DILS Portugal – Rewriting the rules in high-end residential real estate

 In Consultancy, DILS Portugal, Luxury property, News, Property, Residential Real Estate

DILS Portugal is bringing experience, innovation and quality to Portugal’s high-end residential real estate market. Partner of Residential Patrícia Barão tells Essential Business how the company is ripping up the rule book on traditional estate agency practice and taking the sector into the future through technology.

Text and Photos: Chris Graeme

Portugal is increasingly seen as the relocation destination of choice by affluent United States, Brazilian and other international citizens looking to make a move to Europe.

But who can you trust when it comes to dealing with all the arrangements – finding that perfect property, sorting out the visas, contracts, accountants and lawyers that relocation inevitably entails?

There is one company that really is rewriting the rules when it comes to high-end real estate services, not just because of the bespoke 360º assistance its offers, but because it employs innovation and the latest technology in everything it does to provide an enhanced experience for its clients. That company is DILS Portugal.

The right move

Patrícia Barão is the face leading a growing team at the company’s Residential department at Castelhana DILS. Indeed, DILS, which recently absorbed Castelhana into its portfolio of consultancies in Europe, could not have done better.

The real estate professional has 20 solid years behind her in Portugal’s high-end real estate market, working for a major bank and an international consultancy where a decade ago she was invited to single-handedly start a residential real estate department for Jones Lang LaSalle with a team of just five.

But Patrícia Barão says that after 10 happy years working with JLL she felt that it was time to accept a fresh challenge.

In short, Patrícia knows the Portuguese real estate market like the back of her hand.

Now responsible for the Residential business at DILS Portugal, Patrícia says she loves nothing better than a challenge.

“The best thing for me is when people say that a plan is impossible, but I believe in that quote from Nelson Mandela: “It’s impossible until it’s done!”

“When evaluating a new opportunity I ask myself fundamental questions: what is the project and who are the people leading the company?” She says pensively.

“When I discovered that the CEO and founder of DILS, Italian entrepreneur Giuseppe Amitrano, has the same vision for growth that I have, understands what the Portuguese market needs, is leading a European company which is agile, expanding, focused on technology, and wants to break all the established rules, then that’s the right opportunity for me”, Patrícia explains.

But Patrícia, who has created and built up entire departments from scratch to number several hundred staff is modest enough to emphasise that she could not have done so without having a great team around her and stresses that she is just “one cog in a machine of many moving parts”.

A question of leadership

Patrícia Barão says she is a “100% people person” and enjoys managing teams and works equally well with men and women, stressing that she looks at the potential each team member has and encourages and nurtures it.

Patrícia also admits that she doesn’t like administrative work which can be a chore for her, but has a daily route involving rising at 6.30am, doing Yoga and meditation, and then on arriving at the office dealing with all the e-mails and administrative aspects first so that she can turn to what she really likes with a clear head.

“I’m certainly not perfect, but I have a great mental capacity for organization and never put things I don’t like off to the end of the day, otherwise it constantly weighs on my mind”, she says.

“For me the greatest capacities for a leader must be to listen to team members, create an empathy with them, and try to put ourselves in their shoes. We’ve got two ears and a mouth for a reason and it’s all about listening and communicating in a respectful way,” she explains, adding “No one is better than the next”.

Patrícia is a great believer that you can successfully create and complete a project when you build a sense of mission and purpose with the team, when there is belief in the project and all are working together towards its success.

“Of course, I’ve made mistakes along the way, but that is how you learn to develop your own style of leadership and how to manage people.”

The Portuguese property specialist adds that leadership also means delegating, and that in turn means having the confidence in your team members.

“I focus on the now and only do one thing at a time. I’m not a multitasker as for me that just creates confusion and disorganization. I just don’t believe in it. It is a basis for chaos.”

“This philosophy of focusing on the now helps me to avoid suffering from the three excesses of life: excess of anxiety – which has to do with worrying about the future, excess of stress – which is rooted in the present, and depression – which is an excess of despondency about the past. That’s my secret”, she confides.

DILS – strategy, vision and DNA

Catelhana-DILS Portugal has a culture of excellence in terms of service and innovative disruption at the core of its DNA and a desire to change the rules of the game.

This entails bringing ideas and innovation to the market which means a profound knowledge of the market and cutting-edge technology to support its many services with mobile applications.

Patrícia points out that once you are aligned in terms of growth, strategy and vision you are able to understand who will make up a team.

The main objective of this new consultancy, she explains, is to bring together all the talent under one roof and select the right people to achieve that.

And Castelhana as a market leader in the quality residential segment in Portugal is the perfect match for DILS because it has had an excellent reputation in the Portuguese market for 25 years. Founded in 1999, it is known for selling new premium residential developments and has had a real estate portfolio of 600 new build and refurbished properties under management in Portugal worth €2.3Bn over the past decade, as well as focusing on individual detached houses.

Castelhana-DILS Portugal currently has 130 employees, of which 85 were integrated into DILS Portugal from Castelhana at the time the company was purchased in May 2024.

The senior manager reveals that 20% of the employees at the companies several European offices are working in a special department called Digital Transformation.

“DILS Italy hired staff that had worked for Google, Amazon and from other high technology backgrounds to internally develop around a clutch of software applications and several digital platforms to improve the client experience,” she says. Confirmar isto

And assures that because of changing technology, “the real estate sector will not be the same as it is now in five or 10 years, which is why we need agile and flexible structures for this to happen, and DILS goal is to continue to be a SMART real estate consultancy that tears up the rules book that governed the past.”

With 50 years in the market, the DILS brand currently has offices in Milan, Rome, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Porto and the Algarve with plans to open a new office in Boavista in Porto, open an agency now in Estoril, and a new headquarters in Lisbon

All told, the company employs around 300 professionals, makes around €3.8Bn in annual transactions in Europe, manages over 3 million square metres of property, and leases around 1 million square metres of commercial real estate per year.

“DILS is the right hand of national and multinational corporations, investors, financial professionals and individuals and together we undertake visionary, successful real estate projects and sell top quality homes”, says Patrícia.

But Patrícia is at pains to stress that DILS Portugal is also firmly rooted in the commercial real estate market, meaning the lease of offices, logistics centres, industrial premises, retail outlets, property linked to hospitality, and of course residential real estate, as well as investment and advisory, to offer a 360º property service.

The company has even developed its own manifesto – the DILS Manifesto which is a clear departure from the old established patterns of business traditionally employed by the real estate sector which has been very slow to evolve and to follow new paths.

“Our manifesto really encapsulates transformation powered by innovative ideas and consolidated experience to overturn and revolutionize the old way business in this sector has always been conducted, and doing this through cutting-edge technology,” explains Patrícia Barão who points out that Castelhana in Portugal is currently undergoing a re-branding in which it will become DILS Portugal.

However, Patrícia is at pains to express that this does not mean throwing out the personal one-on-one contact with the client and a desire to please and provide that personable service that the Portuguese are famed for throughout the world.

Adding value through decades of market knowledge

We ask Patrícia Barão whether she thinks the property consultancy market is already sufficiently consolidated in Portugal and if there is space for yet another consultancy to join the many multinational consultancies and boutique luxury real estate agencies operating in Lisbon, Porto and the Algarve?

Above all, Essential Business wanted to know what added value was DILS Portugal bringing to its clients and what is its unique value proposition in the market?

“First, there is a total service component associated with our work selling houses. We have a profound knowledge of how the Portuguese market operates and what the likely trends will be for the market in the future”, says Patrícia.

This comes, she says, from 20 years of frontline experience of how the markets in Lisbon, Porto, Cascais, the Algarve and Comporta function and how cities and developments in Portugal evolve and will change over time.

“This experience and knowledge carries a lot of weight when it comes to a US citizen with a million euros or more to invest when the time comes to choose the right consultancy to take care of all their requirements on relocating to Portugal”, Patrícia stresses.

Changes in buying patterns

Patrícia’s historical knowledge of the Portuguese market is certainly extensive and profound. Patrícia recalls that between 2008 and 2012 most clients who bought quality homes in Lisbon and Porto were mainly Portuguese with Brazilians starting to buy property from 2012 onwards.

In Comporta, however, on Portugal’s Alentejo coast, there was modest interest from the French, Spanish, and Belgians, while in the Algarve it was mainly English, Irish, German and Scandinavian buyers.

“Fifteen to 20 years ago overseas citizens mostly bought houses in the Algarve,” she recalls, adding “foreigners didn’t generally buy in other locations in Portugal”.

Buying patterns began to change during the Great Recession and ‘Troika’ period (2007-2015) when overseas buyers began looking at other regions of Portugal at a time when there was a profound crisis in the real estate sector, particularly between 2008 and 2012.

Patrícia says that at the time Portugal needed investment and needed to kick-start the economy – an economy that was in no small measure supported by real estate and tourism.

With an encyclopaedic memory, she recounts how the then centre-right coalition government launched the Authorisation for Residency through Investment (ARI) or ‘Golden Visa’ for non-EU citizens in 2012, and remodelled the Non-Habitual Residents programme (NHR) for EU nationals, as well as changing Portugal’s outdated and suffocating Rental Law, rebalancing it more in favour of landlords while still offering protection to tenants, harmonising the law with current market values.

“It was an explosive cocktail that succeeded in attracting overseas investors to buy property in Portugal”, she recalls.

Demand for Portugal remains high despite investment visa changes

As for the impact of the previous government’s ‘More Housing’ package when it was announced in February 2022 that the government would change both the Golden Visa (12,718 issued since 2012) and NHR schemes to no longer enable investors to achieve residency through the property purchasing pathway, Patrícia admits there was some negative impact.

“It was not a significant impact. The worst impact was to Portugal’s credibility overseas. We were working on the strengths of our country: stable government and economic and political policies. When people in London or elsewhere read the front page of the Financial Times the perception they had was that Portugal chops and changes policies rather easily and so Portugal’s credibility was called into question” she recalls.

However, looking at the numbers, Portugal’s popularity was so high that it managed to resist the government change in policy as it did the Covid-19 pandemic from 2020-2021, and in fact 2022 was the best year for property sales in Portugal on record with 180,000 homes sold and €30Bn transacted.

Not only that, the housing market in Portugal managed to resist the increase in interest rates. In other words despite all of the obstacles, overseas investors still wanted to come to Portugal and buy property, which revealed just how resilient the real estate sector is in this country.

Love at first contact

But what motivates these overseas investors to up sticks and move to Portugal despite knowing the alterations to the investor visa programmes?

“Many of these overseas citizens are High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs) who simply fall in love with Portugal and feel good here. There is an energy in Portugal that draws people in, makes them want to live here, and make the most of the one thing that is most precious to them: time and living life to the full,” explains Patrícia.

“I can’t tell you how many times overseas buyers told me that they fell in love with the country, the friendliness of the people, that the fact they speak English, the mild climate, the great service in restaurants and the point that the Portuguese really like to welcome people,” she continues adding that when overseas property buyers are looking to purchase in Portugal, they value a deep knowledge of the market and want to know about the city and the neighbourhood in which they are considering moving to.

And feeling at home in Portugal and among the Portuguese owes much to the ancestral Portuguese character; Portugal’s history, a people who left Portugal 500 years ago in sailing ships and discovered the world, and also has to do with the Portuguese spirit of knowing how to win the hearts of people. “It’s in our DNA to like people and be friendly”.

Patrícia says that Americans are particularly fascinated by Portugal for these reasons, but also because the United States is going through an unstable phase with corruption, high crime rates, societal divisions and divided politics.

“I recently did a large trip to the US and felt that difference; the tension in the air that was not so pronounced as it had been on my previous visit was palpable.

Patrícia points out that Portugal is for United States’ citizens a country that offers everything and its charms have spread by word of mouth. “People like what they see here, how they feel in this country, and tell their family and friends. I have seen this phenomena time and time again, including in 2012-2013 with Brazilians”.

Today, it is the Americans who are sold on Portugal. In 2024 so far over 2 million tourists from the United States were registered at Portuguese hotels and guest houses (a +35.2% variation on 2022/2023) and who spent nearly 4.6 million overnight stays in accommodation (+32.9%).

It’s an impressive number and many visit Portugal on a fact-finding mission with a view to relocating to the country famed for over 300 sunshine days per year.

And the number of inquiries made by US citizens interested in emigrating to Portugal almost quadrupled in November this year alone compared to the average of the previous three months. Data from Ei! Migration Advisory reveals that between August and October there were 27 requests for information per month. In November, there was a jump to 95.

These numbers speak for themselves. According to the Portuguese immigration authorities, in 2023 there were 14,000 US citizens (14.126) living in Portugal – a figure that has increased by 44.2% on 2022 when there were just under 10,000 (9,794).

“At the end of the day we continue to be a country with conditions that enable people to feel at home and US citizens living here make a valuable contribution to the economy. They patronise local restaurants, their children are in international schools, they buy food in the supermarkets and spend money in shops, hire lawyers and accountants, and boost the national economy far beyond simply making an initial property purchase,” explains Patrícia.

Portugal’s market segmented visas still popular

Patrícia also says she has noted an uptick in the number of entrepreneurs relocating to Portugal and buying homes, as well as digital nomads looking for places to rent or buy and using Portugal as a base from which to travel around Europe, a phenomena made easier by the introduction of the Digital Nomad Visa or D8 in October, 2022, with the number of nomads living in Portugal estimated at 2,500 by the end of 2023.

“During the pandemic we saw a lot of demand for property rentals from digital nomads in Funchal, Madeira”, Patrícia recalls, adding that a similar pattern of relocation is being seen from young technology sector professionals judging by the number of applications for Tech and StartUP Visas.

To date there are 4,000 tech startups in Portugal generating €2.3Bn in business turnover and €1.3Bn in exports, responsible for around 25,000 jobs which pay above average salaries, and many of these professionals come from overseas and bought property in Portugal.

As for the Golden Visa, the top applicants last year for September 2023 alone were from the US (567), followed by China (306), the UK (234), Brazil (219) and India (199), while overall figures for the year reveal that 4,455 applied.

In fact, 2023 was a landmark year for foreign residency permits and Portuguese Golden Visa applications. Back in the pre-pandemic year of 2018, 480,000 overseas citizens from these destinations were living in Portugal, By last year that figure had risen to 1.044,608 million.

According to the recent report released by AIMA (Agency for Integration, Migration, and Asylum) in September 2024, the number of Portugal Golden Visa applicants as families surged to 2,901 in 2023 from 1,588 family members in 2022. The individual Golden Visa investors, in the meantime, increased as well, from 1,281 to 1,554 in 2023.

Patrícia advances that there are several forces contributing to this growth. The increasing demand in the Portugal Golden Visa investment from the United States and the United Kingdom is just one of the factors.

Future challenges

There are always challenges to any sector of activity and real estate is no exception. Apart from exterior challenges of a geopolitical and macro-economic nature which can affect interest rates, the cost of credit, money supply and the cost of building materials, these challenges have traditionally also brought benefits to Portugal’s property market as investors concerned over instability in their own regions, whether Eastern Europe, South-East Asia or the Middle East, seek a safer and calmer haven in Portugal for their investments and a securer future for their families.

“Whenever there is a crisis there are also opportunities, and even where there are challenges situations engulfing the sector or other parts of the economy there are opportunities, and the real estate sector in Portugal is proof of this now and over the past 15 years”, Patrícia points out.

And the real estate specialist rules out any talk of a real estate bubble in Portugal with a firm “No!”

“There is too much demand, particularly from overseas, and not enough offer to meet it. That would only happen if for some reason demand plummeted and there’s no sign of that on any level,” she reassures, adding that 2024 will close with more residential properties sold and a great volume of transactions in value than in 2023.

And the forecasts from Castelhana DILS Portugal is that transactions will continue to increase in the region of 15-20% year-on-year.

A woman of many talents

Patrícia has many creative passions and says she likes to write every day whatever comes to mind, whatever has happened that day, or simply how she feels.

She is also performing in a musical play which will run at a venue in the Portuguese capital. Not only that, she also likes to sing at special events

Her years of experience have also earned her leadership roles at several organisations linked to the local Portuguese property scene including being a leading light at Women in Real Estate (WIRE) – a group of like-minded women who get together on a regular basis to discuss the burning issues affecting the Portuguese and European property markets.

Patrícia is also the Vice President of the Portuguese Association of Estate Agents and Real Estate Professionals (AMEMIP) where her years of experience in the Portuguese property market have made her invaluable at solving some of the key issues faced by the local sector.

Patrícia was also invited to give lectures at Lisbon’s ISEG University on the Luxury Real Estate Market and coordinate its ‘Real Estate Consultancy’ executive course

“One of the things that I share with my students is that Portugal has a great opportunity to position itself as a player in the upper middle and luxury segments of the residential real estate market and we have to see Portugal as a high-quality destination.”

Patrícia says that Portugal can do this because it has the sea and stunning river backdrops such as the Douro Valley as an ‘amphitheater’ backdrop for beautiful homes in a great variety of stunning locations from undulating Serra hills to golden sandy beaches in the Algarve and its lovely golf courses and sleepy fishing villages, the terraced vineyards in the north of Portugal to dramatic landscapes of the Azores and semitropical garden environments of Madeira.

“We have houses that feature these aspects at the front door. If buyers want to be immersed in nature, we have lovely properties in Comporta with the Best Golf Course in the World at Dunas and kilometres of paradise beaches”, she describes. “And if they are looking for a manor house in the Alentejo or a vineyard farm estate near Lisbon, we can offer that too”.

“Then we have cities packed with history and culture, from castles with panoramic views to gothic medieval cathedrals, Roman ruins and Baroque palaces. We can offer potential buyers whatever dream they are looking for and make it a reality. Portugal offers everything in one unique destination and DILS can deliver it”, concludes Patrícia Barão, Partner Residential at DILS Portugal.