How to check a Dubai developer: go and inspect one of their finished buildings

Developer marketing in the UAE is executed at a very high level: renders, show units, presentation galleries with immersive shows. All of it creates an impression, and none of it gives you information about what you will actually receive.

The only method that works

Look at a completed project by the same developer. Not a showroom — a real, occupied building: the finish quality inside an apartment, the condition of the common areas, the building services, the upkeep of the grounds.

And more precisely: a building delivered two or three years ago. A newly handed-over scheme always looks good. The question is what happens after the first few seasons of operation — whether the facade has cracked, whether the lifts work, what condition the pool and the underground car park are in.

What to look at inside an apartment

• Air conditioning and how it is holding up in its third summer.
• Water ingress at window and balcony junctions.
• Door and joinery alignment after a couple of years of movement.
• Whether the specification matches what that scheme was sold with.

What to look at in the building

• Lobby and corridors — maintained or merely cleaned.
• Lifts: how many work, and how long the wait is at peak hour.
• The car park: drainage, ventilation, water staining on the walls.
• Pool and gym — the first amenities to be quietly downgraded when the service charge is under pressure.

The most useful conversation available

Talk to a resident. Five minutes with somebody who has lived there two years produces more information than any brochure: what broke, how long it took the management company to fix it, what the service charge did, whether the developer was reachable after handover.

That last point is the one that separates developers more than build quality does. Everybody's building has defects in year one. What differs is whether anyone answers the phone.