Yayine Melaku, Real Estate Developer and Entrepreneur
Yayine Melaku is the founder of LIU Luxxe, a luxury building materials company that provides real estate developers and designers with superior products to make their projects stand out. Before moving to Dubai, Yayine built a successful property development business in suburbs of NYC in the United States, traveling globally to find materials to elevate her developments and bring better returns
When Yayine expanded her business to the UAE, she struggled to source the same quality of products. This led her to launch LIU Luxxe in 2023, supplying essential materials for high-end residential and commercial buildings from around the world, covering kitchens, wardrobes and sanitaryware, parquet flooring, specialty tiles, doors, and more.
While property has always been a passion, Yayine’s early career began in finance, working for institutions such as Merrill Lynch and the Federal Reserve Bank of NY. Her interest in real estate was inspired by her parents who migrated to the US from Ethiopia in the mid-1970s.
Despite their training as an Accountant and Registered Nurse, they began renovating affordable properties to generate additional income, which they sent back home to their families. From the age of 12, Yayine spent summers helping her parents improve the properties. Her love of real estate grew as she saw how spaces can be transformed through hard work, quality finishing, and creative vision.
Yayine moved to Dubai with her husband and three children in 2016. As a mum of three, safety is paramount in everything she supplies. If she wouldn’t use it in her own home, she doesn’t offer it to her clients.
