Khalifa City

Khalifa City is a large villa district on the Abu Dhabi mainland between Zayed International Airport and the coast at Al Raha. Much of it is Emirati housing on private plots, and it is not on the official list of investment areas, so foreigners can buy only in specific registered projects: check each one on DARI before you commit. The best-known resale community is Al Raha Gardens, Aldar's older townhouse and villa community (confirm foreign eligibility per unit), which sold at a median AED 3.0M (AED 788 per sq ft) across 35 resales on Abu Dhabi's transaction register (ADX) between January and 2 October 2026. Cushman & Wakefield had Al Raha Gardens villa prices up 8% year on year in Q2 2026 and Cavendish Maxwell had them up 2.8% in H1, while average villa prices across Khalifa City fell 17% on Cushman & Wakefield's Q2 figures. ADX's own Khalifa City totals (793 sales in 2026) are mostly Masdar City off-plan flats (our calculation from ADX project rows), so we cover those in the Masdar City guide. For tenants, Khalifa City is the largest villa lease district in Abu Dhabi (ADREC H1 2026), but villa rents are soft: Cushman & Wakefield put them at AED 36 per sq ft a year in Q2 2026, down 10% year on year, and renewals have been capped at 0% since 2 June 2026.