“Please Send Photos Before I Transfer”: How to Send Off-Plan Buyers Updates They Trust
A week before the instalment cycle, the customer team's inbox fills with the same request from buyers abroad: please send photos before I transfer. The site engineer sends a few hundred pictures over a messaging app, someone in the office picks the best ones of the façade, and the buyer replies asking which floor that is and when it was taken. More photos rarely settle it, because the buyer isn't asking whether anything is happening on site but whether their own floor is where you say it is. Every answer that doesn't show them turns into another email, often a later payment, and sometimes a post on a property forum that the next buyer reads before booking.
The update that settles it is a dated 360° walk of the buyer's own floor, sent by link before every instalment and recorded along the same route as the last one so the two can be compared, with any change to the handover date put in writing. Buyers are now being advised to check your update against official progress, so the job is to make it easy to check.
The advice those buyers are now getting makes your update matter more. On 6 November, The National's property column answered a couple who had paid 60 percent of an off-plan home, were still paying rent and had seen the handover pushed back, and the advice was to compare the contract with the project's official construction progress and to have the developer confirm any revised completion programme in writing. That advice lands in a slower market, because AGBI reported on 23 October that the value of Dubai home sales almost halved in the third quarter, to AED71 billion, so less cash is coming in from new sales and each instalment from a buyer you already have counts for more.
What buyers hold your update against
The first thing buyers abroad are told to check is the completion percentage on the Dubai Land Department's (DLD) Project Status Enquiry, which describes the whole project as of its last update. Where instalments are tied to construction stages, the DLD's FAQ also says a buyer can answer your payment request by asking for a letter from the DLD-approved project consultant confirming the completion percentage, and isn't obliged to pay until the stage is confirmed. The same FAQ asks why most investors complain that they can't communicate with some developers, or find out a project's completion percentage, while being asked for new payments, which tells you how often the update and the official record fail to meet.
An update that agrees with those documents, and shows the buyer's own floor in the gap between them, is one they can believe, whereas a crane against the sky can't agree or disagree with anything, so it settles nothing. The developer whose updates line up with the record is also the one buyers recommend to the next buyer, which counts for more when new sales are slow.
What a construction update buyers trust contains
None of this needs better footage, because what buyers check is whether this update lines up with the last one and with the official figure.
- The capture date on the update itself, close to the instalment it supports.
- The buyer's own floor, with the route drawn on the floor plan so they know which unit they are looking at.
- The same viewpoints as the last update, so two dates line up at the same spot.
- A link that opens in a browser on a phone, with no account or app to install.
- Any change to the expected handover date in writing, with the reason and the new date, sent before the buyer has to ask.
Most of that comes from doing the same thing the same way each cycle, which keeps the site team's share of the work small once the route is set, and turns your customer team from the people buyers chase into the people buyers believe.
Hello from the site team. Your floor was walked this morning along the same route as on 22 September. The link opens unit 14-06 on the floor plan with both dates side by side, and your handover date is unchanged.
Ways to send construction updates compared
| Format | What the buyer sees | What it proves | Work for your team | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Photo pack from the sales team | Selected views of the site | That work is happening | Choosing and captioning photos each cycle | Social posts |
| Drone or construction update video | The building from outside | The frame and façade are rising | Filming and editing each time | Milestones such as topping out |
| Newsletter with a completion percentage | One figure for the whole project | The project's overall stage | Writing each issue | Regular news to every buyer |
| Fixed site camera | The site from one spot, live | Activity at that spot | Installation, then upkeep | Showing the site is busy |
| Dated 360° walk shared by link | The buyer's floor on a known date, next to the last walk | Where the work stands on the plan, and what changed | One walk per floor along a fixed route | Before each instalment |
How to run it without extra site work
Ask the site engineer who already walks the floors to record one walk per floor or zone in the fortnight before each instalment cycle, along the same route every time, and send each buyer the link to their floor. The same walks give your own team the inside view first. On a residential tower in Lahore, two walks two days apart, on 29 and 31 July, were opened from one locked viewpoint, and SpatialSense wrote the change report itself, station by station, with every observation tied to the 360° image it came from, so a site team can see what moved before the sales team sends anything. A person approves each finding, because the AI proposes and nothing is raised without someone confirming it.
The walks have a second use after handover, because the one recorded before the ceilings close is what your team will reach for when a defects question comes up, so it pays to know what to capture before the walls close. Near handover, your team can also pin each snag on the spot in the same walks with an owner and a due date, which matters when a buyer abroad can't attend the inspection.
- What the buyer seesTheir own unit, dated, opened from your link in the browser.
- Fewer status callsBuyers check the walk themselves before the next instalment.
- Same route each monthEach update lines up with the last one.
If you're the buyer reading this
You can ask for this yourself. Forward this page to your developer's customer team with your next due date, and ask for a dated walk of your floor before you pay, recorded along the same route as the last one. If the updates have stopped altogether, what to ask when your developer goes quiet lists the requests in the order to send them, and checking a Dubai off-plan flat before an instalment covers the official checks you can run on your own.
22 Sep 2026
3 Nov 2026Where SpatialSense fits
The site team records the walk with the Trace app and a 360° camera on a helmet, SpatialSense draws its path on the floor plan, and in Video Mode every frame carries a timestamp. You share it as a virtual site walk by a link that opens without a login, choose what the link shows and revoke it when a unit changes hands, and any two dates open side by side from one locked viewpoint. Every plan has unlimited users, so everyone from the site engineer to the customer team works from the same walks without buying seats.
If most of your buyers live nearby and visit the show apartment, a monthly photo update may be all they need. A walk also doesn't replace the account trustee engineer's site check that escrow payments depend on, or the consultant's letter a buyer can ask for, so treat it as the buyer's view of their floor between those checks.
Capture. Understand. Take Action.
See SpatialSense on your project
You can run the full platform free for 30 days on one project with no card, uploading 360° photos from your own camera in the browser, and send your buyers their first dated walk before the next instalment cycle. Support is 24/7 and one to one, from a person at Kodifly, so someone is on hand while your first walks go out.
SpatialSense isn't only for big projects, and you don't need to learn every part of it to use it, because on a custom plan you can take the 360° viewer on its own. Book a demo and we'll go through the details with you.
FAQ
How often should a developer send construction updates to buyers?
Before each instalment is the moment that matters most, because that is when buyers decide whether to pay, and a monthly update in between keeps the record continuous.
What should a construction progress update for buyers include?
The capture date, the buyer's floor with its place on the floor plan, the same viewpoints as the last update, and any change to the handover date in writing.
Is a construction update video enough for off-plan buyers?
A video shows the building rising, although it rarely shows a buyer's own floor or lines up with the last one, so pair it with a dated walk before each instalment.
Can buyers view a 360° site walk without an app?
With SpatialSense they can, because the share link opens in a browser without a login and you choose what it shows.