The search continues.

We’ve done three of the big developments. Multiple tall buildings in a small area.

Today, we tried one big building in what is a fairly normal/regular neighborhood here on Abu Dhabi Island.

Maybe this is where we should have been looking all along.

The Guardian Towers is an 18-story building about 100 yards off Muroor Road, down by the new Holiday Inn. (And why am I telling you about Muroor Road and the new Holiday Inn when you have no idea where they are?)

Anyway, it’s a fairly new building in a part of the island that just now is being built up. Closer to the mainland than where we live now, more out in suburbia, where the buildings actually facing the main street are only six stories high.

So.

The Guardian. We were to have met an agent there to show us a couple of places, but he didn’t show up. He called and said his car was still being prepared. (And all repair shops in Abu Dhabi are off the island. Seriously. All of them. If you need a new battery you have to go to an industrial area outside of town. But I digress.)

So, we walked in, and a guy behind a desk gave us the keys to one apartment on the second floor, and said a second apartment was open.

(Here is the link to their website. A particular place can be seen on a generic UAE stuff-for-sale site, and here that is.)

The building has been open a year (though some construction remains unfinished, in the entry areas).

We liked the two places. Both were one-bedrooms with real kitchens, with fridge, oven and dishwasher included, as well as washers and dryers. Both had two toilets. Each had a shower, not a bath. One had more storage. The other was laid out more intelligently.

Each had a balcony, and each faced southeast (towards the setting sun), with a bit of a view — at least until whatever it is they are going to build behind it starts going up. Another tower, apparently. Maybe next month? Maybe next year? Maybe never?

And the cost was less than where we have been looking so far. So, appliances, cheaper, more convenient, two baths, a balcony and a little pool on the roof and a modest gym, too.

Granted, each apartment had been lived in. Not for long. But they are not new, as are the other places we are looking at.

But this is a real option. Closer to work, in an area we know a little, near the mall we would normally go to for groceries, and on a more human scale. With shops on the ground floor across the street. And a couple of coffee shops (including a Starbucks) on the ground floor.

This would seem to indicate the housing stock is deeper than we think, and we need to look a bit harder, closer to home.