Northern, residential and affordable, with more space per euro than the centre.
Valencia Expat Daily is a free English digest of the city's news, plus the events, deadlines and openings worth knowing about. Five minutes, every morning.
Benicalap is unfashionable and cheap, with a big park, newer blocks and families who have been there for generations. If your priority is a second bedroom rather than a good address, it does the job.
The catch: Far enough out to feel it, and short on atmosphere.
A dozen questions about how you want to live, and we tell you which of the nineteen areas fits, what it costs, and what you would end up complaining about.
Take the two-minute quizThe same twelve measures on all nineteen pages, so two can be read side by side. Our own ratings, not official statistics.
| Getting around without a car | Workable without a car |
|---|---|
| How central it is | Outside the centre but connected to it |
| Noise | Properly quiet |
| Going out in the evening | Almost nothing open after dinner |
| Green space | Parks and gardens on every side |
| The sea | No beach |
| With children | Good for children |
| English and the international crowd | Almost no international community |
| Space for your money | Far more space for your money |
| Parking | Parking outside your door |
| What you would be renting | Mixed and newer apartments |
| The buildings | Later blocks with lifts and balconies |
Asking prices in Benicalap run around 17 EUR per square metre a month. On the benchmarks we use for all nineteen areas:
That is the 12th highest of the 17 areas we hold reliable asking data for. Bands rather than exact numbers, because a single figure would imply a precision we do not have.
Portals publish asking prices, what you will be quoted this month. The government publishes signed contracts, which include everyone who moved in years ago on a rent that never caught up. Both are true at once. Arriving now, budget against the asking price, and see why the two figures disagree for the longer version.
What happened in Valencia, what is on, and the deadlines and openings that actually affect you. In English, free, and written for people who live here.
This is where your rent goes furthest without leaving the city, and where you will need the most Spanish. Patraix is a proper neighbourhood with its own market and plaza. Benicalap is further out, plainer and cheaper again, with a big park and newer blocks.
Each sentence below is computed from the same data as the quiz rather than written by hand for the pair. Percentages compare a one-bedroom flat.
Quiet, residential and the best value inside the city. A real neighbourhood.
Choose Patraix instead and you get: A little closer to the centre, a bit more character, and about 6% cheaper. A little less green and slightly harder parking.
6% cheaper on a one-bed
We publish Valencia's news in English every morning. The stories that named Benicalap load here, live, so this is never a snapshot of the day the page was written. If nothing appears, read today's edition instead.
Advertised asking prices in Benicalap run around 17 EUR per square metre a month, so roughly 920 to 1,120 EUR for a 60 square metre one-bedroom and 1,530 to 1,870 EUR for a 100 square metre three-bedroom. That is the 12th highest of the 17 Valencia areas we hold reliable asking data for. A room in a shared flat costs about 400 EUR wherever you are.
Not really. Benicalap is workable without a car for everyday life, though you will notice the walk or the ride more than you would in the dead centre.
It works. Benicalap is a reasonable place to raise children without being built around them: parks and gardens on every side, and properly quiet.
No beach. Entirely inland. If the sea is the reason you are moving, the beach barrios and the coastal towns are the honest answer instead.
Rarely. Benicalap has almost no international community, and you will need considerably more Spanish here than in the barrios newcomers usually start in.
They are the same kind of place with different answers. Choose Patraix instead and you get this: a little closer to the centre, a bit more character, and about 6% cheaper. A little less green and slightly harder parking.
No. This is editorial guidance from a local newsletter, not legal, financial or relocation advice. Rent figures are market data and move constantly. Check anything that matters before you sign.
Every morning: what happened in Valencia, what is on, and the deadlines and openings that actually affect you. Benicalap included.
