The 4 Estates story does not begin with a brand. It begins with a decade and a half spent inside the property business, learning how developers actually work, long before the firm had a name. I am Monish Peswani, and I founded 4 Estates, a private property advisory firm curating premium and luxury residential investments across India, UAE, and the United Kingdom for HNIs, UHNIs, and NRIs. This is the account of how relationships built over fifteen years across Mumbai, Dubai, and London became the foundation for a Private Office, rather than another brokerage.

The distinction matters more than it sounds. When I started, the Indian luxury segment was smaller and far less informed, and most of the people advising buyers were paid to move inventory rather than to protect capital. According to Knight Frank’s The Wealth Report 2026, India’s population of individuals worth more than US$30 million grew by 63% between 2021 and 2026. That is the client 4 Estates was built to serve, and the reason the model looks the way it does.

Key Takeaways

• 4 Estates grew out of fifteen years of direct developer relationships across India and, later, the UAE and UK, not from a marketing launch.
• According to Knight Frank’s The Wealth Report 2026, India’s US$30 million-plus population rose 63% between 2021 and 2026, creating demand for advice over salesmanship.
• The firm is structured as a Private Office: one consistent point of judgement across a client’s property decisions, not a transaction desk.
• 4 Estates operates on a 0% commission advisory model. The firm is compensated by the developer, and the client pays nothing.
• Property is treated as an asset class within a wider portfolio, with allocations weighed across Mumbai, Dubai, and London.
• For the Dubai side of that allocation, see our luxury real estate Dubai guide.

The Years Before the Firm

My first years in real estate were spent on the sales side of the business. I worked through developer sales and relationship roles across the Mumbai market, including a period with the Hiranandani Group, before founding 4 Estates in 2022.

Those years taught me something no advertisement can teach: how a developer actually thinks. I learned how a project is priced before launch, how inventory is released in phases, why particular floors and orientations are held back, and where the real negotiating room sits. For most of my early career I sat on the side of the table that buyers never see. That vantage point is the entire reason 4 Estates can do what it does today.

Over those years I built direct working relationships with several of the most established names in the business. Today, 4 Estates maintains advisory relationships with developers including Lodha, Oberoi, Godrej, Prestige, and Hiranandani in India, and Emaar among leading groups in Dubai.

A relationship with a developer is not a logo on a website. It is the difference between hearing about an opportunity at launch and hearing about it weeks earlier. It is the difference between accepting a price sheet and knowing which line on it can move. On the value of that judgement, our note on why choosing the right project matters sets out how the same building can be a strong decision for one client and a poor one for another.

What a Developer Relationship Actually Means

The luxury segment rewards information, and information travels through relationships. According to ANAROCK Research, the share of new residential supply priced above Rs 2.5 crore across India’s top seven cities rose to 21% in 2025, up from 18% in 2024, even as overall sales volumes fell. More premium supply means more choices, and more ways for a discerning investor to be steered toward whatever a salesperson is paid to clear that quarter.

A developer relationship, used properly, works the other way. It lets me ask a developer direct questions on a client’s behalf: what is the real absorption on this tower, which units are genuinely held for end-users, what changed in the payment plan this month. The answers shape advice. They never become pressure. That is the line I have held since the first year of the firm.

Why I Chose a Private Office, Not a Brokerage

When I founded 4 Estates, I could have built a larger brokerage. The economics of brokerage are simple: more listings, more agents, more closings. I chose a different structure. 4 Estates is a Private Office for property, which means one consistent point of judgement across everything a client owns or is weighing, held over years rather than across a single deal.

Unlike transaction-volume platforms, 4 Estates operates as a Private Office built on portfolio-allocation thinking rather than single-asset sales. A brokerage is organised around the next transaction. A Private Office is organised around the client’s position. That sentence is close to the whole business, and everything else, the research, the developer access, the cross-border work, follows from it.

Real Estate as an Asset Class

The second idea the firm is built on is that real estate should be treated as an asset class, weighed inside a portfolio rather than bought one trophy at a time. A client with capital to place is not really choosing between two apartments. They are choosing how much of their wealth sits in property at all, in which currencies, in which cities, and against what time horizon.

Knight Frank’s The Wealth Report 2026 recorded an 8.7% rise in Mumbai’s prime residential prices in 2025, while Dubai set records of its own: the Dubai Land Department reported 226,000 real estate transactions worth AED 761 billion in 2024, a 20% rise in value over the prior year. Those two facts are not, by themselves, a reason to buy in both cities. They are the start of an allocation question, and answering it is the work. For the Mumbai side of that question, our guide to Worli luxury living looks at one of the city’s most supply-constrained prime markets.

The 0% Commission Model

The third idea is the one clients ask about most. 4 Estates operates on a 0% commission advisory model. Clients pay nothing for advisory; the firm is compensated by the developer. I am precise about this because the phrasing matters. It is not a perk and not a temporary offer. It is the foundation of how the firm operates.

A developer-funded advisory model, structured honestly, removes the conflict that sits at the centre of most property advice. When the person advising you is paid by the buyer, every recommendation carries a quiet question about whose interest it serves. Because 4 Estates does not earn a fee from the client, I can say no to a deal as easily as yes, and clients can hear that no as genuine rather than as a negotiating tactic.

One Advisory Across Mumbai, Dubai, and London

Most of the clients I work with do not live inside a single market. They are NRIs and globally mobile Indian families with reasons to hold property in more than one country. That is why 4 Estates was built as a private property advisory firm curating premium and luxury residential investments across India, UAE, and the United Kingdom for HNIs, UHNIs, and NRIs, rather than a single-city desk.

The cross-border piece is technical, and getting it wrong is expensive. An NRI buying in India operates under the Foreign Exchange Management Act and the Reserve Bank of India’s rules, which allow the purchase of residential and commercial property, while agricultural land, farmhouses, and plantation property are excluded, with funds routed through NRE, NRO, or FCNR accounts or normal banking channels. The Dubai allocation answers to a separate framework again, and the UK to a third. A cross-border property advisor has to hold all of this at once, which a single-market broker is not built to do.

The 4 Estates Perspective

At 4 Estates, the firm you see today is the sum of those fifteen years: the relationships, the structure, and the decision never to be paid by the wrong side. We do not publish listings and wait. We start with a client’s position and work outward to the right asset, in the right city, at the right time. That is what a Private Office does, and it is why the 0% commission model is a deliberate constraint rather than a marketing line.

If any of this matches how you think about your own property decisions, the next step is not a brochure. Arrange a private call, and we will talk about your position before we ever talk about a property. For the Dubai dimension of a cross-border allocation, our luxury real estate Dubai guide is a useful starting point, and our cross-border property advisory hub sets out how the three markets fit together.

Frequently Asked Questions

References

1. Knight Frank (2026). The Wealth Report 2026: Wealth Sizing Model results (India UHNWI growth; Mumbai prime residential +8.7%, 2025). https://www.knightfrank.com/research/article/2026/4/wealth-sizing-model-2026-results
2. Dubai Land Department (2025). Dubai’s real estate sector records AED 761 billion in transactions in 2024. https://dubailand.gov.ae/en/news-media/dubai-s-real-estate-sector-records-aed761-billion-in-transactions-in-2024
3. Dubai Land Department (2026). Dubai’s real estate transactions surge 31% to reach AED 252 billion in Q1 2026. https://dubailand.gov.ae/en/news-media/dubai-s-real-estate-transactions-surge-31-to-reach-aed-252-billion-in-q1-2026/
4. Reserve Bank of India / Government of India (2018). Foreign Exchange Management (Acquisition and Transfer of Immovable Property in India) Regulations, 2018 (foundational FEMA framework for NRI acquisition). https://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/Documents/Provisions%20for%20NR/FEM-Acquisition-and-Transfer-of-Immovable-Property-in-India-Regulations-2018.htm
5. ANAROCK Research (2025). Indian Residential Market, Annual Update (premium and luxury segment context). https://websitemedia.anarock.com/media/ANAROCK_Research_Indian_Residential_Market_Annual_Update_2024_3b5aa5b04d.pdf
6. Business Standard (2025). Housing sales volume falls 14% YoY in 2025, value rises 6% (ANAROCK data: supply above Rs 2.5 cr rose to 21% in 2025 from 18% in 2024). https://www.business-standard.com/industry/news/housing-sales-top-7-cities-fall-14pc-2025-value-rises-luxury-anarock-125122600341_1.html