Investor Guide · September 2026
Seven Questions to Ask Before You Put Money Into Any Property Investment
Most property decisions in Egypt are made on two pieces of information: the location and the price. Both matter. Neither tells you what you need to know. Below are seven questions that separate a sound property investment from an expensive lesson. They are written so you can point them at Amtaar exactly as readily as at anyone else — if we could not answer them, we would not deserve the investment either.
1. What, precisely, do I own?
There is a real difference between owning an asset, owning a claim on an asset, and owning a promise about a future asset. Ask which is on offer, and ask to see the document that proves it. A share in a finished building is not the same thing as a reservation on a unit that does not exist yet.
With Amtaar, ownership is documented in a common-ownership share-sale contract for the specific unit, stating your exact percentage of the property. Ask any platform for the equivalent document, and read it before you transfer anything.
2. Who regulates this, and for what activity?
In Egypt, non-banking financial activity falls under the Financial Regulatory Authority. A licence is not paperwork — it means a company has met the regulator's requirements and remains subject to its supervision. Ask specifically what the licence permits, because licences are activity-specific and a firm may be licensed for one thing and not another.
Amtaar Capital for Financial Investments is licensed by the FRA to promote and underwrite securities subscriptions. That is a verifiable fact, which is the point: prefer claims you can check over claims you have to trust.
3. Is the property finished, and is it leased?
A delivered, occupied, income-producing building and an off-plan project are different risk categories that often get discussed in the same language. A finished leased asset has a tenant, a rent roll and a demonstrable income history. A project under construction has a timeline and an intention.
Ask when the building was delivered, who occupies it now, and what the current occupancy is. If income is being quoted, ask whether it is income the asset already produces or income it is expected to produce.
4. How exactly is the return calculated, and what is deducted?
A headline yield is meaningless until you know what sits underneath it. Is it gross or net? Which fees come out? Is it calculated on your invested amount or on the property value? Does it change over time?
Amtaar quotes a 10% annual rental yield increasing 10% per year, with 5% of the return deducted as a management fee, producing a 9.5% net yield, distributed quarterly on 1 January, 1 April, 1 July and 1 October. Entry carries a one-time 2.5% commission. You should be able to get a breakdown at that level of detail from anyone asking for your money.
5. How do I exit, how long does it take, and what does it cost?
This is the question asked least and worth the most. Establish the mechanism before you commit: who buys your position, how it is priced, how long it takes, and what you pay. Vague reassurance at the point of sale has a habit of becoming a much longer conversation later.
On Amtaar you can sell after the first year. If you find the buyer, Amtaar handles the transfer and charges nothing. If you do not, Amtaar sells your shares on the secondary market at the market price at that time, for a 2.5% commission. Liquidity is better than a whole unit, and it is not instant. Both halves of that sentence are true, and you should be wary of anyone who only tells you the first.
6. What happens if I cannot keep paying?
Any structure requiring a long series of future payments deserves a hard look at what happens when life interrupts them. What are the penalties? Do you forfeit what you have already paid? Can you transfer the obligation to someone else, and at what cost?
This is precisely where instalment-based commitments have caused difficulty for Egyptian households, and it is worth answering before signing rather than after. An investment funded in full up front, which then pays you, does not carry this risk at all. That is a structural difference, not a marketing one.
7. What is the honest downside?
Ask directly what could go wrong, and treat a smooth answer as a warning sign. Property values can fall. Rental income can dip. Real estate is less liquid than listed securities. Returns are not guaranteed, and projections remain projections.
A platform that states its risks plainly is telling you something useful about how it will behave when conditions are difficult. One that presents an investment as having no meaningful downside is telling you something too. Diversify across more than one asset, commit only money you can leave in place for the medium to long term, and be more sceptical of the pitch than of the risk disclosure.
