Developers

AYAT Development

AYAT Development (AYAT Group)

An Emirati group with its own construction arm and its own factories. The larger part of the business is public-sector infrastructure work rather than selling homes.

Founded
over 18 years ago
Headquarters
Dubai
Developed in-house
1,368 homes across 16 projects
Investment portfolio
over 8,000 units, incl. commercial
Projects under way
AED 3.2 bn
Of which public sector
AED 2.4 bn
Area built
5 m sqft
In-house contractor
AYA Construction
Markets
Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi

Company profile

AYAT Development is the property arm of the AYAT Group, an Emirati group of companies based in Dubai. It has been developing residential, commercial and industrial projects in Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi for a good eighteen years.

The group is unusually deeply integrated: it includes its own construction firm, AYA Construction, a steel plant (AOS Steel Workshop & Fabrication) and trading and equipment companies. Construction and part of the material production therefore sit in-house rather than with subcontractors.

The economically larger part of the business is not residential. Of the current projects worth around 3.2 billion dirhams, roughly 2.4 billion are infrastructure schemes for the Ministry of Presidential Affairs in Abu Dhabi, the oldest running since 2019. Added to that is the Sheikh Zayed Housing Programme with 345 villas. According to the sales material the group also holds its own investment portfolio of over 8,000 units — buildings, malls, hotels and business parks — producing ongoing rental income. That figure does not appear in the company profile, however, and is therefore less well evidenced than the others.

In residential work the company lists 16 projects totalling 1,368 units — twelve completed, four under construction. The completed Dubai schemes are AYAT Heights (152 units), AYAT Parkview (99), AYAT Oasis (97) and AYA Residence in JVT (19 townhouses); ZAWAYA by AYAT (348) and AYAMORE Residence (94) are among those being built.

Milestones

  1. 2019 First major infrastructure scheme for the Ministry of Presidential Affairs in Abu Dhabi (AED 500 m).
  2. 2022 Second ministry project, at AED 1.1 bn the group’s largest current undertaking.
  3. Sheikh Zayed Housing Programme: 345 villas in state housing.
  4. 2026 Ayami Residence in Al Warsan goes on sale; handover scheduled for Q4 2028.

What to watch

No developer comes without reservations. These apply across all of this company’s schemes.

  • The figures on this page come from the company’s own profile — a self-description. Unlike listed developers, AYAT attracts little independent coverage against which this could be checked.
  • Two figures are in circulation and they measure different things: 1,368 units are the residential schemes developed in-house, while over 8,000 is the investment portfolio held, including malls, hotels and business parks. Anyone quoting the 8,000 should add that these are not 8,000 flats built — and that the figure appears only in the sales material, not in the company profile.
  • Residential is the smaller part of the business. For construction that is more an advantage — it makes the group less dependent on sales — but it also means housebuilding is not the core activity.
  • The completed projects sit mostly in Sharjah and in mid-market Dubai locations. The company does not demonstrate a track record in the upper price segment.