Margalla Enclave Ballot Odds — the Honest Arithmetic
What are your chances? Mostly a list of what DHA has never published — plus the one hard inventory number that does exist, and where the famous “10%” actually came from.
Two days left. Applications for the DHA Margalla Enclave 3rd ballot close Friday, 4 September 2026. The form has to be in DHA’s hands by then, not posted on the day. How to apply, step by step
The honest answer to “what are my chances” is that DHA has never published the two numbers you would need. Not for this ballot, not for the last one. What follows is everything that is knowable, sourced, and separated carefully into fact and inference — because the percentage you have probably seen quoted is neither.
The one hard number: how many plots exist at all
Margalla Enclave’s environmental impact assessment, filed with Pak-EPA, contains the project’s own plot schedule. This is the ceiling on everything — every ballot that has been held and every ballot still to come draws from it.
| Category | Plots in the whole project |
|---|---|
| Residential — 25′×45′ (≈125 sq yd) | 1,709 |
| Residential — 35′×65′ (≈250 sq yd) | 2,634 |
| Residential — 50′×90′ (≈500 sq yd) | 2,647 |
| Residential, all sizes | 6,990 |
| Apartment plots (4 sizes) | 128 |
| Commercial — DHA’s printed total | 389 |
| Grand total, as printed | 7,507 |
Pak-EPA environmental impact assessment for Margalla Enclave, Table 3.1 — read directly from the filed PDF on environment.gov.pk, twice (1 and 2 September 2026).
DHA’s own filed document does not add up. The ten commercial sub-categories in that table sum to 388; adding the two petrol pumps, the hotel plot and the mega-mall plot gives 392. The table’s own printed commercial total says 389, and the grand total of 7,507 only works if you accept 389. We print DHA’s figures as DHA printed them and flag the gap rather than quietly correcting a government filing.
The two numbers nobody has
- How many plots are on offer in this ballot. Not on the portal, not in the form, not in the FAQ, not in any notice. Two ballots have already been drawn — February 2025 and November 2025 — and no running “plots remaining” count has ever been published.
- How many valid applications were received. Published once, for the first ballot only, and even then disputed.
What was reported, and where the famous “10%” comes from
- First ballot (closed 14 February 2025, drawn 24 February 2025): ProPakistani and The News both reported approximately 47,000 applications. Neither gave a plots-offered figure.
- The competing figure: a dealer site says “reportedly nearly 50,000” applications against “nearly 5,000” plots, and divides one by the other to reach “not more than 10%”. Its own word is reportedly. Both inputs are unsourced, and the 10% figure that now circulates through this niche — and gets repeated back by AI answers — is one dealer’s arithmetic on two guesses about a ballot that closed eighteen months ago.
- Second ballot (closed 10 November 2025 after a one-week extension, drawn 20 November 2025 at the Jinnah Convention Centre): the application count has never been published at all. Nobody in this market seems to have noticed the silence.
- Third ballot: open as this is written. No plots-offered figure, no application count.
47,000 and 50,000 are both in circulation and neither is DHA’s own count. We print both and pick neither.
What can honestly be said about your odds
One directional statement is safe, and it is worth knowing. The 5 Marla pool is the smallest in the entire project — 1,709 plots against 2,647 at 1 Kanal — while the 5 Marla entry price is by far the lowest, which is exactly the size a mass-market ballot draws most applications for. Fewer plots, more applicants: in relative terms the 5 Marla ballot is the hardest one to win and the 1 Kanal ballot the easiest. That is an inference from two solid facts, not a DHA statistic, and we label it as such.
Anything more precise would be invention. If a percentage matters to your decision, the correct move is not to find a better guess — it is to notice that the resale file market lets you buy a certainty instead of a lottery ticket, at a premium you can see in advance.
When the draw is likely — and why we will not call it a date
DHA has announced no draw date for the third ballot. Its own two precedents are unusually tidy:
- First ballot: closed 14 February 2025, drawn 24 February 2025 — 10 days.
- Second ballot: closed 10 November 2025, drawn 20 November 2025 — 10 days.
If the window really does shut on 4 September and the pattern holds, a draw in the middle of September would be consistent with how DHA has behaved twice. That is a pattern, not an announcement, and anyone selling you certainty about the date is selling you their guess. When the result does land, our balloting-result page tracks DHA’s own result page and checker in fifteen-minute intervals and says plainly whether anything has actually been published yet.
The questions behind the question
Nobody can tell you honestly, because DHA has never published how many plots are on offer in any ballot or how many applications it received for the second and third. The widely-quoted 'about 10%' comes from one dealer site dividing an unsourced 50,000 applications by an unsourced 5,000 plots for the FIRST ballot, in February 2025. The hard ceiling that does exist: the whole project contains 6,990 residential plots and 389 commercial ones across every ballot ever, per DHA's own environmental filing.
By inventory, 1 Kanal. The project contains 2,647 plots of 500 sq yd against just 1,709 of 125 sq yd, and the 5 Marla size carries the lowest entry price, which is the size a mass-market ballot always draws most applications for. Fewer plots and more applicants means the 5 Marla ballot is relatively the hardest to win. That is our inference from the inventory table, not a DHA statistic.
DHA places no restriction on the number of applications one person may submit, and each application needs its own form and its own non-refundable processing fee. Whether that improves your odds depends on numbers DHA has not published. What is certain is the cost: three 5 Marla applications is PKR 30,000 that does not come back, and three wins would be three separate 20% down payments falling due in the same 30 days.
No date has been announced. DHA's own two precedents both ran exactly 10 days from the close of applications to the draw - 14 to 24 February 2025, and 10 to 20 November 2025. That is a pattern worth knowing and not a date worth planning around. Our balloting-result page checks DHA's official result page and CNIC checker every fifteen minutes and reports the actual HTTP status, so you can see for yourself whether anything has been published.
Odds you can't compute, prices you can
The file market has a number attached to it today. Message me and compare it against a ballot ticket for the same size.