Living in A Box Not a Cardboard Box

You know the song. Living in a Box, by Living in a Box (Great extended thinking there peeps). Released in 1987, it made Richard Darbyshire briefly famous and permanently part of pub quiz folklore. What fewer people know is that Darbyshire was married to Sonia Jones, the woman who sang the opening title theme to Monty Python's Life of Brian. One cultural touchstone, one slightly annoying 80s one hit wonder, one couple. We mention this only because it felt relevant when we first saw this property, a house so clean-lined, so precisely geometric, that viewed from above it does rather look like a very sophisticated arrangement of white boxes, but there is no obligation to start writing "Romans Go Home" in bad Latin all over this perfect blank canvas. That would just be cultural terrorism by the Beterean People's Front. Splitters!

The drone shot tells you most of what you need to know. Four-square contemporary architecture. Salt water pool. Two terraces. Manicured lawn. Solar panels on the roof, which was admirable forward-thinking before the current price hikes of everything.

Built in 2024 to a custom brief, this is a proper new-build in a suburb where most properties were built by people who had already made their money elsewhere. We are talking about the San Antonio de Benegeber area, close to the Escorpion Golf Club, where the neighbours have the kind of cars designed to make you feel faintly inadequate in your clapped out old banger. But you will fit in fine as you already have an EV don't you. You should have so you can use the charger already onsite.

Inside there are four bedrooms, two bathrooms, zoned air conditioning, double glazing throughout, and an energy certificate rated A (Which is the first one I've seen in Spain I think). One of the bedrooms currently contains a drum kit. This is not a condition of sale. You are entirely free to remove it, though we appreciate the current owner's child's commitment to being the annoying one on the street.

The location is technically Betera, but the relevant reference points are the Escorpion golf course and a road that connects you to Valencia without the noise of living inside the city itself. All services are nearby and you have good connections to get anywhere and everywhere. There's enough green space around that you will occasionally forget you are 20 minutes from a city of 800,000 people.

€850,000 for this?

We are not going to tell you it is good value compared to the neighbouring properties. It is. We are just not going to say it.