Today I'm in Valencia. I came on the train to gather some documents for my visa renewal.

I'm staying in a fabulous Art Nouveau building in the Eixample barrio. It has heavy carved wood doors, carrara marble stairs, huge stained glass windows in the stairwells, textured glass in the windows and room doors, and molding on the ceilings.

It seems there were/are three huge apartments on each floor, some remaining apartments while others have been transformed into doctor's offices and other commercial ventures.

My room is on the 6th floor in one of the large apartments - Apartment 16 - which has been sectioned into eight hotel rooms - 4 single rooms with a shared bathroom and four other rooms with private baths.

Several apartments in the building have been partitioned like this and are being rented through a hotel service. There's a check-in station on the second floor - a machine like an ATM takes your check-in info and spits out a plastic key card and a ticket with your apartment number, a room number inside that apartment, and the wifi password.

As I skipped down the stairs down I saw that there were hotel names outside of several different doors. I think this is a really great way to finance an apartment in a fantastic building. Let someone else pay the mortgage , then you move in when your home is free and clear.