A senior voice from one of the Gulf’s most established international developers has just made a prediction that carries real weight for anyone buying off-plan property in the region. The Gulf’s model of off-plan property sales faces a fundamental shake-up, according to Dar Global CEO Ziad El Chaar, who told AGBI that developers will no longer be able to rely so heavily on buyers’ money to finance projects, expecting the region to move closer to mature European markets where developers shoulder more of the construction cost before collecting the full purchase price.
For buyers evaluating where to place off-plan capital across the Gulf right now, this prediction matters considerably, and it happens to work in Abu Dhabi’s favour in a specific, structural way worth understanding.
What El Chaar Is Actually Predicting
“The off-plan business model is going down globally,” El Chaar said. “People want to see something progressing to a much bigger extent before they engage. This trend will definitely come to the region.” His view is grounded in direct market feedback: buyers were increasingly balking at paying more than half the purchase price in the first two years while only around a fifth of a project had been built.
That imbalance, buyers funding the majority of a project’s cost while construction has barely begun, is precisely the structural weakness El Chaar expects regulators and market pressure to correct. He pointed to Europe as the template: France has long tied off-plan payments to construction milestones, while Poland strengthened its escrow regime in 2022, releasing funds only as milestones are met or homes are completed, and introduced a guarantee fund to protect buyer deposits. “The developer has to put in more equity and have a stronger balance sheet to be able to get funding for the projects,” El Chaar said.
| Predicted Shift | Old Gulf Model | Emerging Model (per El Chaar) |
| Payment timing | Front-loaded, buyer-funded | Tied to construction milestones |
| Developer capital exposure | Lower, buyer capital does the work | Higher, developer equity required upfront |
| Escrow protection | Varies by jurisdiction | Increasingly mandatory, milestone-released |
| Speculative flipping | Common, low entry cost to flip | Expected to decline structurally |
Where Abu Dhabi Already Stands
This is the part of the story that matters most for anyone reading from an Abu Dhabi perspective: much of what El Chaar describes as an emerging shift is not emerging in Abu Dhabi. It is already the established regulatory standard.
Abu Dhabi’s off-plan framework, governed by ADREC, has operated on a milestone-based escrow release model for years. All buyer payments for off-plan properties must be deposited into an ADREC-regulated escrow account held by a licensed bank, and developers cannot access those funds until verified construction milestones are met, with a standard threshold of 20% completion before any disbursement occurs. Under Decision No. 24 of 2025, any earlier disbursement requires the developer to post an unconditional bank guarantee of at least 20% of total construction cost, precisely the kind of developer-side capital commitment El Chaar describes as the future of the region.
Abu Dhabi has also continued actively strengthening this framework throughout 2026, with the addition of ABK-UAE as the first GCC bank licensed as an ADREC escrow agent in May, and the Madhmoun platform providing government-managed preparatory escrow for early expressions of interest before formal sales even begin. For buyers seeking top luxury real estate broker in Abu Dhabi guidance on how this existing milestone-based structure compares to the payment plans typical elsewhere in the Gulf, Abu Dhabi’s framework already reflects the direction El Chaar expects the wider region to move toward.
Why This Matters More for Dubai Than Abu Dhabi
El Chaar’s comments carry particular weight because of where off-plan sales are most concentrated. Off-plan transactions accounted for more than 70 percent of property deals in Dubai in 2025, a market where the sheer scale of off-plan activity means any structural shift to payment timing would represent a genuinely significant recalibration for both developers and buyers.
Abu Dhabi’s off-plan market has grown rapidly too, with off-plan properties accounting for 81% of total residential transactions in Q1 2026. The meaningful difference is not the proportion of off-plan activity, but the regulatory framework underpinning it. Abu Dhabi buyers purchasing off-plan today are already operating within a system built around the milestone-tied, escrow-protected structure that El Chaar is describing as the market’s likely future everywhere else. This is a genuine structural advantage for buyers prioritising capital protection, not a change still to come.
Buyers Are Delaying, Not Disappearing
One of the most useful and honestly reported insights from El Chaar’s interview concerns buyer psychology during the current period of regional uncertainty. “At times of uncertainty, people will wait, will delay, but they will not cancel,” El Chaar said. Dar Global reported that demand for its Gulf projects has held up through the conflict, with customers from 56 nationalities expressing interest in booking its properties between January and June, spanning American, British, French, Canadian, Chinese, Dutch, German, Turkish, Italian, and Australian buyers, alongside established buyer groups from India, Pakistan, and Jordan.
This pattern, delay rather than cancellation, aligns closely with what Abu Dhabi’s own H1 2026 data has independently confirmed. Foreign buyers from 116 nationalities invested in Abu Dhabi’s real estate market during the first half, up from 82 the year before, and Abu Dhabi’s residential sales values reached AED 86.3 billion by mid-August, already exceeding the whole of 2025. Two entirely separate developers, operating across different Gulf markets, are independently describing the same underlying buyer behaviour: genuine, patient international demand that pauses during uncertainty but does not walk away.
What This Means for Developer Selection
El Chaar’s prediction that “the developer has to put in more equity and have a stronger balance sheet” is, in effect, a forward-looking case for prioritising well-capitalised, institutionally backed developers regardless of which market a buyer is considering. This is where Abu Dhabi’s developer landscape offers particular reassurance. Aldar closed H1 2026 with AED 37.1 billion in liquidity and a AED 71.6 billion revenue backlog. Modon reported a record AED 65.4 billion revenue backlog, doubling year on year, alongside net debt to EBITDA of just 0.18x.
These are precisely the kind of strong-balance-sheet profiles El Chaar identifies as best positioned for a market shifting toward developer-funded construction. Dar Global itself demonstrated this principle directly during the recent difficult period: the company made advance payments to contractors who needed additional cash to keep sites running. “Anybody who needed advance payment, we did it,” El Chaar said, a genuinely reassuring example of a well-capitalised developer absorbing short-term cost pressure to protect project continuity, exactly the behaviour buyers should want from any developer they commit capital to. For guidance on identifying Best property brokerage in Abu Dhabi matches between buyer priorities and developer financial strength, this balance-sheet resilience is now a genuinely relevant filter for off-plan buyers across the entire Gulf.
Conclusion: A Regional Shift Abu Dhabi Has Already Made
Ziad El Chaar’s prediction that the Gulf’s off-plan sales model is due a fundamental shake-up is a genuinely important signal for the region as a whole, particularly for markets where off-plan activity is dominated by front-loaded, buyer-funded payment structures. For Abu Dhabi specifically, this is less a warning about change ahead and more a confirmation that the emirate’s existing, ADREC-regulated, milestone-tied escrow framework already reflects the direction the wider region is being pushed toward. Buyers evaluating off-plan opportunities across the Gulf right now have a genuinely useful new data point: Abu Dhabi’s regulatory architecture is not catching up to this shift. It has been built around it for years.
Ziad El Chaar told AGBI that the Gulf’s off-plan sales model faces a fundamental shake-up, with developers expected to shoulder more of the construction cost upfront and buyer payments increasingly tied to construction milestones, moving closer to mature European markets like France and Poland. For guidance on private client property advisor Abu Dhabi services navigating this evolving Gulf-wide landscape, contact our team.
Abu Dhabi’s off-plan framework already operates on the milestone-based escrow model El Chaar describes as the region’s likely future. ADREC-regulated escrow accounts release funds to developers only after verified construction progress, typically 20% completion, with Decision No. 24 of 2025 requiring bank guarantees for any earlier disbursement. This makes Abu Dhabi’s existing structure closely aligned with what El Chaar predicts will spread across the wider Gulf.
Off-plan transactions accounted for more than 70% of property deals in Dubai in 2025, a market where a shift toward milestone-tied payments would represent a significant structural change. Abu Dhabi’s off-plan share reached 81% of residential transactions in Q1 2026, but its milestone-based escrow framework has already been in place for years, meaning Abu Dhabi buyers are not waiting for a future regulatory shift.
No. El Chaar confirmed that “at times of uncertainty, people will wait, will delay, but they will not cancel,” with Dar Global reporting sustained interest from 56 nationalities in H1 2026. This mirrors Abu Dhabi’s own data, which recorded 116 investor nationalities in H1 2026, up from 82 the year before, and residential sales already exceeding all of 2025 by mid-August.
El Chaar’s prediction that developers will need “more equity and a stronger balance sheet” makes financial strength an increasingly important selection criterion. Abu Dhabi’s leading developers demonstrate this profile clearly: Aldar closed H1 2026 with AED 37.1 billion in liquidity, while Modon reported a record AED 65.4 billion backlog and net debt to EBITDA of just 0.18x. For a High-net-worth real estate advisor assessment of developer financial strength across current off-plan opportunities, speak with our advisory team.
