How to inspect a developer’s showroom in Dubai: The Terraces in Business Bay as a worked example

Which questions should you put to the sales manager?

Treat the visit as an interview, not a tour. Ask about the status of the project: the escrow account number, the percentage of construction completed, the planned handover date and what happens if it moves.

Get the whole financial picture: the payment schedule, the approximate service charge per square foot per year, the cost of DLD registration and any commissions. Ask for the layouts of every available line, not only the one built in the showroom.

Views and surroundings are a separate matter. A showroom sells an interior, but the price of a unit in a tower is set by its floor and its orientation.

Ask for a floor plan showing the competing construction sites around the building. What will stand in front of the windows in three years is a question the manager will not raise unprompted.

How should a terrace be priced and judged?

Carefully, because terraces differ. Projects built around terraces and open space are a visible trend in Dubai — since the pandemic buyers have valued outdoor space of their own — and The Terraces is one of them.

Find out how the terrace is counted in the price of the unit. Open areas should normally be charged at a reduced coefficient, not at the price of an internal square metre.

Check the orientation. In Dubai’s climate a south-west terrace with no shade is used for a few months of the year, while a shaded one that catches the breeze is usable almost all year round.

Ask about the rules of use as well: what may be placed on it, whether it can be glazed, who maintains the drainage. Those details decide whether the terrace becomes a second living room or handsome empty area that you have paid for.

How do you use the visit to negotiate and decide?

The showroom is where a buyer’s negotiating position is strongest, because managers are motivated to close a sale from the visit. Note the units that interest you and ask what terms currently apply.

That means a discount for a quick reservation, the developer covering the DLD fee, a post-handover payment schedule. In Dubai these parameters move, especially where a developer is speeding up sales of the next phase.

Do not decide on the spot, however. The right sequence is the visit, the terms recorded in writing, and then a day for checks — the escrow account, the developer’s reputation, a comparison with competitors, a conversation with an independent broker.

A product that will be gone by this evening is, nine times out of ten, still available tomorrow.

What if you cannot visit, or the project has no showroom?

A visit is not obligatory: purchases in Dubai are also completed entirely at a distance. If you are in the city it is extremely useful; a remote buyer should ask for a live video tour of the showroom instead of renders.

Whatever you see, check it against the annex to the contract. The basic materials in a showroom should correspond to the contractual specification, but the furniture, the lighting and the décor are staged.

On price, direct discounts on a new build are rarer than flexibility in the accompanying terms — the payment schedule, the registration fees, parking. It is always worth asking.

Where a project has no showroom, ask to see completed buildings by the same developer. They are an even more honest source on quality than a perfect show flat.