What this is
An answer with the document attached
Portals will show you what is for sale. They will not tell you what the registration fee is split between, which zones a foreign buyer may actually own in, or which figure about a project has never been published at all.
That is what this site is for. Every number here carries the document it came from and the day it was checked. Where something is unpublished we say so in those words, rather than filling the hole with a plausible sentence.
Start here
Three ways in
Buying in Abu Dhabi
Who may hold freehold and where, what the registration fee is split between, how the off-plan escrow law works, and the one residency figure we refuse to print.
Saadiyat Island
The cultural district as a place to live: the museums, the beaches, the schools, and where new waterfront building sits against them.
Marsa Al Saadiyat
Aldar's waterfront district on Saadiyat: what the launch release states, and the list of things that do not exist yet.
How we handle numbers
Three rules we apply to ourselves
A price without a date is not a price. Every figure carries its currency, the day it was taken and its source. A converted amount is our own arithmetic and says so, with the rate and the rate's date beside it.
A range is never produced by multiplying. An area times an average rate invents a number that appears in no document, and it usually invents it upwards.
When sources disagree, we print neither. We write down that they disagree and send the current position from the department itself.
Talk to us
Ask about an address
Name the project you are weighing up and we come back with the payment schedule as published, the handover position and the full cost of the first year — each line with its document.