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For a developer, selling off-plan property in Dubai means registering the project and its escrow account with the Dubai Land Department, getting written approval before you advertise, and then running a sales system that turns enquiries into reservations, signed SPAs and buyers who keep paying until handover.
Not legal advice. General information checked against the official pages linked below. Confirm every step with your legal team and the DLD before you launch.
Most guides that rank for this question answer a different one: how an investor resells a unit before handover. That’s a real question, and there’s a short answer at the end.
This guide is for the other side of the table. Developers, their sales directors and the brokers who launch projects.
Off-plan is most of the market. That’s the problem
Off-plan represented 72% of all residential transactions in Dubai in 2025, up from 68% in 2024, according to Savills (26 January 2026).
That number measures transactions, not value. The DLD’s own count is 132,500 off-plan transactions in 2025. But it tells you what your buyer sees: dozens of launches competing for the same attention, the same portals and the same brokers.
So the question isn’t whether buyers purchase off-plan. It’s why they’d choose your project, and whether your team answers before someone else’s does.
Before the first ad: what the law asks for
Dubai has a clear order of operations. Skip a step and the marketing budget is the least of your problems.
1. Register the project and open the escrow account
Under Law No. 8 of 2007 on escrow accounts:
- Art. 4. A developer must be recorded in the DLD’s developer register and licensed.
- Art. 6. Any developer who wants to sell units off-plan must ask the DLD to open an escrow account.
- Art. 9. The account is opened in the project’s name and used only for that project’s construction. The developer’s creditors can’t attach it.
The DLD’s Register Project service lists what that takes: building permits and a 30% guarantee (30% of construction completed, a 30% bank guarantee, or 30% in cash), and a developer already registered in the Trakheesi system. The published fee is AED 150,000 plus AED 20 in knowledge and innovation fees.
How the escrow account protects buyers, article by article: Dubai escrow for off-plan, explained.
2. Get written approval before you advertise the sale
This is the step marketing teams forget.
Art. 5 of Law 8/2007 says a developer may not advertise off-plan units in local or international media, or take part in exhibitions, without written authorisation from the DLD.
In practice: no teaser campaign that names the project and invites buyers to “register for the launch” before that approval exists. Ask your legal team what you can say before it, and in which channels.
3. A Trakheesi permit on every ad
Each advertisement needs its own DLD permit. The Real Estate Ad Permit page lists permit types for print, outdoor, SMS and electronic ads, promotional campaigns, exhibitions and project launch events.
Official fees on that page (read 2026-10-17): AED 1,000 plus a AED 20 knowledge and innovation fee for most permits, and AED 5,000 for a project launch event permit. Processing: one working day.
The DLD/RERA Real Estate Brokerage Practice Guide 2024 requires a permit for “any real estate advertisement or marketing material”, electronic ads and promotional campaigns included. Lead-generation campaigns also need a permit; ask your broker.
What the creative must carry and who applies is covered in our guide to Trakheesi permits for social media ads.
4. Register every sale
Off-plan sale contracts go into the DLD’s Interim Property Register, known in the market as Oqood. The developer has to register the sale on the Oqood portal within 90 days of signing. Law No. 13 of 2008, Art. 3, says any disposition of an off-plan unit is entered there, and a transfer that isn’t recorded isn’t valid.
The same law, as amended, sets what happens if a buyer stops paying. The DLD’s deregistration service describes the procedure, including at least a month’s notice to the buyer. Read the current consolidated text with your lawyer before you write the cancellation clause in your SPA.
The four phases of an off-plan project
A project isn’t sold the same way in month one and month thirty. What the buyer can see changes, and so does what you can show them.
| Phase | What you’re selling | Material | Commercial goal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Launch | The project: location, unit mix, payment plan | Renders, floor plans, brochure, project landing page, launch event | Reservations from the first wave of buyers |
| Early construction | A specific unit with a plan and a schedule | Floor plans per unit, sales gallery, construction updates | Steady reservations at the pace the plan needs |
| Late construction | What’s now visible on site | Site visits, progress video, show apartment if there is one | Fill the remaining unit types |
| Near handover | The last units | Finished building, real photos | Sell the rest without discounting the whole project |
The phase most developers underinvest in is the one before launch: knowing who the buyer is and having the follow-up system ready on day one, not built after the first leads arrive.
EOIs at launch. At busy launches, buyers are often asked for an expression of interest (EOI) before allocation: they register for a unit type and join a queue, and units are allocated when sales open. It’s market practice, not a legal step, and each developer sets its own terms. If you use EOIs, write down what the buyer gets, what’s refundable and when allocation happens, and send it with the first confirmation.
Where buyers come from
Three channels. Most projects use all three.
Broker network
Brokers bring a large part of the buyers to most Dubai launches, from their own databases and from abroad. That’s market experience, not a measured share.
The trade-off is control. You don’t decide how fast they answer, what they say about your payment plan, or whether they’re pushing a competing launch the same week.
Property portals
Property Finder, Bayut and Dubizzle all have dedicated new-project sections where buyers compare launches by location, payment plan and handover date.
That’s demand that is already looking. It’s also a page where your project sits next to every other launch in the community.
None of the three publishes developer pricing on those pages. You get it by asking each sales team.
What we could and couldn’t confirm about portal costs: Property Finder and Bayut costs for developers.
Your own ads and landing page
Meta, Google and YouTube reach the buyer who fits your project but isn’t searching yet: a resident renting nearby, or an overseas buyer who follows Dubai but hasn’t picked a community.
The data stays with you. And you can measure every lead from the ad to the signed SPA, which no portal report will do for you.
One detail that changes targeting. Meta’s housing special ad category is mandatory for advertisers in the US or ads reaching the US, Canada or Europe. A campaign aimed only at UAE residents, run by a non-US advertiser, can opt out. A campaign aimed at buyers in Europe can’t: there, age and gender targeting are locked and location needs a minimum radius.
Every property ad still carries its Trakheesi number, whatever the channel.
If you’d rather have the ads, the landing page and the follow-up run for you as one system, that’s what we do as a lead generation agency in Dubai. The follow-up part, with WhatsApp follow-up on the official API, is also available on its own.
More detail on each source: real estate lead sources in Dubai.
The fair way to compare all three is the same: what each one costs you per viewing or per reservation, not per lead.
From enquiry to viewing: the first hours decide
The biggest leak in an off-plan launch isn’t the ad. It’s what happens after the form.
Off-plan buyers compare several launches in the same week. The most-cited study on response time (InsideSales.com with an MIT faculty fellow, 2007, web leads from six companies) points the same way; what it found and what it didn’t is in speed to lead in real estate.
What works:
- First contact in minutes, even if it’s automated. A WhatsApp message in the buyer’s language that confirms what they asked for and asks one useful question.
- Qualify early. Unit type, budget, timing, and whether they live in the UAE or abroad. An overseas buyer needs a video call, not a sales-gallery slot.
- A call from a named salesperson the same day, with the context on screen: which project, which unit type, what they answered.
Each stage after the enquiry, with what to measure in it, is in the off-plan sales funnel.
Filling the sales gallery (or the video call)
A sales gallery with an empty calendar is the most expensive room in the project.
Three things fill it:
- A viewing with a day and time from the first conversation. “Drop by any time” isn’t an appointment. Offer two slots.
- Reminders. One on booking, one the day before, one two hours before, on WhatsApp, with the location pin and the name of who’ll meet them.
- A plan for no-shows. Same day, a message to reschedule. Someone who didn’t show hasn’t said no.
For overseas buyers, the viewing is a video call with floor plans, renders and the payment plan on screen. Measure it the same way: booked, held, and reservations that came out of it.
Measuring whether the project is selling
Cost per lead is the easiest number to improve and the one that says the least.
Three numbers tell a sales team whether the launch is working:
| Metric | How to calculate it | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per viewing | Spend ÷ viewings held | The number that compares brokers, portals and your own ads fairly |
| % viewing → reservation | Reservations ÷ viewings | Whether product, price and salesperson close |
| Absorption | Units sold per month | Whether you reach handover with stock or without it |
The full KPI set, with budget and targets per construction milestone, is in the developer marketing plan.
Common mistakes
- Advertising the sale before the DLD’s written approval. Art. 5 of Law 8/2007 doesn’t leave room for a soft launch.
- A creative without its Trakheesi number. Every format, every crop. The DLD fined 30 companies AED 50,000 each in February 2024 for breaking its advertising rules.
- Measuring only cost per lead. A cheap lead who never picks up is worth nothing.
- Answering the next day. By then the buyer has spoken to two other launches.
- Leaving brokers and your own leads in separate spreadsheets. You can’t compare channels you don’t track in one place.
- Promising returns in the ad. Rental yields and capital growth claims can be treated as misleading or as investment promotion. Talk about the product, the payment plan and the handover date.
- Going silent during construction. Buyers who hear nothing for months are the ones who stop paying instalments.
If you’re an investor reselling an off-plan unit
Short version, because it’s a different process: your SPA and the developer’s policy set the minimum you must have paid before you can resell, the developer issues a no-objection certificate, and the transfer is recorded in the Interim Property Register (Oqood), as Art. 3 of Law No. 13 of 2008 requires. Sources disagree on thresholds and fees, so check your own SPA. Market overviews, not official sources, from Bayut and Dubizzle.
Frequently asked questions
An expression of interest, or EOI, is how many busy launches queue buyers before allocation: the buyer registers for a unit type and is offered a unit when sales open. It’s market practice, not a legal step, so each developer sets the terms. Put in writing what the buyer gets, what’s refundable and when allocation happens.
Yes. The Dubai Land Department issues advertising permits for print, outdoor, SMS, electronic ads, campaigns and launch events. Its official page lists AED 1,000 plus a AED 20 fee for most permits and AED 5,000 for a project launch event, with one working day to process. The permit number goes on the creative.
It isn’t one or the other. Brokers bring their own buyers, portals capture people already comparing launches, and your own ads reach buyers who fit but aren’t searching yet, with the data staying with you. Compare them on cost per viewing or per reservation, not on cost per lead.
Not for the sales conversation. An overseas buyer can see floor plans, renders and the payment plan on a video call with a named salesperson, and reserve from there. The contract and registration steps have their own requirements, so confirm with the developer’s sales administration which ones can be completed remotely before promising it.
Give every enquiry a viewing with a day and time from the first conversation, not an open invitation. Send WhatsApp reminders on booking, the day before and two hours before, with the location pin and the name of who will meet them. If someone doesn’t show, offer a new slot the same day.