As a buyers agent, people often ask me if I recommend new / off the plan, or established properties.  I will generally recommend established properties most of the time.

Although off-the-plan purchases can offer some significant cost savings and inducements, often times, this approach does not pay off in the long-term.

First and foremost, you should ask yourself why the developer needs to make such cost savings and offer such inducements if the property is so good.  Next, you need to ask yourself: if these cost savings and inducements are necessary for you to purchase the home, what will you need to discount to a future buyer, in order to sell the home?

Contrast this with an established property - and you rarely find the vendor offering cost savings and inducements to the buyer.

The best property to buy is the one that is hotly contested.  The one where you can hardly squeeze in the front door of the open home, because there are so many people in there.  The one that sells prior to auction for a great price: that is the sort of property that will appreciate well, and the one that you will eventually be able to sell - for an excellent price.

Many investors and home buyers make costly and regrettable mistakes when they buy a property off the plan, particularly when their decision making process was influenced by inducements and cost savings.

The best option, in my professional opinion, is to buy a home that you can see, feel and learn about: a property that has a history.  With an off-the-plan property, you never really know what it will end up like.  Will there be building defects?  How significant will they be?  Will the fittings and fixtures be in accordance with what was agreed? In one case, the property ended up being short of a bedroom, and there was nothing the purchaser could do about it!  The developer had the right to modify the plan, and they exercised that right.  In many other cases, significant and costly building defects negate any cost savings and inducements offered.

The best advice I can give any property buyer is to source independent and objective advice from a licensed, independent buyer's agent.  NB: there is a difference between a buyer's agent, and in independent buyer's agent.  An independent buyer's agent works solely for you, the client.  They are not employed or engaged by a developer to "sell" their stock, and they do not work with a selling agent.  They are paid directly and solely by the client - to maintain their Independence and impartiality in the property purchasing process.