An off-plan unit is typically 12–18% cheaper than a comparable ready one. Buyers see the discount first; we look at what it is paying for. The discount is not a gift from the developer. It is the market's price for waiting, and for the chance that the wait gets longer.
We still recommend off-plan to many of our clients — but only after the project passes a short set of checks that have nothing to do with the brochure.
Why off-plan is cheaper
The developer sells before the building exists in order to fund part of its construction. You provide that funding in instalments and receive, in return, a lower price and a wider choice of units. What you give up is certainty: about the delivery date, about the finish matching the show unit, and about what the surrounding plots will look like when you move in. That is also why, in our experience, the discount is widest in a project's early phases and narrows as construction nears completion.
The three risks that matter
Delay is the most common in our experience, and it is mainly what the 12–18% discount is pricing. A change in specification comes next: a different brand of sanitary fittings, a smaller balcony, a storage room that has vanished from the plan. The third is rare but the most serious — buyer payments that do not stay with the project they were paid for.
Wafi, escrow and the delivery guarantee
Off-plan sales in Saudi Arabia are regulated under the Wafi programme, and that is what separates a licensed project from a sales office showing renderings. Within this framework buyer payments go into an escrow account tied to the project and are released as construction progresses, rather than going straight into the developer's general account.
Before we list any project, we always require two documents: a delivery guarantee and the escrow account document for the project. We advise buyers to ask for both whether they buy through us or not, and to check that the project and developer named on them match the sale contract.
A project without an escrow account document is not cheaper. It is risk that nobody has priced.
What to read in the sale contract
Read three clauses before anything else: the delivery date, and what the developer owes you if it passes; the specification schedule — the actual list of materials and areas, not the brochure — attached to the contract; and the payment schedule, so you can see whether instalments follow construction progress or simply follow the calendar.
Ask as well what happens at handover: who inspects the unit, how long you have to report defects, and whether the final payment is held until they are fixed. In the projects we market, we attend the handover inspection with the buyer, because the defects found on that day are the cheapest ones to fix.
Judge the developer, not the renderings
A developer's last project tells you more than its next one. Visit a building they have completed, ask residents how the actual handover compared with the promised date, and look at how the common areas have held up after a few years. A strong track record does not remove the risk, but it tells you how the developer behaves when something goes wrong. Ask, too, how many projects they are building at once; a developer spread across many sites is more exposed to delay.
Practical takeaway
Treat the 12–18% discount as payment for risk, and accept it only when the risk is contained: a Wafi-licensed project, a delivery guarantee, an escrow account document and a specification schedule attached to your contract. If any of the four is missing, the ready unit next door may be the better price.