What are Pre-Sales / Off-Plan Sales?

More commonly referred to as an Off-Plan sale in Europe, a Pre-Sale represents a pre-construction sale program carried out by a condominium Developer who is required to sell a certain percentage of units before a lender will commit to finance construction of the project.

With an Assignment sale, the Purchaser is buying the rights and obligations to the yet-to-be-built property from the Original Purchaser, but with a Pre-Sale, the Purchaser is buying directly from the Developer, ie. nobody has bought it first.

Advantages

People generally buy off-plan as an investment. There is an element of risk involved and you get a better price to reflect this.

In times of high demand, it may be the only way to get your hands on a hot property in a sought after area.

Historically, investors have fared well from buying property off-plan.  Good quality new homes can often get re-valued shortly after completion with surprisingly high gains for the original buyers.

In times of a rising property market, it is perfectly possible to achieve a significant profit even before a brick has been laid, through an Assignment sale.

Buying off-plan means that the purchaser often does not have to pay the balance for quite some time after signing the contracts.  For all this time the value of 'their' property could be rising, and they still have not had to sell their existing home, meaning extra benefit if they can sell later at a higher price.