What we do
Services
Four things, really. Most clients use two or three of them. A few use all four, across more than one house. You can begin with any of them and we will stitch the rest around the first.
Sourcing
The search
Finding the right house begins with a long conversation about why you want one. The brief usually changes twice before we start looking, which is the point. We work regionally, mostly through people we have known for years, and we say no to more houses than we show.
A typical search runs six to ten weeks. We visit everything in person before you do. You receive a short weekly note — five or six houses, with honest notes, not a dashboard — and travel only for the shortlist. Off-market, on-market, discreet estate sales, whatever the house calls for. We act for you, not the seller, and we take no commission from the other side.
Renovation
The work
We work with four or five contractors per region, all Portuguese, most of them small family firms. We oversee the site, translate the drawings, keep the budget honest and the schedule close to the truth. The owner sees the house change in photographs, on video calls, and on the two or three visits that actually matter.
Most of our projects fall between eight and eighteen months. We prefer restoration to demolition: lime plaster instead of cement render, original tile kept where it can be kept, old carpentry re-hung rather than replaced. For structural work we bring a trusted engineer and a licensed architect for the drawings that must be stamped. The house comes back looking older than it did before.
Rental management
The letting
Short-term on Airbnb and Booking, run like a small hotel rather than a listing: a real housekeeper, proper linen, photographs that do not lie, repeat guests who book the same week each year. Long-term on executive leases, usually to families moving for a specific job, usually for two or three years.
We keep the two businesses separate because they want different things from a house. Our split between short and long is roughly forty-sixty, weighted toward long, which is how we prefer it. Every property gets a dedicated local contact — not a call centre, not a WhatsApp robot, a person.
Concierge
The care
For the owners who arrive on a Friday night from somewhere else and want to find the fridge stocked, the pool warm, the car with petrol in it and a table booked for Saturday. Quiet, useful, Portuguese-speaking. Not a brand, a person.
We handle the boring, continuous work as well: utilities, insurance, tax filings, the annual maintenance, the gardener, the pool, the security check on the night of the storm. The idea is that the house behaves itself whether you are there or not.
How it usually begins
A short note, a long conversation, then the work.
Most of our clients write first. A paragraph or two is enough for us to know whether we are the right studio for the work. If we are, we talk, usually for an hour. If we are not, we say so and point you somewhere better.
Fees are straightforward and explained in writing before anything begins. We invoice from Portugal, in euros, against hours or against a fixed scope. No commissions from the other side, no hidden cuts, no kickbacks from contractors. That is the deal, and it is the only deal.