25 homes today, in ten of our fourteen apartment communities
One bedroom apartments in Abu Dhabi, read by the square foot
We hold 25 one bedroom apartments today and they run from AED 700,000 to AED 3,826,970. The floor area behind those two prices moves a fraction as far, 652 sq ft against 1,050. What separates them is the rate underneath, and across the whole list that rate runs from AED 1,074 a square foot to AED 3,986. It sets what you pay, what the building bills you every year, and what any rent you are quoted is worth as a percentage.
Ten communities, one size
Twenty five homes, priced and measured off our own book the morning this page went up. Each rate below is that home's price divided by that home's floor area, so it is arithmetic rather than an estimate of an area.
Why the rate and not the price
A one bedroom search hands back homes five and a half times apart in price and two and a half times apart in floor area. The gap between those two multiples is the address, and Abu Dhabi charges for it by the square foot.
One bedroom reaches ten of the fourteen communities in our apartment book, further than any other bedroom count gets. It is also why the entry prices read like five separate cities as you go down them: AED 700,000 in Al Ghadeer, AED 1,000,000 on Al Reem Island, AED 1,550,000 on Yas, AED 1,980,000 on Saadiyat, AED 2,900,000 on Fahid Island.
Four times the entry price between Al Ghadeer and Fahid Island
Sorted by floor area the list moves two and a half times, 484 sq ft at one end and 1,260 at the other. Sorted by price it moves five and a half. One bedroom is one bedroom in every community here, so the thing being priced is the square foot, and that is the figure running from AED 1,074 to AED 3,986.
Price moves 5.5 times, floor area 2.6 times
The largest one bedroom we hold is 1,260 sq ft at Shams Abu Dhabi on Al Reem Island, listed at AED 1,708,180. Every one of the four homes above AED 2,000,000 is smaller than it, and the dearest of those, at AED 3,826,970, measures 1,050 sq ft. Space and price part company near the top of this page.
1,260 sq ft for AED 1,708,180 against 1,050 sq ft for AED 3,826,970
Rent is agreed on a home, never on a market, so no honest person hands you a yield before there is a tenancy. What can be known to the dirham is the half you are buying: the price, the floor area, and the rate between them. Nearly four times separates that rate across this page, and it sits underneath every percentage anyone will ever quote you.
AED 1,074 at the bottom of the list, AED 3,986 at the top
Community by community
Entry prices are what we hold today, and the rates beside them belong to specific apartments rather than to the community at large. Read the ceiling in each row as well as the entry: several of these communities stop long before your money does.
FromAED 1,000,0009 homes
More than a third of the page sits here, with a ceiling of AED 1,849,000 and apartments in City of Lights, Marina Square, Shams Abu Dhabi, Tamouh and Vista 3. Inside that one island the rate almost doubles: AED 1,356 a square foot at Shams Abu Dhabi, AED 2,434 at Vista 3.
FromAED 1,550,0004 homes
Four apartments inside a 50 sq ft band, 774 to 824, and AED 391,100 apart in price. Three sit in Gardenia Bay, where AED 150,000 separates an 813 sq ft home from an 818 sq ft one. Here you are paying for the floor and the outlook, not for space.
FromAED 1,980,0003 homes
All three in the Cultural District, and two of them match to the square foot: 958 sq ft at AED 3,750,000 and 958 sq ft at AED 3,818,438. AED 68,438 of difference with no floor area behind it at all.
FromAED 700,0002 homes
The entry point for the whole page, at AED 1,074 a square foot, and two bathrooms come with it. The second apartment, in Al Ghadeer 2, asks AED 900,000 for ten square feet more and one bathroom fewer.
FromAED 2,900,0002 homes
The steepest entry on the page, four times Al Ghadeer's. Both apartments are in The Beach House and both are priced at almost the same rate, AED 3,639 and AED 3,645 a square foot, so the AED 926,970 between them buys 253 square feet and nothing else.
FromAED 820,0001 home
A single apartment at Royal Park, 547 sq ft with two bathrooms. Second lowest price on the whole page, and only the seventh lowest rate at AED 1,499 a square foot, because 547 sq ft is not much floor area to divide a price by.
FromAED 850,0001 home
At 484 sq ft this is the smallest apartment on the page, and Reeman Living still asks AED 150,000 more for it than Al Ghadeer asks for 652 sq ft. Entry price and floor area do not travel together down here.
FromAED 900,0001 home
Second lowest rate on the page, AED 1,077 a square foot, applied to 836 sq ft in Al Reef Downtown. Nothing else below AED 1,200,000 gives you that much floor area, and it carries two bathrooms as well.
FromAED 1,000,0001 home
639 sq ft at Plaza, one of two apartments priced at exactly AED 1,000,000. The other is 642 sq ft in City of Lights on Al Reem Island. Three square feet between them, and an island.
FromAED 1,250,0001 home
1,027 sq ft at Bloom Living with two bathrooms, priced at AED 1,217 a square foot. Only Al Ghadeer and Al Reef reach a lower rate than that anywhere on the page, and no community outside Al Reem and Fahid holds a bigger one bedroom.
Nine of the 25 apartments sit in the seven rows at the bottom of this table, one or two to a community. Stock this size turns over quickly, so ask what is genuinely live in a community before you build a plan on a single row. Worth knowing too is what is missing from the table: we sell apartments on Al Maryah Island, at Al Raha Beach and on Al Hudayriat Island, and not one of the three holds a one bedroom on our list today.
Live on the list
A slice of the 25, lowest price first. The card gives you the price. The figure worth writing beside it is the floor area, because those two together are the only thing that makes one of these homes comparable with another.
The unbuilt three quarters
Seventy three projects still sell a one bedroom against 25 ready apartments, so almost three quarters of the choice at this size has not been built yet. Read their entry prices with care though. Ten of the fourteen lowest priced open with a studio, which means the headline figure beside them is not a one bedroom figure.
The saving, checked
Off plan looks a great deal less expensive at this size until you hold the size constant. The lowest project price on our catalogue is AED 407,000, and it belongs to a building whose range opens with a studio. Compare one bedroom with one bedroom and the picture changes completely.
Buy ready if the rate per square foot has to be certain and the income has to begin this year. Buy off plan if you want the payments spread over the build or you want one particular tower, and price the waiting honestly: at this size the two genuine entry points are AED 17,000 apart, not AED 293,000.
The income side
Most people buying a one bedroom in Abu Dhabi are buying it to let, so the return question belongs here rather than on a page of its own. This is how we answer it. The half you are buying, the price and the floor area and the rate between them, is on our list to the dirham. The other half is a rent agreed in one building in one month, and we will not print a figure like that beside a home we have not rented ourselves. So the table gives you the side that can be proved and the calculator underneath takes the rent somebody has actually quoted you.
| Community | What a square foot costs here | What that means before any rent is agreed |
|---|---|---|
| Al Ghadeer | AED 1,074 to AED 1,359 | The lowest rate on the page and the lowest entry price, AED 700,000. Whatever rent you are quoted here is divided by a smaller number than anywhere else on this list. |
| Al Reef | AED 1,077 | One apartment, and the most floor area on the page under AED 1,200,000 at 836 sq ft. A single listing is not a market, so read this as one home rather than as a community price. |
| Zayed City | AED 1,217 | 1,027 sq ft at Bloom Living for AED 1,250,000. Outside Al Reem Island nothing else on the page puts a rate this low against a floor area this large. |
| Al Reem Island | AED 1,356 to AED 2,434 | Nine apartments and a rate that nearly doubles within one island. Two of them are priced at AED 1,000,000 and AED 1,200,000, and the dearer of the two is 149 sq ft smaller. |
| Masdar City, Khalifa City and Al Shamkha | AED 1,499 to AED 1,756 | One apartment each, at AED 820,000, AED 1,000,000 and AED 850,000, on floor areas of 547, 639 and 484 sq ft. Modest prices on small floor areas, which is exactly how a rate climbs into the middle of the range. |
| Yas Island | AED 1,907 to AED 2,508 | Four apartments inside 50 sq ft of each other. The rate, not the size, is the whole of what separates AED 1,550,000 from AED 1,941,100 on this island. |
| Saadiyat Island and Fahid Island | AED 2,612 to AED 3,986 | Between them they hold every apartment on the page above AED 2,000,000, four in all, each with two bathrooms and none larger than 1,050 sq ft. |
After costs6.6%
An estimate on the figures you enter, not a forecast. Service charges differ by building.
Gross yield is one year of rent divided by what you paid. Net is what survives the service charge, the management, the maintenance and any month the home stands empty. That charge follows the square feet rather than the price, so the roomier apartments here hand back part of their lower rate every year. Nothing on this page is a forecast, and no rent here is promised by us or by anyone else.
The cost of owning one
The price is paid once. The fees around it are charged on the price. The service charge is charged on the floor area, every year, for as long as the deed has your name on it. Three different bases, and at this size they can point in opposite directions.
| Cost | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| The price, paid once | AED 700,000 to AED 3,826,970 | The whole span of this page, and the only one of the three that you negotiate. |
| Transfer and agency fees, charged on the price | A percentage of what the deed records | They scale with the address rather than with the home, so the same one bedroom carries five and a half times the fee at the top of this page as at the bottom. The rates are published on our under AED 5 million page, and what they come to on your own purchase goes to you on paper before you are asked to sign. |
| Service charge, charged on the floor area | A rate per square foot a year, set by the building | The cost one bedroom buyers most often forget to compare. The largest apartment here is 1,260 sq ft and the smallest is 484, so one owner is billed on more than two and a half times the area of the other for the same number of bedrooms. |
| The loan, if you take one | Your Down Payment goes in, the rest is repaid monthly | The calculator below prices it on the rate you were quoted. Banks price a file on the borrower and on the tower, so put in a number somebody has actually offered you. |
Two homes from this list. AED 1,708,180 for 1,260 sq ft at Shams Abu Dhabi, and AED 1,941,100 for 774 sq ft at Yas Riva Residences. The Al Reem apartment is AED 232,920 less to buy, so its fees on the day are lower too. It is also billed on 486 sq ft more floor area every year for as long as you hold it. Ask both towers for their service charge rate before you decide which of the two is the less expensive home, because the purchase price has answered only half of the question.
A service charge rate for a tower nobody has billed us from is not something we will publish. Ask for the last statement issued by that specific building and we will get it on paper alongside the offer. Whatever price you end up typing, the calculator below turns it into the cash you would need on the day.
Both ends, priced
Type in AED 700,000, then AED 3,826,970. The gap that opens between those two repayments is the rate per square foot translated into cash, arriving every month until the loan is finished. Then put in the price of the apartment you actually have in mind, because that is the only figure deciding anything.
Repayment each monthAED 9,751
This is arithmetic on the numbers in the boxes and nothing more. Rates move, and a lender prices your file on your income, your residency and the building it is lending against. Ask us and a broker will quote you a rate on paper.
Four buyers, four reasons
Seven apartments sit at or under AED 1,000,000, spread through Al Ghadeer, Masdar City, Al Shamkha, Al Reef, Khalifa City and Al Reem Island. Price and space are barely related down here: AED 850,000 buys 484 sq ft in Al Shamkha and AED 900,000 buys 836 in Al Reef. Work in square feet and the shortlist reorders itself.
7 apartments at or under AED 1,000,000
Your section is the income side above. Treat the rate per square foot as the serious number, because it is the denominator of every yield anyone will ever calculate on the home and it moves nearly four times across this page. Then get the tower's service charge in writing, which is the deduction most one bedroom sums quietly leave out.
A rate range of AED 1,074 to AED 3,986
It exists, and it is not at the expensive end. Al Reem Island holds the three largest one bedrooms we have, 1,260, 1,228 and 1,069 sq ft, and all three are priced between AED 1,708,180 and AED 1,849,000. Every apartment above AED 2,000,000 on this page is smaller than all three of them.
1,260 sq ft at AED 1,708,180
Five apartments sit in the Saadiyat Cultural District and The Beach House on Fahid Island, and four of them ask AED 2,900,000 or more. Up there you are buying the rate openly, AED 3,639 to AED 3,986 a square foot, two bathrooms in each and nothing over 1,050 sq ft. The fifth, at AED 1,980,000, is the only other way onto Saadiyat at this size.
5 apartments, and the Saadiyat entry is AED 1,980,000
The order to ask in
Nothing about the Abu Dhabi purchase itself changes at this size. What changes is the order you ask the questions in, because two of them decide the shortlist and both can be answered from a phone.
Divide the asking price by the floor area. A minute a home, and the ranking rearranges itself: on this page AED 900,000 in Al Reef buys 836 sq ft while AED 1,200,000 on Al Reem buys 493. No viewing will tell you that as quickly as the division does.
It is billed on the floor area you have just measured, every year, and it is the whole difference between a gross yield and a real one. A tower that will not put its rate on paper has already told you something worth knowing.
The two genuine entry points at this size are AED 17,000 apart. So the real choice is between a home you can measure and stand in now, and a home priced at booking and delivered on a date the developer sets.
Both questions, and the second one carries more information than the first. We give you what that building has actually done rather than an average for the area, and where we do not have the figure we tell you that instead of estimating it.
Agree the price, sign, pay the fees, and the deed is issued in your name. The stage by stage version of that sequence lives on our under AED 5 million page, and the sum you need sitting in the account on the day is the cash figure the calculator above returns.
Either side of one bedroom
Every community named on this page, the sizes and budgets sitting on either side of it, and the three tools that will do the arithmetic for you.
Asked at one bedroom
Today we hold 25 of them and they run from AED 700,000 to AED 3,826,970. The middle of that list is AED 1,316,000, an 821 sq ft apartment at Tamouh on Al Reem Island. Thirteen of the 25 are at or under AED 1,500,000 and 21 of them are under AED 2,000,000, so the four homes near the top are a separate market rather than the normal price of a one bedroom here.
Al Ghadeer, where our entry is AED 700,000 for a 652 sq ft apartment with two bathrooms, at AED 1,074 a square foot. Masdar City follows at AED 820,000, Al Shamkha at AED 850,000 and Al Reef at AED 900,000. Al Reem Island and Khalifa City both open at exactly AED 1,000,000.
Floor areas across the 25 begin at 484 sq ft and stop at 1,260, and 813 sits in the middle of them. That is a spread of two and a half times, against a price spread of five and a half times, which is the single most useful thing to know before viewing anything. The smallest home on the list is not the least expensive one and the largest is not the dearest.
We will not answer that with a yield, because a yield needs a rent, and a rent belongs to one building in one month rather than to a market. What we can give you is the half of the sum that is knowable: the price, the floor area and the rate between them, which runs from AED 1,074 to AED 3,986 a square foot across this page. Take that, the tower's written service charge rate and the rent a letting agent has quoted you for that specific building, and the calculator on this page does the rest.
Nine of our 25 are there, priced from AED 1,000,000 up to AED 1,849,000, and the island also carries the three largest one bedrooms anywhere on this page at 1,260, 1,228 and 1,069 sq ft. Within that single island the rate nearly doubles, AED 1,356 a square foot at the bottom of it against AED 2,434 at the top, so two apartments sharing an address and a bedroom count are not the same purchase at all. Which tower the money is spent in is a question large enough to have its own page, linked below.
Yes, seven of the 25 are at or under AED 1,000,000, spread across six communities: Al Ghadeer, Masdar City, Al Shamkha, Al Reef, Khalifa City and Al Reem Island. The largest of them is the 836 sq ft apartment in Al Reef Downtown at AED 900,000, which is also the biggest home anywhere on this page below AED 1,200,000.
Between AED 1,074 and AED 3,986, and AED 1,730 is the midpoint of the 25. Al Ghadeer and Al Reef hold the bottom of that range, at AED 1,074 and AED 1,077. Al Reem Island covers AED 1,356 to AED 2,434, Yas Island AED 1,907 to AED 2,508, and the top belongs to the Saadiyat Cultural District and The Beach House on Fahid Island.
Less than the headline suggests. Our catalogue opens at AED 407,000, but that building sells studios as well, so the figure beside its name is not a one bedroom figure. Ten of the fourteen lowest priced projects do exactly the same thing. Hold the size constant and off plan begins at AED 717,000, which is seventeen thousand dirhams above the AED 700,000 ready apartment in Al Ghadeer. The handover date and the payment terms are what is really being chosen.
Usually. Eighteen of our 25 have two, including the AED 700,000 entry home in Al Ghadeer. Seven have one, and five of those are priced between AED 1,000,000 and AED 1,250,000, which is a good illustration of why the specification has to be read home by home rather than inferred from the price.
A 1,260 sq ft apartment at Shams Abu Dhabi on Al Reem Island, listed at AED 1,708,180. It is larger than every home on this page above AED 2,000,000, including the AED 3,826,970 apartment at The Beach House on Fahid Island, which measures 1,050 sq ft. Al Reem also holds the next two largest, at 1,228 and 1,069 sq ft.
Twenty five ready apartments on our list and 73 off plan projects still releasing them. One bedroom is the most numerous size in our apartment book, 25 of the 67 apartments we hold, against 22 two bedrooms, 11 studios and 9 three bedrooms, and it reaches ten communities where two bedrooms reach nine. The depth is uneven though. Nine of the 25 are on Al Reem Island, seven of the ten communities carry two apartments or fewer between them, and four communities where we do sell apartments hold no one bedroom at all.
Seven of the ten: Al Ghadeer and Fahid Island with two each, and Masdar City, Al Shamkha, Al Reef, Khalifa City and Zayed City with one apiece. Nine apartments in total. If your plan depends on a particular one of those communities, tell us early and we will watch it for you, because a single listing can be gone before a viewing trip is arranged.
Four things, in this order. The rate per square foot you are paying. The service charge rate the tower bills, in writing. What this specific apartment last rented for and how many weeks it stood empty before that tenancy. And whether a tenant is in place now, because a home let until a future date is a different purchase from an empty one.
Price and floor area, together
Say what you want to spend and whether the apartment is for you or for a tenant. You get the one bedrooms that fit, each one with its floor area, its price per square foot and the service charge its building last billed. Where we do not hold a figure we will write that rather than estimate it for you.
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