Here at Valencia Property we often get thanked for making our descriptions of houses entertaining. whether that be funny, interesting or just plain weird. We are also asked often why we do this. The simple answer to that is to stand out a bit from the normal “Here is a two bedroomed, one bathroom apartment on the third floor” vanilla boredom. When you write a lot of descriptions this can quickly become extremely boring.
The honest truth is that the photos, 360º Tours, Videos and location details are what people are looking for and many people scroll through descriptions as agents are known to “be economical with the truth” to put it mildly. We are not but that doesn’t stop people going onto the page with a preconceived notion of course. We want people to know more about the properties we list so it’s important to get your attention and in a world of millions of distractions that is quite difficult. We try to do it by making people look forward to our descriptions. Now it’s true that not all descriptions can be mini episodes of the IT Crowd or Fawlty Towers but we hope to elicit at least a few chuckles.
Where it Started
We had been doing more decorative descriptions for a while when we got a pearler in Rocafort in 2017. This was not an opportunity to be wasted so I got down to writing a description that did the property justice and told of its situation. You can read it below (Recovered from the Wayback Machine)
“Yep you read that right, a two million euro wreck, and as Elton John would say “It’s sad, so sad, it’s a sad,sad situation“. Elton needs to come and rescue this totally awesome property from the disrepair and disrespect that society is throwing at it. Sorry does seem to be the hardest word here to apologise to this property… It was for sale five or six years ago for around 4 million euros and then the bank repossessed so we have to assume the mortgage was eye watering.
But anyway lets have the basics shall we? It sits on a plot of over 5000m2 and is conservatively measured at just over 750m2, I don’t think that includes the downstairs part with its little surprises but more of those later.
You come in through the door in the non sliding metallic gates to find a fallen tree gracefully resting on the black slate roof and you immediately start thinking “Uh oh, how much is this going to cost me to repair?” (Answer around 300-500k in total)
We bend our bodies under the tree to reach the main entrance, or we can make our way through the burgeoning jungle to the other side where what I would hesitatingly describe as a “Front door” is reached by following an overgrown pathway studded by violets and wild flowers thanks to our recent copious rains. You could also take the eight car garage entrance if the electric was connected so the automatic door opened for us but it isn’t so it doesn’t.
Getting into the house, did I just say house? Getting into the rather huge mansion the reception room is bigger than most apartments in the city. From this central point we can go to the north wing or the south wing of the house but whichever way we go we find surprises and space. The photos do not even begin to describe the potential of this house as they were taken without electric and with at least five years of dust and spiderwebs polluting the air.
There are at least ten bedrooms and roughly the same number of bathrooms and toilets dotted around. The main bedroom is… well I don’t know what it is like because they are all main bedrooms really. Not one room you could even optimistically class as a single. The living room is pretty huge too overlooking as it does the enormously overgrown and abandoned gardens. There are two contiguous kitchens for good measure in case you don’t want the help to appear in your life and then there is the downstairs basement area with its gym, sauna, machine rooms and… oh yes, the enormous indoor swimming pool which has no doubt seen many opulent pool parties but you are not going to see as the iphone torch doesn’t work at the same time as the camera.
There are a few annexes to the house for those unwanted relatives, smelly teenage kids who hate you hate you hate you for not buying them a new pony or just to keep the grandparents in the style to which they have become accustomed and the lush, at the moment overlush, gardens boast a large pool area with a second pool for when you want to be outside rather than swimming underground and there is the obligatory barbecue and bar area.
The property is set on the Santa Barbara estate just ten minutes into the centre of Valencia and a couple of minutes away from the Barcelona motorway and it is on a gated estate with 24 hour security and social club and sports club for those who decide to base their life’s work on recovering the faded opulence of this colonial style mansion.
If you enjoyed the description share it with any friends who have recently won the lottery, have obscene wealth or simply want your own eye watering mortgage. You could do magic with the transformation of this house, you need to, and I want a dinner party invitation once finished if you buy it and do it up because I would love to see the finished article.”
We got such a good reaction and the description was shared and commented all over the internet so we decided to ramp up the sarcasm quotient, the strange little things found in houses, the distinctive features and most importantly to give a property description a theme. Both myself and my colleague David kept this up for a few years and then Jess took on the challenge too before Gavin came along and dropped the mic.
So today we are going to share some of our favourite descriptions from the site with the reasons to read them. They may not be our favourite properties on the site (Although they may be) but they are definitely the most entertaining. If you are reading this in the future when you click through or if the image is missing on this page you will find nothing and that means the property is sold, however you will find our latest listings here and you might find some great new ones descriptions too. There is no particular order to these listings just click on the images to read more.
1. When It’s a Secret Villa That The Owner Doesn’t Want People to Know About
Highlights Include
If you want to satisfy your curiosity, get in touch and we will arrange to blindfold you, pick you up in an unmarked van with blacked-out windows, take you on an unnecessarily roundabout route to the house, and finally spin you around 3 times before removing the blindfold and showing you the house. And if you don’t buy we will then have to cut out your tongue so you can never disclose the location.
2. When We Weren’t Allowed to Change the Description From Spanish
The Theme was hostage taking
The orientation of the house is east-west, the air FEEDs through the house giving perfect ventilation. The views of the Sierra Calderona and surrounded by the traditional Valencian garden stand out, for ME one of the most beautiful areas of the region. The surrounding fields are ONLY organically-grown SORGHUM.
PLEASE give us a call If we can SEND you any further information and HELP arrange a viewing
3. When You Get A Reminder About Sea Levels
The forward thinking in this one is perfect
At the moment it is about 150 metres from the beach, and I know, I know, I mentioned first line, but who buys a property without thinking of the future? The way things are going, by about 2040 this house will be right on the beach, which is just about when they will have worked out how to stop the seas rising, and you will be left with a prime beachfront. You see? Up here for thinking, down there for dancing as they say
4. When You Include Wally/Waldo
When you put a little game into the pictures because the property is good but there is nothing to hang a description on.
And speaking of visitors, guess who’s come by to say hello? Wally – Waldo if you’re American! Yes, that’s right. To keep you all from getting bored as you’re looking at these photos and to stop you complaining that all these photos look the same, I want you to spot the 3 times Wally photobombed the shots. Come on, it’ll be fun. Gather all the family around the screen and play together! The kids will never look at Tik-Tok again, they’ll be begging you for just another 5 minutes on the Valencia Property website instead.
5. When You Really Need More Words Than Tired and Needs Attention
At times property descriptions gloss over the current state of a property describing it as “tired” or “in need of attention”. This property in Lliria could easily be described as Rip Van Winkle and in need of the attention that is required by a hyperactive 6 year old maxxed out on E-Numbers and that yellow stuff they used to put into the breadcrumbs on fish fingers.
6. When You Have an Argument Over Whether Euros Are Countable
Is the Euro a countable noun? I’m English so it is, Gavin is Irish so it isn’t. He rubbed it in during the description.
“From the photos you can see it is very tastefully decorated and looks very attractive. So it really is ready to go, you could buy this place and have it rented out and earning euro for you almost straight away.
We should all be careful about spending, whether it’s one euro or many euro, but I would be surprised if this investment opportunity hangs around for too long, get in touch and get it to pay off for you.”
7. When You Have to Specify What Special Means
Highlights include…
“It’s a really special house, and not special in the way that England fans who boo their own players taking a knee are special, but special as in clever, bright and good fun – the opposite of those fans in fact.”
8. When You Can’t Use A Word But You Can Use a Letter
Ok, I really want to list this because some of the photos of this place in Almenara are works of art in their own right. I will discuss some of them below. (Incidentally due to public decency laws I will be using some abbreviations here, like FH, WTFK, FM, GFY and WTAF. And maybe just plain F too)
The first photo below is of 2 armchairs and a fireplace. Harmless right?
Wrong. It is a visual full frontal assault. FM I thought I was having a stroke when I saw this. Your eyes run in distress from one item to another seeking refuge. There is none
9. When The Theme Is Star Wars
A villa situated just outside Lliria in the urbanisation Caramello K9-8 , named after one of those robot lads from Star Wars I suppose.
No death star here, although a little bit run down to be fair. Lovely big garden space, front and back that has been allowed to run a bit wild. Its no joke looking after a big plot like this, but a goat, or an ewok or something would keep the grass down.
10. When You Need a Hiding Place
All about that secret British government plan.
“If you love nightlife and meeting new people, this is not the place for you. It’s off the beaten tourist track and there’s no British pub down the road here, no groups of hen and stag parties passing by and nowhere to order chips and gravy while you’re watching the football.
On the other hand, if you’ve had a difference of opinion with the Inland Revenue, or if Martin across the road has finally realised that even though his wife has been going to your place for French lessons for the last 2 years that you don’t actually speak French, or perhaps if you’re just looking for somewhere to keep your head down while the British government hatches a plan to allow Covid sweep through the entire population unchecked then this is the place.”
You Want More?
There are plenty more colourful, weird and wonderful descriptions on our site but remember not every property can have a top quality description like this. This is mainly because owners sometimes understand English and will read about their property and they are very precious at times about what is said without understanding that the most important thing about any property is the attention it receives giving it more chance to attract visitors.
The other reason is that sometimes properties inspire a certain description and others don’t. It doesn’t necessarily mean the property is better or worse, it’s just a fact of life in the property business. However, if something sticks in the mind of someone visiting these pages they are more likely to want to make a visit and potentially buy your house.
If you want us to come around and do a different type of description on the primary website for English speaking clients looking to buy property in Valencia, our website of course, then feel free to call us. We might not be able to find anything really funny to hang onto the description about your property but if we can we will.
Oh! Our Blogs Are Usually Entertaining Too
You might want to read some of the more popular ones. Just click on the images below to be taken to them.
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