Is Hudayriyat Island now Abu Dhabi’s hottest market?

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Is Hudayriyat Island really Abu Dhabi’s hottest property market right now?

Yes. Hudayriyat Island is currently Abu Dhabi’s hottest residential market if we judge it by how much money buyers are actually putting into property.

The latest Abu Dhabi Real Estate Centre market report puts Hudayriyat at AED 19 billion of residential sales in the first half of 2026. That represented 27% of all residential sales value across Abu Dhabi.

Saadiyat Island, the obvious luxury benchmark, reached AED 13.3 billion. Yas Island reached AED 7.3 billion. Hudayriyat therefore sold about 43% more property by value than Saadiyat and roughly 2.6 times as much as Yas.

The lead was already visible earlier in the year. ADREC recorded approximately AED 11.97 billion of transactions on Hudayriyat in the first quarter, ahead of Reem Island at AED 9.45 billion, Saadiyat at AED 8.8 billion and Yas at more than AED 5.5 billion.

So this goes well beyond a developer saying that a new launch was popular. Hudayriyat has reached a scale where it is influencing Abu Dhabi’s overall residential numbers.

There is one important limit to the claim. Hudayriyat is overwhelmingly an off-plan market, while Yas and Saadiyat also have large completed communities. We can confidently call Hudayriyat the hottest place for new residential sales today. Calling it Abu Dhabi’s strongest mature property market would go too far.

Abu Dhabi area	H1 2026 residential sales	Position	What stands out
Hudayriyat Island	AED 19.0bn	1st	27% of all residential sales
Saadiyat Island	AED 13.3bn	2nd	Main luxury rival
Reem + Maryah	AED 10.5bn	3rd	Large apartment market
Yas Island	AED 7.3bn	4th	High-volume established market
Abu Dhabi total	AED 70.4bn	—	Hudayriyat took more than one-quarter

Is Hudayriyat hot because of one huge property launch?

No. Hudayriyat’s current boom has survived several completely different launches, which makes the demand much harder to dismiss as a one-off.

Nawayef Village was an early test. Modon released 378 townhouses and twin villas and sold roughly AED 2 billion within hours.

Wadeem then tested whether people would pay serious money for land rather than finished homes. The residential plots generated AED 5.5 billion and sold out within 72 hours.

Bashayer moved into waterfront apartments and villas. Its original release of 487 homes generated AED 3 billion in one day. Modon later released the final phase, which added approximately AED 1.25 billion of sales in another single-day sell-out.

Then Hudayriyat Golf Estates pushed the market into a much bigger league. Around 1,700 townhouses, villas and mansions sold within days for more than AED 13 billion. Modon called it the highest publicly recorded sales value for a single residential project launch in the UAE.

One spectacular launch can happen because a developer priced too cheaply or released too few homes. Hudayriyat has now repeated the same basic outcome with townhouses, villas, apartments, plots and golf homes.

That repeated behaviour is much more convincing.

Hudayriyat launch	Homes / product	Reported sales	Selling speed
Nawayef Village	378 townhouses and twin villas	~AED 2.0bn	Within hours
Wadeem	Residential plots	AED 5.5bn	72 hours
Bashayer first release	487 apartments and villas	AED 3.0bn	One day
Bashayer final phase	Apartments, townhomes and villas	~AED 1.25bn	One day
Hudayriyat Golf Estates	~1,700 residences	>AED 13bn	Within days

Are Hudayriyat buyers genuinely rushing in, or is Modon creating artificial scarcity?

Hudayriyat’s sell-outs are helped by controlled launches, but the volumes are now too large to explain the demand mainly through artificial scarcity.

A developer can make a 30-villa collection look incredibly hot simply by keeping supply tiny. Hudayriyat Golf Estates involved roughly 1,700 residences and still generated more than AED 13 billion within days. That works out to an average of roughly AED 7.6 million per home.

Wadeem provides another useful test because buyers were purchasing plots rather than a finished lifestyle product. AED 5.5 billion of land disappeared in three days.

Bashayer then brought a lower entry point and a very different type of buyer into the island. Modon currently lists one-bedroom Bashayer apartments from around AED 2.5 million, while the project also includes larger apartments, townhomes, penthouses and villas.

The releases are still carefully managed, and that absolutely helps create urgency. But Modon has gradually increased both the number of homes and the range of products without seeing demand collapse.

We would be much more sceptical if Hudayriyat kept selling 50 nearly identical villas at a time. That is no longer what is happening.

Is Hudayriyat actually beating Saadiyat and Yas?

Hudayriyat is beating Saadiyat and Yas in current sales value, but each island is winning a different part of Abu Dhabi’s property market.

Hudayriyat’s AED 19 billion first-half total is the clearest evidence. Saadiyat reached AED 13.3 billion and Yas AED 7.3 billion.

But Yas remains a much broader market. Buyers can choose from studios, ordinary apartments, family townhouses, waterfront homes and luxury villas across several completed communities. A large part of Hudayriyat’s stock starts much higher up the price ladder.

Saadiyat is different again. It remains Abu Dhabi’s established ultra-prime island, with completed beachfront property, cultural attractions, luxury hotels and branded residences that Hudayriyat cannot yet match.

Hudayriyat’s achievement is quite specific: a new, mostly off-plan island is currently attracting more residential capital than either of Abu Dhabi’s two best-known investment islands.

That is a big deal. It does not mean Yas has lost its liquidity or Saadiyat has lost its luxury status.

Are Hudayriyat property prices rising as fast as the sales numbers suggest?

No. Hudayriyat property prices are rising overall, but the latest project data is far more uneven than the record sales numbers make the market look.

Bayut’s latest transaction-based index puts Hudayriyat at roughly AED 1,778 per square foot, around 15% higher over 12 months.

Apartments have moved faster. Bayut currently shows Hudayriyat apartments at about AED 2,235 per square foot, up almost 28% over 12 months. Two-bedroom apartments are about 33% higher, while three-bedroom apartments are around 25% higher.

Villas tell a much calmer story. The island-wide villa index is almost flat over 12 months.

Individual projects split even further. Nawayef West is around AED 2,224 per square foot and nearly 20% higher over 12 months. Nawayef Park Views is up roughly 11%. Nawayef East is broadly flat. Al Naseem is around 8% lower. Nawayef Village has fallen by close to 10% over six months in Bayut’s latest index.

Buyers are already differentiating between projects rather than blindly pushing up everything with a Hudayriyat address.

The island is appreciating, especially in apartments and some premium phases. There is no evidence of a universal price explosion across every Hudayriyat development.

Hudayriyat segment / project	Latest AED/sq ft	Recent change	What we see
Island overall	~1,778	+15% over 12 months	Strong overall increase
Apartments	~2,235	+28% over 12 months	Fastest major segment
Nawayef West	~2,224	+20% over 12 months	Clear appreciation
Nawayef Park Views	~1,921	+11% over 12 months	Up, despite recent softness
Nawayef East	~1,968	Roughly flat over 12 months	Little net movement
Al Naseem	~1,086	-8% over 12 months	Clear underperformance
Nawayef Village	~1,493	-9% over 6 months	Early resale pressure

Is Hudayriyat already more expensive than Saadiyat?

No. Hudayriyat is becoming expensive very quickly, but Saadiyat still sits higher in Abu Dhabi’s luxury pricing hierarchy.

That distinction gets lost when people focus on Hudayriyat’s multimillion-dirham villas. A home can cost AED 10 million or AED 20 million because it is enormous without necessarily commanding the highest price per square foot.

Hudayriyat’s latest broad transaction index is around AED 1,778 per square foot. Its apartments are closer to AED 2,235.

Saadiyat’s strongest apartment and beachfront projects regularly sit well above those levels. The island also has completed luxury stock, branded residences and beachfront communities where buyers already know exactly what they are purchasing.

Hudayriyat can become more expensive as infrastructure fills in, but buyers today are still getting into much of the island below comparable ultra-prime Saadiyat pricing.

That price gap is part of the attraction. Investors can make a reasonable case that Hudayriyat has room to reprice if the finished island earns a similar level of prestige. They should be careful with the assumption that the gap will disappear completely, because Saadiyat has advantages that Hudayriyat cannot simply build later, especially its Cultural District and established beachfront ecosystem.

Why are so many buyers choosing Hudayriyat Island now?

Hudayriyat is attracting buyers because Abu Dhabi has very few places where someone can buy a large new home, stay close to the existing city and still get a completely new waterfront environment.

The location does much of the work. Hudayriyat sits opposite Al Bateen and connects directly to the mainland. Modon puts central Abu Dhabi at roughly a ten-minute drive from the island.

Then there is the scale. Abu Dhabi’s official masterplan covers more than 51 million square metres, an area equal to roughly 54% of Abu Dhabi Island itself. The development is designed to add 53.5 kilometres of coastline, including about 16 kilometres of beaches.

The housing has also been designed to give buyers reasons to choose one part of Hudayriyat over another. Nawayef East and West sit around huge man-made hills rising roughly 45 to 55 metres. Wadeem offers land for buyers who want to build. Bashayer focuses on the waterfront. Golf Estates adds large family homes around a golf community. Nawayef Park Views gives Hudayriyat a more apartment-heavy option.

Abu Dhabi already has many new-build communities. Very few combine that much land, that much waterfront and this proximity to established central districts.

That combination explains the demand better than the idea that buyers are simply chasing the latest fashionable launch.

Is the Hudayriyat lifestyle already real, or are buyers mostly paying for plans?

Part of Hudayriyat’s lifestyle already exists today, which makes the off-plan bet easier to understand, but the residential version of the island is still years from being fully finished.

People can already use Marsana, 321 Sports, beaches, cycling facilities and Surf Abu Dhabi. Surf Abu Dhabi is a functioning major attraction rather than a promise on a masterplan. The wider island has also been used for sporting events for years.

That gives Hudayriyat an advantage over a completely empty development site. Buyers can drive there, spend time on the island and see why Abu Dhabi wants to make sport and outdoor living central to the destination.

The future plan is far larger. Hudayriyat is expected to include a 220-kilometre cycling network, major parks, more hospitality, retail, schools, healthcare facilities and several residential districts.

The residential handovers are also spread out. Modon currently lists Nawayef Park Views for early 2028, Nawayef East for late 2028 and Nawayef Village from early 2029. Hudayriyat Golf Estates is scheduled for 2030. Bashayer’s latest project page also places its apartment and villa handovers around 2030.

Buyers are therefore purchasing something halfway between a finished neighbourhood and an empty masterplan. Enough of Hudayriyat already exists to make the lifestyle believable. The full value of the residential island still depends heavily on what gets delivered over the next several years.

Hudayriyat element	Status now	Why buyers care
Marsana	Open	Waterfront dining and leisure already usable
321 Sports	Open	Existing sports infrastructure
Surf Abu Dhabi	Open	Major destination already operating
Beaches / cycling	Partly operating	Lifestyle can already be experienced
Nawayef residential areas	Under development	Major future resident base
Bashayer	Off-plan / under development	Waterfront housing pipeline
Golf Estates	Off-plan	Large new luxury community
Schools, healthcare, wider retail	Planned / developing	Needed for a mature residential island

Is Hudayriyat attracting new buyers, or mostly the same wealthy Modon clients?

Hudayriyat is currently bringing a lot of new buyers into Modon rather than relying only on the developer’s existing customer base.

Hudayriyat Golf Estates gives us the cleanest data. Modon said 81% of its buyers were new customers to the company, while 15% were non-UAE residents.

Bashayer produced a similar pattern. For its final phase, Modon reported that 71% of purchasers were new customers.

Those percentages do not tell us whether the buyers will ultimately live in the properties or flip them. But they do tell us something useful about the breadth of demand. Modon did not generate its biggest Hudayriyat launches merely by selling another home to the same small circle of previous clients.

The wider Abu Dhabi market is helping. ADREC says resident expatriates and non-resident foreign buyers together represented around 70% of residential sales value during the first half of 2026.

Hudayriyat has arrived just as Abu Dhabi’s international buyer base is becoming much more important. Foreign nationals can buy Hudayriyat property freehold, and many of the island’s homes also clear the AED 2 million property threshold relevant to UAE Golden Visa eligibility.

That gives Modon a much larger potential audience than the traditional local luxury-villa market.

Could Hudayriyat replace Saadiyat as Abu Dhabi’s luxury island?

Hudayriyat can become Abu Dhabi’s other major luxury island, but replacing Saadiyat is unlikely because the two places sell very different versions of luxury.

Saadiyat has an enormous head start. Buyers already have beaches, completed high-end communities, five-star resorts, schools and the Cultural District. Louvre Abu Dhabi is open, while the wider museum cluster gives the island a global identity that property development alone cannot easily recreate.

Hudayriyat is building its reputation around something else: sport, outdoor living, space, low-density housing, elevation and access to the city.

That may actually work better for some families. Someone choosing a large villa does not necessarily care about living next to a museum. A home on one of Nawayef’s elevated plots, close to central Abu Dhabi and surrounded by cycling, beaches and sports facilities, has a different appeal.

Current sales show that buyers understand the difference. Hudayriyat has been able to pull more residential sales value than Saadiyat without copying it.

We would therefore expect Abu Dhabi’s premium market to become more divided. Saadiyat can remain the cultural and beachfront luxury reference, while Hudayriyat becomes the main new-build luxury family market.

Can Modon actually deliver Hudayriyat at this scale?

Modon currently looks financially and operationally strong enough to make Hudayriyat credible, although the sheer size of the island means execution will remain one of the main things to watch.

The company has moved well beyond selling drawings. Modon awarded an AED 5 billion main construction contract for 735 Nawayef East and West villas, after infrastructure contracts had already been awarded. The villas include homes on the huge man-made hills that are central to Nawayef’s selling point.

Modon’s latest half-year results also show AED 2.2 billion of net profit and a revenue backlog of AED 65.4 billion. That backlog was up from AED 46 billion reported at the end of the previous year.

The company is also heavily backed by Abu Dhabi. L’imad Holding Company, which is wholly owned by the Abu Dhabi Government, became Modon’s controlling shareholder with an approximately 84.76% stake.

That does not remove construction risk. Hudayriyat is enormous, several communities have overlapping delivery periods and buyers are paying today for infrastructure that may take years to mature.

Still, the practical question is whether Modon has the capital, contracts and institutional support to build what it is selling. Currently, the evidence says yes.

Execution check	Current evidence	What it tells us
Nawayef construction	AED 5bn main contract	Large-scale building is underway
Homes in contract	735 villas	Significant physical delivery commitment
Modon H1 net profit	AED 2.2bn	Strong current profitability
Revenue backlog	AED 65.4bn	Large amount of contracted future revenue
Government ownership	~84.76% controlling stake	Strong institutional backing
Main remaining risk	Multi-year delivery	Buyers still rely on execution

Is Hudayriyat too dependent on off-plan buyers?

Yes. Hudayriyat’s biggest weakness today is that we still know far more about how people buy its launches than how they behave once the homes are completed.

This is especially important because Abu Dhabi itself is currently an unusually off-plan-heavy market. ADREC says off-plan deals represented 89% of residential sales value and 82% of residential transaction volume during the first half of 2026.

Hudayriyat goes even further. Almost all of the activity buyers see today comes from projects being sold before completion.

That leaves several things untested. We do not yet have a deep island-wide rental market showing what tenants will actually pay. We cannot properly measure years of resale liquidity. Service charges have not settled across most new communities. We also have very little evidence showing what happens when hundreds of similar units complete at once.

The latest pricing data gives us an early warning against assuming every off-plan buyer automatically wins. Nawayef West has appreciated strongly, while Al Naseem and Nawayef Village have been much weaker lately.

Hudayriyat already has enough transactions to show that buyers want the island. What we still need is a few years of completed-property evidence.

Anyone buying purely because they expect to resell before handover should keep that distinction very clear.

Could all the new Hudayriyat supply eventually cool the market?

Yes. Hudayriyat can remain a desirable island while still becoming much harder for investors once thousands of new homes start reaching completion.

The wider Abu Dhabi pipeline is important here. ADREC expects roughly 71,000 additional homes across the emirate by 2030, with deliveries peaking at around 21,800 units in 2028.

Hudayriyat is one of six districts expected to account for 77% of that incremental supply, alongside Saadiyat, Reem, Yas, Zayed City and Khalifa City.

Within Hudayriyat, several communities are due to mature over a relatively short period. Nawayef Park Views is scheduled around early 2028. Nawayef East follows later that year. Nawayef Village starts handing over from early 2029. Bashayer and Hudayriyat Golf Estates add substantial stock later.

That changes the investment maths.

Early Hudayriyat buyers have benefited from scarcity. Later buyers will have to compete with other Hudayriyat owners, new Modon releases and thousands of additional homes elsewhere in Abu Dhabi.

The best-positioned properties should cope better: genuinely elevated Nawayef homes, scarce waterfront units, unusually good golf plots and homes with difficult-to-copy views.

A generic unit bought at a large premium simply because Hudayriyat is fashionable today has much less protection.

Are Hudayriyat buyers paying for real scarcity or just hype?

There is real scarcity on Hudayriyat, but buyers have to identify it at the property level rather than assuming the whole island is scarce.

Take Nawayef. Abu Dhabi is an extremely flat city, so villas built on man-made hills rising roughly 45 to 55 metres can offer views that are genuinely difficult to reproduce elsewhere.

Wadeem has another advantage. Modon described the launch as the first new residential land offering this close to Abu Dhabi’s prime central districts in more than 15 years. A large freehold plot opposite Al Bateen has relatively few direct substitutes.

Waterfront homes in Bashayer have their own scarcity. The same applies to the strongest plots inside Golf Estates.

The problem starts when buyers extend that logic to every unit on an island covering more than 51 million square metres. Hudayriyat itself has plenty of land, and a lot more housing is coming.

The latest price movements already show the difference. Some Nawayef phases have risen sharply, while other projects have struggled despite sharing the same Hudayriyat brand.

For an investor, “Hudayriyat” is no longer a specific enough thesis. The view, plot, phase, density, property type and purchase price now matter much more.

Is it already too late to buy Hudayriyat Island property?

No, but buying Hudayriyat today requires much more selectivity than buying into its earliest launches.

The discovery phase is basically over. Buyers now know Hudayriyat exists. They know Modon can sell billions of dirhams of property there, and they know the Abu Dhabi Government wants the island to become a major part of the city.

Prices reflect some of that success. Bayut’s island-wide index is currently around 15% higher over 12 months, while apartments are almost 28% higher.

At the same time, Hudayriyat still trades below the most expensive parts of Saadiyat, several residential districts remain unfinished, and a large part of the lifestyle value has yet to arrive.

That leaves room for further appreciation if Modon delivers the island well.

The easy strategy of buying almost anything in an unknown new destination and waiting for Hudayriyat to become famous is much less convincing now. We would rather pay for something that remains hard to copy after completion: a genuinely strong view, unusually good waterfront position, large plot, elevated location or rare layout.

Recent project performance reinforces that point. Buyers who treat every Hudayriyat property as interchangeable are already getting very different results.

So is Hudayriyat Island now Abu Dhabi’s hottest market?

Yes. Hudayriyat Island is currently Abu Dhabi’s hottest market for new residential property, and the gap is large enough that the claim no longer feels speculative.

The latest ADREC figures put Hudayriyat at AED 19 billion of first-half residential sales, equal to 27% of the entire Abu Dhabi market. Saadiyat was at AED 13.3 billion and Yas at AED 7.3 billion.

More importantly, buyers have kept coming back as Modon changed the product. Demand started with luxury villas, spread into townhouses and residential plots, moved into waterfront apartments and then absorbed roughly 1,700 Golf Estates homes worth more than AED 13 billion within days.

There are also fresh signs that Hudayriyat is becoming more than a sales story. Bayut’s latest index shows the island about 15% higher over 12 months, with apartments rising much faster. Modon is awarding multibillion-dirham construction contracts, and existing attractions such as Surf Abu Dhabi, Marsana and 321 Sports mean the island already has some life before most residents arrive.

The remaining weakness is easy to identify. Hudayriyat has barely faced the test that matters most for a mature property market: thousands of completed homes being rented, lived in and resold over several years.

So we have very high confidence in one conclusion and much less in another.

Hudayriyat has already become Abu Dhabi’s hottest new-build residential market.

Whether it eventually becomes Abu Dhabi’s best property market will depend on what happens after the sell-outs: how well Modon delivers the island, how many owners want to resell around completion, what tenants will actually pay and whether the best Hudayriyat homes can keep their scarcity once much more supply arrives.

For now, the difficult question is no longer whether Hudayriyat can attract buyers. It clearly can. The question is which parts of Hudayriyat will still look exceptional when the island is full of homes rather than sales launches.

Fact-checked and reviewed by our local expert

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Osama Shawky 🇦🇪

CEO, estaie

Osama Shawky is the CEO of estaie, a platform specializing in flexible long-term stays. Through his work with property operators and investors, he has developed a strong understanding of Abu Dhabi’s real estate market, especially the demand driven by expatriates and business professionals. Using data and AI-driven pricing strategies, he helps maximize occupancy and returns in the capital’s evolving property landscape.

Who is the author of this content?

SANDS OF WEALTH

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