One of the big differences between Savvy Cat Realty and other agencies is that all our agents are employees with contracts and salaries. They get paid to assist and provide good support to the client, regardless of sales. This system is obviously much more taxing on the company, as there are many employee benefits and taxes in Portugal, but it allows Savvy Cat as a business to properly train our agents and give them quality of life and work balance, which in return leads to good service.

Thanks to this we provide a lot more service than typical real estate agencies: we support with the visas, renovations, licenses, construction, documentation, opening bank accounts, networking for professionals, we do tours, we do verifications, we work with off market properties, we do reports and much more. Of course in order to be committed to do all this my staff needs to be paid, independently of sale. The system we found for this to work is to have service packages that need to be purchased prior to the property transaction, as a big part of the service will be provided prior to purchase.

Savvy Cat Realty also has Lawyers on payroll and includes legal verification of real estate transactions and documentation as well as visa documentation and process (consultation time is limited by package, Golden Visa applications are not covered – but we do offer discounted rates with some lawyer partners).

Another big difference is that we work countrywide, allowing our clients to explore different locations without having to contact different agencies. If you have an ideal and not a location when it comes to property, we will likely be a great fit for your needs, as a big part of our service is to help our client find the best location for them (taking in consideration factors from lifestyle to budget and requirements). This works smoothly because Savvy Cat’s agents are not competing against each other, they are collaborating as a team in order to help our clients to the best of our ability.

Savvy Cat’s business model was designed to provide the best possible service to the buyer, and make sure our clients know exactly what they are getting into prior to purchase. To this end we always do a property verification with a qualified professional and our clients get estimates, timelines and reports prior to purchasing.

We have exclusivity with all our clients, work with anyone on the market, agencies and private sellers, and will show our clients everything, including off market deals we come across, with full transparency.

Savvy Cat Realty values ethics and as a business we are very concerned with cultural and economic sustainability, our goal is to slow down gentrification by making sure foreign buyers make informed purchases that are not overpriced. We believe this helps both the new expats as they likely spend less plus have a much smoother relocation process with support from local business and the local community as it boosts the economy by bringing cash flow in a sustainable way.