Sometimes, and the honest answer depends on things you can check before you buy rather than on the market as a whole. This article is about what to check.

We are a brokerage and we sell off-plan, so read this knowing that. We would rather you bought one thing carefully than three things on optimism.

The genuine case for it

You pay over time. The capital requirement at the start is far lower than buying completed, which is the biggest single reason people choose it.
You get first pick. Floor, aspect and layout are chosen rather than inherited. In a tower where the view differs sharply by floor, that is worth real money.
Launch pricing. Sometimes below where comparable completed stock trades. Not always, and it is checkable rather than assumed.
Escrow protection. Your money is released against construction progress, not handed over up front.

The risks that actually cost people money

Not the ones usually listed. In our experience the losses come from three places.

Competing supply at completion. You bought one of four hundred similar units completing in the same district in the same year. Your rent and your resale price are both set by the other three hundred and ninety nine. This is the most common and most avoidable mistake.
Service charges nobody modelled. The yield you calculated at purchase assumed a figure from a brochure. The real charge on an amenity heavy building can move a return by a meaningful margin, every year, permanently.
Timing, not delivery. Serious developers finish. What they do not do is finish when the brochure said. If your plan depends on rent starting in a particular quarter, a delay costs you real money. See off-plan handover delays.

Outright project failure is the risk people worry about most and the least likely with an established developer, though it does happen. Check the developer rather than assume.

Off-plan against completed

Completed property gives you rent from day one, a known service charge, a building you can stand in, and neighbours you can ask. Off-plan gives you a lower entry cost, choice of unit, and time to pay. Neither is better in the abstract. If you need income now, buy completed. If you are building a position over three or four years, off-plan is the cheaper way in.

How to judge a specific project

What else completes within a kilometre in the same twelve months?
What does the same developer last completed building in this district actually rent for now?
What is the service charge on that completed building, in writing?
Is the price per square foot above or below completed comparables nearby, and if above, what justifies it?
Could you carry the plan if handover slipped by a year?

Five answerable questions. If a project survives all five it is probably worth buying, and if nobody will answer them that is itself the answer. We will go through them with you on a specific unit. See the 45 off-plan projects we broker.