Rental Yield on DHA Commercial Plazas: What Investors Should Expect

Buying a commercial plaza for the rental income it generates is one of the more direct ways to put capital into DHA Lahore's commercial market, but it is also one of the easier investments to get wrong if the numbers are not checked carefully. Here is a real example we are currently handling, and the framework we use with clients evaluating any plaza for income.

A Real Example: Plot 153-B, Broadway Commercial

We are currently representing an 8 Marla commercial plaza in DHA Phase 8's Broadway Commercial, priced at PKR 45 Crore. The Ground, Basement, and Mezzanine floors have been rented to a corporate tenant, Express News' IT department, at PKR 8 Lacs per month, with that tenancy in place for several months already. Four additional floors in the same plaza remain vacant and available to lease or occupy directly.

This is a useful real-world case because it shows both sides of a plaza investment clearly. The occupied floors are already generating verified income at a known rate. The vacant floors represent the upside a buyer would be stepping into, income that does not exist yet but that the building's location and existing tenancy make a reasonable expectation to pursue.

Working Through the Yield

On the currently rented floors alone, PKR 8 Lacs a month works out to PKR 96 Lacs a year in gross rental income, against a property price of PKR 45 Crore. That is a modest gross yield on the full purchase price when only three of the building's floors are earning, which is exactly the point: a plaza priced on its full potential income, not its current income, only makes sense as a purchase if you have real conviction about leasing the remaining floors.

If the four vacant floors were leased at a comparable rate to the occupied floors, once adjusted for their different sizes and specifications, the building's total rental income could meaningfully exceed what the occupied floors alone generate today. That is the actual investment case for a plaza like this: not the yield on day one, but the yield once fully let, weighed against how realistic full occupancy is for that specific location.

What This Means for Buyers

The mistake to avoid is treating a plaza's asking price as if it should be justified by current rental income alone. A partially rented plaza is being sold on a combination of its proven income and its unrealized potential, and the buyer's job is to independently assess how credible that unrealized potential actually is, not to accept the seller's framing of it.

For Broadway Commercial specifically, that assessment is more favorable than it would be in a less established commercial sector, given the existing mix of businesses already operating there and the corporate-grade tenant already in place on this particular plaza. A corporate tenant like a news organization's IT department also signals that the location clears a due diligence bar serious commercial tenants apply before signing a lease, which is itself useful information for a buyer.

Questions to Ask Before Buying Any Plaza for Income

Before committing to a plaza purchase built around rental income, verify the existing lease terms directly, including duration and renewal conditions, rather than taking a monthly rent figure at face value.

A plaza with real, verifiable tenancy in place, like this one, is a meaningfully different proposition from a fully vacant commercial building priced purely on projected income. The existing rent is proof the location works. What is left to verify is how much of the remaining potential is realistic to capture, and over what timeframe.

If you are evaluating this plaza specifically or comparing it against other commercial options in

DHA Phase 8 Broadway Commercial, we can walk through the occupancy and rent details in more depth before you decide. See also our Broadway Commercial investment guide for pricing across the sector.