Best areas to live in Abu Dhabi: Yas, Saadiyat and Al Reem

The three Abu Dhabi districts worth looking at first for living are Yas Island, Saadiyat Island and Al Reem Island. All three are designated investment zones where foreign nationals can own freehold. Yas is theme parks, golf and villas; Saadiyat is museums and a protected beach; Al Reem is high-rise living minutes from the city centre.

The list is short for a reason. Most of the Abu Dhabi mainland does not offer freehold to foreign buyers, so international activity in the emirate concentrates on a handful of islands. These three are its principal focus.

Below is each of the three: what the place is, what you can live in, where the schools and the roads are and what can go wrong. Prices are left out deliberately. They move, and current figures sit on each district page.

The three at a glance

Yas Island: what is it like to live beside the circuit and the parks?

Easy for most of the year and crowded for a few weeks of it. Yas Island covers about 25 square kilometres and has been developed by Aldar since 2007. Roughly eight thousand people live there, against millions of visitors a year.

The island holds Yas Marina Circuit, Ferrari World, Warner Bros. World, Yas Waterworld and SeaWorld, the Yas Links golf course, a marina, beaches and Yas Mall, the largest shopping centre in the emirate.

The homes fall into distinct communities. Yas Acres is the villa and townhouse side, laid out around the golf course with the largest plots on the island. Water’s Edge and Mayan are apartment communities on the water, with Ansam and Yas Beach Residences between them.

A ten-lane causeway links the island to the mainland: roughly ten minutes to Zayed International Airport, thirty to Saadiyat and about an hour to Dubai.

What to weigh. Grand Prix week and major concerts bring real congestion and noise, and residents plan around them. The island is not central, and it is designed around visitors as much as residents. The service charge is not small, and Aldar keeps releasing new phases that compete with existing owners at resale.

Saadiyat Island: what does a cultural island give a resident?

Quiet, a beach and schools five minutes from the city centre. Saadiyat Island covers about 27 square kilometres roughly 600 metres off the coastline, and it is natural rather than reclaimed. A bridge carrying a high-speed road connects it to the mainland.

The Cultural District is the best-known part: the Louvre Abu Dhabi is operating, with the Sheikh Zayed National Museum and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi in progress, alongside Manarat Al Saadiyat. The island also holds New York University Abu Dhabi, an eighteen-hole golf course and several resort hotels.

The sand beach runs for eight and a half kilometres and is genuinely protected, with turtle nesting on parts of the shoreline. The Mamsha Al Saadiyat promenade follows the shore for a kilometre and a half. The island is quiet, low-density and green by Gulf standards, and strict controls keep it that way.

Schooling is solved on the island: Cranleigh Abu Dhabi and nurseries. Cultural District apartments are the accessible entry, with museums and schools within walking distance. Villas on the beach side are the premium product, and Saadiyat is the most liquid villa market in the emirate.

What to weigh. Everyday retail is limited and residents drive for a substantial shop. Dubai is an hour and twenty minutes away, which rules out a daily commute. Villas trade thinly and take time to sell. The masterplan is drawn for 160,000 residents, so today’s density is not the final one.

Al Reem Island: does a high-rise island by the centre work for a family?

It works for a household that wants a city setting with everything close. Al Reem Island is the emirate’s principal high-rise residential district, about six hundred metres off the shoreline and joined to the mainland by two bridges. It is the most liquid apartment market in Abu Dhabi.

Daily life is covered on the island itself. Shopping is Reem Mall and Shams Boutik with Carrefour and Géant supermarkets; healthcare is Reem Hospital and the Burjeel day surgery centre. Schools, clinics and shops sit at podium level and along the internal roads.

The main public space is Reem Central Park, with sports courts, a skate park and cycle paths. For swimming there is Cove Beach on the island, or Saadiyat’s public beach a quarter of an hour away. A substantial share of the buildings are dog-friendly, which is rare in Abu Dhabi.

The Corniche is around twenty minutes away, the Louvre about thirteen, Yas Island thirty and the airport forty. The island is several schemes rather than one — Shams Abu Dhabi, Marina Square, City of Lights and Najmat — and they differ in age, density and waterfront access.

What to weigh. The island is built up hard and its bridges congest at peak. Parking is tight in many buildings. Tower quality and management vary widely, and the earliest stock is approaching twenty years old. Amenity is functional rather than generous, so families wanting space and greenery are poorly served.

How does buying in Abu Dhabi differ from Dubai?

• Foreign freehold exists only in designated investment zones. Yas, Saadiyat and Al Reem are among them; most of the mainland is not.
• A different registrar. On Saadiyat, registration is with the Department of Municipalities and Transport rather than the Dubai Land Department, and the process differs in detail.
• A thinner market. Abu Dhabi registers a fraction of Dubai’s transaction volume, which means fewer comparable sales to price against and a longer time to sell.
• Its own rules on short lets. Abu Dhabi operates its own permit regime rather than Dubai’s holiday-home framework, and the specific building must allow it.

On Saadiyat there is no annual property tax and no personal income tax on rental income. Owners associations also operate under a different framework from Dubai’s.

How do you choose between the three?

• A villa with golf, parks and the airport close by — Yas Island.
• Quiet, a beach, museums and a school on the island — Saadiyat Island.
• An apartment in the city with a hospital and shops on the doorstep — Al Reem Island.
• The widest choice and the easiest exit — Al Reem Island.
• A job in Dubai — none of the three: it is about an hour each way from Yas and an hour and twenty from Saadiyat.

All three islands are homes for people whose work is in Abu Dhabi. The choice narrows by itself if you take it in order: house or apartment first, then the drive to work and school, then the specific community or tower. The name of the island guarantees nothing on its own.