 per cent waiver seen again in August 2026 (Betterhomes, 11 Aug 2026), read that line as nil.

What happens to the value while you wait?

Time to handover is set in whole years, one to four. Through those years the model compounds the price from booking at the growth rate you set, 0 to 10 per cent in half-point steps, and books no rent (Davies+Harrison, 2026). The rate is your assumption, not a projection.

The launch price is taken as day-one market value, so any view that you are buying below or above completed stock has to live in the growth rate.

What does the property earn after handover?

From the first hold year, one to ten years, the tool applies the yield you set, 5 to 10 per cent in half-point steps, to the property's value at the start of the year, then grows the value by the growth rate. Rent therefore rises every year at the growth rate, the yield is gross, occupancy is 100 per cent and nothing is deducted (Davies+Harrison, 2026).

Bayut's yields are advertised, gross and calculated from listing prices, not transactions: Jumeirah Village Circle 7.15 per cent, Dubai Marina 5.88, Palm Jumeirah 4.48 (Bayut, 2 Sep 2026). Prime areas below 5 per cent sit under the slider's floor; enter 5 and read the result as generous. None is what a particular unit will earn.

The next step is yours: take the gross figure to a net one. Two adjustments do most of the work.

• Service charge. The RERA-approved figure for each project and year is published in the DLD Service Charge Index (Dubai Land Department, 2026). Binghatti Corner in Jumeirah Village Circle, for example, is quoted at AED 17.05 per square foot from the index (Property Finder, 19 Jun 2026): on 900 square feet, about AED 15,345 a year, roughly a tenth of the first year's rent in the example below. Check the building's own line in the index.
• Empty periods and fees. Allow a void in year one of a new building, a gap at each change of tenant, and the letting and management fees your agent quotes.

How do you read the result?

Total value at exit is the property's value after the last hold year plus every year's rent; estimated total return is that total minus the purchase price; annualised ROI is the constant annual rate that turns the purchase price into the exit total over build years plus hold years, a compound annual growth rate on the purchase price (Davies+Harrison, 2026). It treats the whole price as deployed on day one, though most of it is paid later, and sits before the entry costs shown separately and before every running and exit cost; a money-weighted return on the staged payments would differ.

The tool also sets the total return against the same price compounding at a fixed 3 per cent a year over the same period, and shows the difference and a multiple (Davies+Harrison, 2026); the 3 per cent is the tool's own assumption, not a quoted deposit rate.

The build years carry no rent, so they dilute the compound rate. A later handover raises the exit total, because value compounds for longer, and lowers the annualised figure, because the rent-free years are counted in the period. Compare scenarios over the same total years, or the rate will favour the shorter build for that reason alone.

What does a worked example look like?

Inputs: AED 2,000,000, a 60/40 plan, three years to handover, 5 per cent growth, 6.5 per cent gross yield, a five-year hold. Every line is what the calculator shows (Davies+Harrison, 2026); on screen, AED 3,786,470 is shortened to AED 3.79M.

Source: Davies+Harrison, 2026.

Move the handover to two years, all else equal: the exit total falls to AED 3,606,162 and the annual rate rises to 8.79 per cent over seven years (Davies+Harrison, 2026). Each set of figures is the arithmetic of the assumptions entered, not a forecast.

From here you add your own lines: the AED 520 title deed at completion (Dubai Land Department, 2026); service charge and empty periods through the hold; agency commission at exit if you pay it, about 2 per cent plus VAT on the secondary market (Property Finder, 27 Apr 2026); interest and fees if you borrow at handover. The UAE levies no personal income tax (u.ae, 2026); tax at home is a line for your own adviser.

How do you use the model well?

Compare plans first. Run the same project at 50/50 and 60/40: the return figures do not move, because the same price is split differently, but the cash you must hold through construction does. Then compare holding periods, one assumption at a time. Keep the D+H Investment Summary for each scenario; the download asks for a name and email, and the projection itself never leaves your browser (Davies+Harrison, 2026).

Our view

In our experience the model is worth more before the launch than after it: clients who arrive with their own projection ask sharper questions of a plan and a yield. We advise running every shortlisted project at the quoted handover year and one year later, at the advertised yield and one point below it.

We advise treating the annual rate as a comparison between scenarios, not a promise about any of them. Affordability is decided by the figure the tool shows separately: total cash required, then the instalments through construction. For Davies+Harrison clients, D+H Invest, our private investor platform, brings the whole journey, from strategy and curated projects to financial clarity and documents, into a single, organised view.

Davies+Harrison is DAH Real Estate Brokerage L.L.C., RERA ORN 53447.