Three deals were disclosed this summer, and they all stopped at the same line

A market report tells you what property is worth. A disclosed deal tells you what somebody was willing to advance against it. Between May and September 2026 three of them landed in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, in two currencies and three different kinds of structure, and the number they share is half. That is the most useful single fact about asset-backed finance in private credit this year, and it did not come from a forecast.

What a disclosed deal shows that a market report does not

A quarterly report gives you the weather. Colliers put Dubai apartment and villa prices down 3 per cent between the first and second quarters of 2026, with apartment rents down 4 per cent and villa rents down 2 per cent, against roughly 11,650 homes handed over in the quarter and another 56,600 scheduled before the year ends.¹ Accurate, widely quoted, and almost impossible to act on.

A disclosed deal is narrower and harder to argue with. It names one asset, one provider of capital, and one figure that two parties signed. That figure answers the question an owner asks before any other: how much will this property carry?

Where that capital comes from once a bank has done its part is a separate question, and the map already exists: the seven routes that fund UAE property when a bank will not. What follows is narrower. It is about the ceiling those routes stop at, and about who wrote it.

The three disclosures, line by line

In May 2026 CPI Property Group and Emirates NBD executed a facility of AED 367.3 million secured against a portfolio of 19 ultra-luxury residences in Dubai. Fifteen of them are still under construction, spread across Bvlgari The Lighthouse on Jumeirah Bay, Casa Canal and One Canal on the Dubai Water Canal, and Mr. C Residences in Downtown. The facility covers a substantial part of the group's deferred payments to developers during 2026 and 2027, and the stated exit is a phased sale of the units once they are finished.²

Take the names out and it is an ordinary problem at an unusual size. Somebody bought early, owes the developer money on a schedule, and plans to repay by selling once the asset physically exists. That is the same shape as bridge capital between two assets, scaled up and written down.

In June 2026 SAB Invest and Retal launched a CMA-regulated real estate fund of SAR 1.9 billion for the Retal Heights mixed-use project in Riyadh. SAB committed capital of up to 50 per cent of the total investment value.³ Public disclosure of actual gearing inside a Gulf development structure is rare, which is exactly why the number is worth keeping.

The line they share

Both structures that named a ceiling named the same one. SAB committed up to half of total investment value. The two UAE banks that published off-plan programmes over the summer, described in a moment, both stopped at half of property value.

Half, from four directions, inside one summer. That is not a coincidence and it is not a negotiating position.

Where the 50 per cent comes from, and it is not a bank's opinion

It comes from the regulator, in writing, and it has been there since 2013. The Central Bank of the UAE sets the ceilings by category in its Regulations Regarding Mortgage Loans. A UAE national buying a first home worth up to AED 5 million can be advanced up to 85 per cent of the property's assessed value. An expatriate in the same position, up to 80 per cent. For a second or investment property the expatriate ceiling drops to 60 per cent regardless of what the property is worth.⁴

Then comes the sentence that governs everything sitting on a construction site:

"Given the long term nature of the development process and the higher level of risk to completion, the maximum LTV for mortgages on property being purchased off plans is 50% regardless of purpose, value, or category of purchaser."⁴

Regardless of purpose, value, or category. Wealth does not move it. Residency does not move it. Buying ten units instead of one does not move it. LTV here is simply the share of the property's assessed value that capital can be set against, and on an unfinished asset the regulator holds that share at half for everybody in the market.

The banks arrived at the same line from the other side

Two of them, within weeks of each other.

Dubai Islamic Bank introduced an off-plan product open to UAE nationals, residents and non-residents that covers up to 50 per cent of a property's value. Money goes to the developer progressively, released as construction milestones are met. During the build the buyer pays only the profit portion, and the full instalment begins at handover or within 24 months of drawdown, whichever comes first.⁵

ADCB, working with Ellington Properties, published a pre-approval that also reaches 50 per cent on off-plan purchases. It holds for twelve months and can be renewed each year until handover, so a buyer can aim it at milestone payments as they fall due.⁶

This is a genuine structural change, and how banks moved earlier into the build cycle traced its first half. Bank credit now arrives during construction instead of waiting for the end of it. What has not changed is the size of the ceiling. The banks did not lift the line. They moved to meet it earlier.

Why the ceiling did not move when prices did

The obvious question is why nobody stretched. Dubai spent three years going up, institutional capital is not short, and yet one summer produced four separate confirmations of the same conservative number.

The answer is in the second half of the Colliers reading. Prices eased 3 per cent in the quarter, and 56,600 homes are still scheduled to complete before the year is out.¹ For anyone advancing capital against an unfinished unit, that combination changes the question being asked. It is no longer what this is worth today. It is what this can be sold for in six to twelve months, once several thousand near-identical units have also been handed over. A ceiling of half is what that second question produces. What softer prices do to an exit is the same arithmetic seen from the seller's side.

Which leaves the part nobody publishes a programme for. If the regulator caps capital at half of value on an unfinished asset, and the developer's schedule runs on its own dates, the other half is equity and it is due on the developer's calendar rather than the buyer's. For a portfolio the size of CPI's, that gap is covered by a facility against the assets already held. For an individual owner holding one or two units, the same gap usually gets covered by selling something, which is the outcome the whole structure was meant to avoid.

What the disclosures did not say

Being honest about the limits of this evidence matters more than the evidence.

Where asset-backed co-financing sits against these numbers

NEMAX Finance is an asset-backed co-financing platform, not a bank and not a lender, and it does not compete for the half a bank will advance against an unfinished unit. It works on the other side of handover, where the asset exists and has a title deed.

The mechanics are deliberately close to what the disclosed deals show, at a size an individual owner can actually use. Capital is set against the property itself through an ADGM SPV, which is simply a separate company that holds the asset, with a first charge registered over it. LTV stays at or below 70 per cent of valuation. The term runs about twelve months, sized to a real exit rather than to a mortgage schedule, with a target of thirty days to closing. The property is what gets measured, not the applicant's file. For the full mechanism, raising capital against your Dubai property walks the route end to end.

The pattern in the three disclosures is the part worth keeping. Serious capital in this market prices the asset, keeps its share conservative, and wants the exit named before it commits. That is not a peculiarity of private credit. It is what the regulator has been writing down since 2013, and what four separate parties confirmed in one summer.

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