Al Reem Island and Makers District: Why I Think This Part of Reem Is Still Undervalued

For most of the last decade, Al Reem Island had a reputation problem. It was where you bought if you wanted to be near the city without paying Saadiyat prices — a cluster of towers, a bridge, and not much of a reason to walk anywhere.

That description is now out of date, and I think the market's mental model of Reem is lagging what is actually being built there.

What changed

Three things, and they compound.

ADGM jurisdiction. Al Reem Island — along with Al Maryah Island — now sits within the Abu Dhabi Global Market. That is not a cosmetic label. It comes with a distinct legal and regulatory environment, and it has an immediate, practical consequence for landlords that I will come back to below.

A waterfront that is actually being finished. Makers District is built around Corniche Al Reem: a 1 km climate-controlled promenade along the water, with over 100 retail, dining and lifestyle outlets. Climate control matters more in Abu Dhabi than the phrase suggests — it converts a seafront that is unusable for four months of the year into one that is usable all year.

Real absorption, not just announcements. ADREC recorded AED 10.5 billion of residential sales in the ADGM districts in the first half of 2026 — up 153% year on year. Reem and Maryah together were among the four districts that absorbed 84% of all off-plan apartment sales value in the emirate.

The pricing argument

Here is the number that made me pay attention. In ADREC's H1 2026 snapshot of average sale prices on Al Reem Island, the range across projects runs from roughly AED 9,000 to AED 29,000 per square metre.

That is a three-fold spread inside a single island.

A spread that wide tells you two things. First, "Reem Island" is not a price point — it is a collection of very different assets, and any conversation that starts with the island average is already wrong. Second, the top of that range is now approaching numbers you would associate with more established addresses, while the bottom of it still reflects the old reputation.

The gap between those two ends is where the opportunity is, and it is also where the risk is. Buying the cheap end because it is cheap is not a thesis. Buying a specific building whose location, product and management will pull it toward the top of the range over the next five years — that is a thesis.

What is actually being built

The current pipeline on and around the island is more varied than it has ever been:

A note of precision, because it gets misreported: Riviera Residences is on Al Reem Island, but MERED does not place it in Makers District. Its own materials say Al Reem Island. I mention this because "Makers District" has become a shorthand that brokers apply loosely, and the district boundary affects which amenities are genuinely at your door.

The Artery's payment structure is 40% during construction and 60% on completion — worth noting because the split between pre- and post-handover payment is one of the largest single variables in an off-plan return calculation.

The proximity argument, and its limit

You can see Saadiyat from parts of Reem. That fact does a lot of work in sales conversations, and it deserves scrutiny.

A view of a more expensive island is worth something — views are a real, priced attribute. What a view is not is a mechanism by which the more expensive island's price level transfers to you. Reem will be repriced by what happens on Reem: the promenade filling with tenants, the schools and university drawing families, ADGM drawing employers.

The honest version of the proximity argument is about access, not adjacency. From Makers District you are roughly 20 minutes from Downtown Abu Dhabi and the Saadiyat Cultural District, 5 minutes from ADGM and the Galleria, with Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi, Repton School, Reem Mall and Al Fay Park on the island itself. That combination — a business district, a university, schools, a mall and a waterfront within one bridge — is what makes a place work as somewhere people live rather than somewhere people speculate.

The two things I would model carefully

I am positive on Reem. I am not uncritical about it, and there are two numbers I make every client look at.

Supply

Al Reem Island is second in the emirate for projected new homes: 13,518 by 2030. Saadiyat, Reem and Yas together account for 75% of all projected new apartments in Abu Dhabi, and deliveries across the emirate peak in 2028.

More supply means more choice for buyers, more competition on resale, and more competition on rent — particularly in 2028–2030 when a lot of it lands at once. If your exit is a resale in that window, you will be selling into the thickest part of the pipeline. That is not a reason to avoid Reem; it is a reason to be specific about which building you own and to plan an exit that is not "sell in 2029 like everyone else".

The rent-freeze exemption

From 2 June 2026, ADREC froze residential rent increases across the emirate: renewals at 0%, re-let units at the previous contract value. ADGM communities — Al Reem Island and Al Maryah Island — are exempt and continue to price freely.

For a landlord, that is a genuine structural advantage, and it is currently under-discussed. Before the freeze, new-lease prices inside investment zones were up 21% year on year for apartments. Reem retains the ability to reprice; most of the emirate, for now, does not.

Two cautions. An exemption is a policy position, and policy positions can change — I would not underwrite a ten-year model on it continuing indefinitely. And an exemption only helps you if the local supply picture lets you actually push rents, which brings you straight back to the 13,518 units above. The two factors pull in opposite directions, and which one dominates will differ building by building.

Where I land

The old view of Reem — a commuter tower cluster with a bridge — is priced into parts of the island that no longer deserve it. The new view — a serviced, ADGM-regulated waterfront district with a promenade, a university, an employer base and a marina — is priced into some buildings and not into others.

That dispersion is the entire opportunity. It rewards building-level work and punishes buying "Reem" as a concept.

If you want the current picture on a specific tower — what it actually trades at, what is left, and how it sits against the ADREC range — ask us for it.