With property prices still increasing, and no major increase in the number or properties coming on the market, we advise clients that you have to be flexible in your requirements. And all the better if you can be flexible on something that most other people cannot, it will give you a big advantage when searching for that property.

And the biggest feature that fits this category is the presence or not of a lift. Many people won’t even look at somewhere without a lift, and so they will completely miss out on this apartment, for example. Their loss then.

Nestled on the third floor of a traditional Valencian building in the atmospheric streets of El Carmen, this elegant apartment blends classic charm — high wooden-beam ceilings, a street-facing balcony — with modern comforts. The building’s location is about as central as it gets: you’re just steps away from Valencia’s main attractions, lively restaurant-strewn streets and the buzz of the historic quarter.

The property has been fully renovated to a very high quality, done by the owner for himself, 3 bedrooms, 2 master baths (both with showers, one with a tub also), small laundry room and a large open living room/kitchen.

We can’t fault this apartment, except for bit about having to walk up 3 flights of stairs. If that doesn’t bother you, you come from a city where this is the norm, or you like the exercise, or you have an irrational fear of being trapped in a lift during another national power cut, but this time its goes on for weeks and by the time they get your desiccated skeletal remains out all that is left for the world to remember you by is your last message to the world, scrawled in blood all over the walls of the lift cabin – ‘I wish I’d taken the stairs…..’