Finding an Apartment

One of the most anxiety-ridden parts of any move is find the right place to move to. When you’re doing a long-distance relocation, this becomes somewhat challenging, but it can be done!

While we were still in the, “Is this possible?” phase of thinking about the move, I started looking at long-term rentals in Valencia, and was a little surprised to see what looked like nice places for prices that compared favorably to Lisbon. I set up a couple of notification watchlists online, and carefully perused every new apartment that came available.

I communicated our wish list to Laurence and her team, and threw in everything I could think of – but I did let them know that there were really only a few non-negotiables: number of bedrooms, minimum area, a terrace or balcony, pet-friendly, elevator and parking. Air and heat were highly desirable – Valencia is nice most of the year, but there can be extremes in the summer and winter. We were seeing places online that had all these features, plus things like pools, gyms, and 24-hour concierges.

A side note about concierges – a lot of nice buildings in both Portugal and Spain have these, and they can be a real plus. In addition to security, they provide a way to get deliveries, which is not always simple. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve waited at home all day long for a package, only to get a text at 5:30 letting me know that the shipment is being held somewhere because I refused delivery … the hell I did! I’ve had to pay for a MailBox Etc. drop box for shipments, and even that isn’t 100% sure-fire.

As we got closer to our house-hunting visit, Marta from the relocation team and I were in constant communication about what was available, and she was scheduling appointments left and right. Unfortunately, the market in Valencia moves very fast, so some of the places we were interested in weren’t available by the time we got there. On the other hand, new places were popping up daily.

We eventually looked at 10 different places, learning things and refining the search along the way. Some things we learned:

• Pools and gyms are found in modern high-rise buildings in newer neighborhoods. They tend to be very large developments, and they feel sort of industrial. Pools are not heated, which means that they’re chilly even in the summer, and gyms are variably maintained.
• The apartments we saw online with big terraces had some extra issues. For one thing, Kristie is a little acrophobic, so anything higher than about the second floor was a bit uncomfortable for her. What’s more important is that any space allocated to a terrace comes out of the apartment … to the point where some of the places we looked at, we wouldn’t have been able to put a queen sized bed in the master bedroom! Tiny, tiny rooms just don’t work for us.
• Duplexes – what the Spaniards call two-level apartments – can be spacious, but the connecting stairways are narrow and require careful navigation. We nixed all duplexes after the second one.
• There were neighborhoods we thought we were interested in that turned out not to be what we expected. We originally were focused on the area around the City of Arts & Sciences – either Penya-Roya or Quatre Carrers. But after looking at places there, we decided they were too far from the heart of things, and overall, they felt a little sterile.

The good news is that we actually found a great apartment. It’s bigger than our place in Lisbon, and it’s right in the middle of things – we’re only two blocks from the Plaza Ayuntamiento, so you couldn’t ask for anything more central. It’s got air, heat, an elevator, parking, and an American refrigerator. Although there’s no balcony per se, there is a central atrium where Kristie can have some plants – plus, there’s a little Juliet balcony off the master bedroom where she’s already planning to put scented geraniums.

I’ll go into more detail later, but for now the lease agreement is signed and the deal is done. Marta is getting the utilities set up for us before we move in July, and I have a physical address to provide to the moving company. Success!