4Direction Development Overview
Every year, Dubai’s property market welcomes a fresh batch of developers promising to be different. Most of them start sounding the same after a while big numbers, glossy renders, and the same recycled talk about “vision” and “excellence.”
4Direction Development doesn’t fit that mold quite as neatly, and that’s arguably the most interesting thing about it.
Rather than rushing in with the usual haste of a newcomer, the company has taken a slower, more deliberate path, one rooted in years spent working the brokerage side of real estate before it ever broke ground on a project of its own.
4Direction Development Owner and History
The company didn’t start as a developer. It started in 2006 as a brokerage, which is a fairly ordinary way for real estate firms in this region to begin. What’s less ordinary is how long it stayed in that phase before actually building anything.
Ilhomuddin Yousupov, who founded the firm and has apparently lived and worked in Dubai’s property market since 1998, spent years on the brokerage side before the company touched a single plot of land as an owner.
Land acquisition began around 2010 to 2012, when the firm picked up eight plots. By most accounts this happened during a period when a lot of other players were being cautious, which either shows good timing or a willingness to take on risk that didn’t pay off for everyone.
It’s hard to say definitively from the outside. What we do know is that construction on their first real project didn’t start until years later, and design work alone reportedly took a few years before anything broke ground.
Waseem Akram currently runs day-to-day operations as CEO. In interviews, he’s talked about building “communities, not just buildings,” which is the kind of line that shows up in almost every developer’s press materials these days. It doesn’t mean much on its own.
What matters more is whether the actual buildings reflect that idea, and that’s really something you can only judge by walking through a finished project.
4Direction Development Projects
Barari Gardens sits in Majan, roughly 18 minutes from Downtown Dubai. It’s a mid-sized development, 147 units spread across 15 floors, a mix of one, two, and three-bedroom layouts. The selling point here is greenery. This off-plan project by 4Direction leans heavily on landscaping, with things like an infinity pool, an outdoor cinema, mini golf, and water play areas.
Whether these amenities translate into a meaningfully better living experience or higher rents down the line is something the market will decide over the next few years, since the area itself, Majan, is still developing its own identity.
4Direction Residence 1 is the company’s first completed building, located in the Dubailand Residence Complex, about 22 minutes from Burj Khalifa. It has 170 units ranging from studios to two-bedrooms, sizes between roughly 516 and 1,251 square feet.
This one is already handed over, which matters more than people sometimes realize; a completed project means you can actually walk through it, check finishes, talk to residents, and see if the marketing matched reality. That’s not something you can do with a project that’s still a hole in the ground.
Haven Views, also in Dubailand, is smaller; 82 units across seven floors, with a resort-style layout including private pools and cabanas.
Because unit count is lower relative to the amenities offered, it may feel less crowded than some of the larger complexes nearby, though this is more of a design choice than a guarantee of any particular outcome.
|
Project |
Location |
Units |
Notable Feature |
|
Barari Gardens |
Majan |
147 units |
Green landscaping |
|
Residence 1 |
Dubailand |
170 units |
Already completed |
|
Haven Views |
Dubailand |
82 units |
Resort-style, smaller scale |
On the Sustainability Angle
The company talks about being “green,” and there is some substance behind it; native plants that need less water in Barari Gardens, solar water heating in parts of the portfolio, that sort of thing. But it’s worth being skeptical of how much weight to give these claims.
Nearly every developer in Dubai now mentions sustainability somewhere in their brochure. The real test is in things like actual utility bills a few years after handover, not in the language used before a single unit is sold.
Final Thought
4Direction Development isn’t a household name yet, and it may never become one in the way some of Dubai’s larger developers have.
What it does seem to have is a reasonably cautious approach; spending years on approvals before construction, delivering at least one project on time, and sticking to a handful of sites rather than overextending across the city.
Whether that translates into good value for a buyer really comes down to individual priorities; location preference, budget, and how much patience someone has for a project that’s still being built.
As with most real estate decisions, the safest step is simply doing the homework yourself, comparing similar properties nearby, and talking to someone with recent, firsthand knowledge of the area before signing anything.
