How to read a master plan before you buy off-plan

Buyers spend an hour on the brochure and five minutes on the master plan, which is the wrong way round. The brochure is a promise about a lifestyle. The master plan is a drawing of where you will actually live, and it answers questions the renders are designed to avoid.

One: where your plot sits relative to everything

Find your unit on the plan and then find the things nobody photographs: the substation, the service road, the community waste point, the future phase that is currently open ground. Proximity to an amenity is a selling point; proximity to the thing that serves the amenity is not.

Two: the phasing

If you are in phase one, the view from your terrace is a construction site for as long as the later phases take. That is not a reason to avoid phase one — the pricing usually reflects it — but it should be a decision rather than a surprise.

Three: entries, exits and the internal road hierarchy

How many ways in and out does the community have, and does your cluster sit on a through route or a loop? A single entrance shared by several thousand homes is a daily fact, and it is visible on the plan long before it is visible on a site visit.

Four: what is committed and what is indicative

Master plans distinguish between what the developer has committed to build and what is shown as indicative. Ask which category each amenity you are buying for falls into, and get the answer in writing. It is the single question that most often changes a decision.