Six criteria to assess a Dubai project in ten minutes
A good screening method fits on one page and produces an answer quickly. Six criteria, each scored out of five — payment terms, developer, price per foot, liquidity, product and location.
A workable screening method should fit on a page and give you an answer in ten minutes. Here is a six-criteria scheme, each scored out of five.
The six criteria
1. Payment terms and financing. Schedules of 40/60 and 50/50 are comfortable. An 80/20 takes too much liquidity before keys. Separately: is a mortgage available for the completion payment, and at what loan-to-value.
2. The developer. Are there completed projects, is the company public, what does the reporting show. A developer with no delivered buildings drops out of the list at this line.
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3. Price per square foot. Compared not against the city but against comparable schemes in the same district and, where possible, against transactions in the same building.
4. Liquidity. How many units of this type trade in this district in a year, and who the buyer on exit would be. A scheme with no comparable transactions has no evidence of an exit.
5. The product. Layout efficiency, ceiling height, the specification actually contracted, the amenity package and what it will cost through the service charge.
6. Location within the location. Not the district but the plot: what stands between the building and its view, how far the nearest metro station is, what is scheduled on adjacent land.
How to use the scores
The point of scoring is not the total. It is that a scheme scoring five on marketing-facing criteria and two on the developer is visibly a different proposition from one that scores four across the board — and the eye does not see that without the numbers written down.
One rule worth keeping: criterion two is a gate rather than a score. A developer with no completed buildings can be a fine bet for a professional taking a known risk, and is the wrong first purchase for anybody else, whatever the other five columns say.
What this deliberately leaves out
Forecast appreciation. Every projection of future price growth in a sales presentation is a modelled assumption, and including it in a screening tool converts an assessment of what exists into a ranking of who promised the most.