What it costs to buy at The Acres
Two numbers decide whether a purchase here works: the price, and the schedule the price is paid on. Most published summaries give the first and skip the second, which is the wrong way round — the schedule is what a buyer actually has to live with.
Here are both, in full, from the Meraas payment sheets.
Launch prices
| Home | Launch price from |
|---|---|
| The Acres — 3 bedroom | AED 6,500,000 |
| The Acres — 4 bedroom | AED 7,800,000 |
| The Acres — 5 bedroom | AED 9,500,000 |
| The Acres Estates — 5 bedroom | AED 14,500,000 |
| The Acres Estates — 6 bedroom | AED 16,000,000 |
| The Acres Estates — 7 bedroom | AED 22,200,000 |
These are launch prices, not current values. They are the figures the original buyers paid when their phase was released, and the community has been trading since. They remain useful for two reasons: they set the base an original owner is measuring a resale against, and every instalment below is a percentage of them.
What a home at The Acres is worth today is a different question, answered by recent transactions on the same type, not by this table.
The villa payment calendar
Ten instalments, on a 65/35 split — 65% during construction, 35% at handover.
| Instalment | Share | Due |
|---|---|---|
| Down payment | 10% | On booking |
| 1st | 10% | July 2025 |
| 2nd | 10% | November 2025 |
| 3rd | 5% | February 2026 |
| 4th | 5% | May 2026 |
| 5th | 5% | August 2026 |
| 6th | 5% | November 2026 |
| 7th | 5% | February 2027 |
| 8th | 5% | May 2027 |
| 9th | 5% | August 2027 |
| 10th — handover | 35% | August 2028 |
The Estates payment calendar
Eight instalments, more front-loaded — five payments of 10% before the schedule steps down.
| Instalment | Share | Due |
|---|---|---|
| Down payment | 10% | On booking |
| 1st | 10% | August 2025 |
| 2nd | 10% | February 2026 |
| 3rd | 10% | July 2026 |
| 4th | 10% | December 2026 |
| 5th | 5% | May 2027 |
| 6th | 5% | October 2027 |
| 7th | 5% | February 2028 |
| 8th — handover | 35% | August 2028 |
Meraas gives estimated construction completion as August 2028 on both sheets.
Why the calendar matters more than the headline
Read the villa schedule against today’s date and something useful falls out.
An original buyer who took a villa at launch has now reached the August 2026 instalment. They are 45% in, with 20% left to pay across four quarterly instalments and then the 35% balloon in August 2028.
An Estates buyer at the same point has paid 40%, and their next payment is a 10% instalment in December 2026 — on a five bedroom bought at launch, that is AED 1.45 million in a single cheque — before the same 35% at the end.
That is the structure that produces resale supply. A buyer whose circumstances have changed does not usually run into trouble at the down payment. They run into it in front of a 35% payment two years out, and they start looking for an exit twelve to eighteen months before it lands.
For a buyer, that means the negotiating position is not uniform across the community. It depends on which phase an owner bought into and how much of their schedule is behind them.
The costs on top
The headline price is not what leaves the account. On a Dubai purchase, budget for:
- Dubai Land Department transfer — 4% of the purchase price. This is the large one and it is not negotiable.
- Registration trustee fee — a fixed administrative charge, plus VAT.
- Agency commission — 2% plus VAT, standard on the secondary market.
- Developer transfer / NOC fee on a resale. Meraas sets this, and it is charged when the original buyer assigns the contract. Confirm the current figure for the specific unit — it is not the same across every developer and it is not the same across every project.
- Mortgage registration — 0.25% of the loan amount, plus a fixed fee, if you are financing.
- Service charges from handover. These are set by the community management and are not yet published for The Acres. On a community with this much landscape, this is a line to ask about specifically rather than assume — a large green share is a benefit that is paid for annually.
A workable rule for an off-plan resale is to add roughly 6 to 7% to the agreed price before financing costs. On a AED 7.8 million four bedroom, that is in the region of half a million dirhams of transaction cost, and it should be in the plan from the first conversation rather than discovered at the trustee office.
Buying from the developer or from an owner
Two different transactions.
Direct from Meraas, where inventory remains in a phase, you take the published price and the published calendar, and you pay 4% DLD on registration. Simple, no premium, no negotiation.
From an existing owner, you pay what the owner has already paid, plus whatever premium the market supports, and you take over the remaining calendar. This is where most of the activity now sits, because the early phases sold out.
The second route is where the work is — and where knowing an owner’s position in the payment calendar is worth more than knowing the asking price.
Payment schedules and launch prices are taken from the Meraas price and payment plan sheets for The Acres and The Acres Estates. Government fees are as published by the Dubai Land Department. Prices quoted are launch prices and are not a guide to current market value.