DILS Portugal marks first year at SIL 2025

DILS Portugal, a real estate consultancy focusing on offering a premium quality service to clients looking for residential or commercial premises, celebrated its first year at Portugal’s annual property show SIL since it incorporated Castelhana in June 2024.

Text and Photo: Chris Graeme

Essential Business caught up with Patrícia Barão, Partner of Residential, on Friday on the first day of the ‘Portugal Property Fair – SIL 2025’ to find out how the company has been doing since we last spoke to her in December last year when she featured on the cover of our printed magazine Essential Business.

And there was enticing news: First, the company has moved premises to Avenida da República 5 (Saldanha) where it occupies two floors of a newly-refurbished office building in Lisbon.

“We’re in a building which has a completely revolutionary office concept where we’ve created a space in which our clients can feel like they are part of a club,” explains Patricia.

An exclusive space offering a VIP experience

Appropriately called DILS Club, the idea has already been adopted at DILS country offices overseas such as Milan in Italy and the concept goes for both the residential and commercial services from the company.

“We focus on two arms: Residential and Commercial. The idea is that if our clients need, for any reason, to come in and work, we have the DILS Club which they can use and functions as a fully-equipped state-of-the-art office-cum-lounge space built around a club concept with internet, bar, the finest food and other conveniences.”

But Patrícia Barão is quick to dispel any notions that the consultancy is operating a kind of exclusive up-market co-working space within their office premises.

“Think of it more like a VIP lounge or private members club. Our clients can drop by, have their meetings with us, and then catch up on any work they need to do at our DILS Club,” explains the high-end residential real estate expert with a track record spanning over 20 years.

Patrícia says the space is “welcoming and comfortable” in which every detail has been well thought out “so that our clients can feel at home”.

“They know that if they are passing by Avenida da República they can drop by and enjoy the space and its facilities at any time”.

But not only that, DILS Club also has an agenda, including cultural and networking events, yoga sessions designed for a community of brilliant minds and game-changers who effectively become part of a property membership club and business community.

The DILS Club can also arrange theatre and concert tickets, or book a table at a Michelin-star restaurant.

It also offers an immersive room experience with inspiring images and sounds or one that can showcase the latest Prop-tech innovations for the real estate industry. In all it is a unique and flexible space with cutting-edge technology for different experiences and events.

I asked Patrícia what the fee was to join such a forward-thinking and exclusive real estate club. “Our clients are offered this service as a matter of course and having this open-door policy is very much far part of our philosophy”, says Patrícia Barão.

Rebranding

Patrícia explains that DILS Portugal – Castelhana is undergoing a rebranding process, although the Castelhana brand will continue on for some time but associated with the DILS brand which purchased it.

“Castelhana is a DILS company and will retain the brand at least until the end of this year or even into 2026. We didn’t want to change it immediately on acquisition because Castelhana is a strong brand that has been in the market for 25 years. We want our clients to know that DILS and Castelhana are the same company, but simply have been going through a re-branding process,” explains Patrícia Barão.

And so far the DILS brand has been very well received in the real estate sector across all segments and among clients.

Next month or in June DILS Portugal will launch a campaign on the radio, on billboards and MUPPIEs around cities and at bus stops, and in the press so that the wider Portuguese public will discover DILS and immediately recognise the name and brand.

“Our goal is that when someone sees one of our images, even without the logo, the prospective client will immediately think: ‘This is from DILS’.

A time-honored commitment from a cream team

The company is also offering its clients a commitment. If they need to sell a property within three months, they have the peace of mind knowing that DILS Portugal will do everything within its power to meet that commitment without the client needing to list with another agent or consultancy.

I ask Patrícia what kind of team the partners at DILS Portugal have put together to assure clients they are in expert hands.

“We have the best specialists in the market with long and proven track records for each segment we deal in. Take Mariana Rosa our Head of Offices who is considered to be Lisbon’s crowned ‘Offices Queen’ because there’s nothing she doesn’t know about the Portuguese offices market”.

DILS Portugal also has Gonçalo Santos and Gonçalo Ponces who head up Development, Living and Capital Solutions, and Hospitality & Living, respectively; and Marta Lourenço who leads Advisory, (evaluations, research, consultancy on buy-side/sell-side), and João Cruz, Head of Retail who since 2015 has been an asset management director at Multi with 21 years experience in the property and asset management business of shopping centres, retail parks and offices.

On the Industrial, Logistics and Data Centers side, the segment is headed by Nuno Esteves who also has a long experience behind him in capital markets business development.

On the team is also Fernando Ferreira (Commercial) who is a Partner at DILS and for three years had been an administrator of Square Asset Management.

And last, but certainly not least, is DILS Portugal CEO and Partner, Pedro Lancastre, who has notched up over 20 years in senior and executive roles at real estate consultancies in Portugal.

People follow people

And Patrícia dismisses the rumours that circulated in the Lisbon real estate world that the decision by key senior management figures to leave another well-known consultancy to form DILS Portugal and take their teams with them had caused veritable ‘shock waves’ through the property community as a case of ‘people following people’. “Look, in the United States these things happen all the time and no one bats an eyelid”.

As for the first quarterly turnover and profit figures achieved since DILS Portugal was formed in June last year, Patrícia Barão, Partner of Residential at DILS Portugal simply said: “We’re doing very well and are 20% up quarter-on-quarter”.