Benitachell, Valencian Community 03726

Half past seven on a September morning. The sun lifts out of the sea to the south-east, and because that is exactly the way this apartment faces, the first light of the day comes in flat across the terrace and keeps going, through the living area and into the bedrooms. You can stand there with a coffee before anyone in the building is awake and watch the water change colour. That orientation is the single most durable thing about this apartment for sale in Benitachell: the sea view and the light are not features that wear out, need servicing or go out of fashion. Everything else here surfaces, fittings, finishes is work to be done, and the price of 290,000 reflects that honestly. There are 97 m² built, arranged as a two-bedroom home with one full bathroom and a separate guest cloakroom, which is the layout that works when the second bedroom is used by visitors rather than by the household every day. The kitchen is open to the living space, so the whole front of the apartment reads as one bright room rather than a series of small ones. Worth saying plainly: the kitchen is the corner that receives the least natural light of the whole apartment, because the light arrives from the terrace side and the kitchen sits back from it. Both bedrooms, by contrast, get the same generous south-east light as the living area. The apartment was built in 2005, and the bones of that layout are sound an incoming owner is reworking finishes, not moving the house around. A garage space with one parking spot comes with the apartment, which on this stretch of coast is not something to take for granted. The terrace is the reason to buy this one. It is a proper outdoor room rather than a ledge with a railing, facing south-east over the sea, so it holds the morning and mid-morning sun and then softens into shade later in the day which in July and August is exactly the right way round for eating outside. The building has a communal pool, so the swimming, the cleaning and the winter cover are somebody else's job: you use it in May, you walk away from it in November. For a buyer thinking in terms of long-term cost rather than square metres, that distinction matters more than it looks on paper. This is a second-hand apartment from 2005 in need of renovation, and we would rather you hear that from us than discover it on the viewing. What is already in place: the 97 m² of built space, the open kitchen configuration, one full bathroom, a guest cloakroom, the sea-facing terrace, the garage space and access to the communal pool. What a new owner takes on is the refresh surfaces, fittings and finishes. The energy performance certificate is in progress. Buyers who like a project tend to like this kind of starting point: a good orientation, a good view and a floor plan that does not need structural changes to work. Cumbre del Sol sits on the cliffs of Benitachell El Poble Nou de Benitatxell in the Marina Alta, the northern end of the Costa Blanca in the province of Alicante. From the apartment, the nearest beach is 4.8 km away and the village centre 6.9 km. The everyday practicalities are closer than people expect: a supermarket at 3.5 km, an international school at 2.1 km, and a golf course at 6.3 km. Alicante airport is 103 km by motorway and Valencia airport 134 km, which puts two sets of UK and Irish flight routes within a comfortable drive rather than tying you to one airline's schedule. Life up here is quieter than in the resort towns below, and more vertical: the roads run along the cliff edge, the pines smell of resin by August, and the light in the last week of September is the best of the year. With an international school 2.1 km away and a supermarket at 3.5 km, this is a part of Benitachell that functions all year rather than shutting down in October. You drive down to the beach for the day, you drive back up for the view. A two-bedroom apartment with a big terrace suits that rhythm enough room for guests, not so much house that a fortnight away in win