Melbourne, the honest version.
The county's job center and its most varied housing market, from $295K mid-century in Eau Gallie to new construction out west. Where you land matters.
Who Melbourne fits.
Melbourne is where you buy when the commute is the point: L3Harris headquarters, Northrop Grumman, Health First's Holmes Regional, and the airport are all here, and most of the county's jobs radiate from this corridor. It's also the market where two houses a mile apart can be different decades, different insurance bills, and different buyers entirely. That variety is the whole game, and it's why Melbourne rewards buyers who look past the listing photos.
I went to Melbourne High. This is the town I know street by street.
What 51,340 houses actually look like.
I keep the full Brevard property roll on hand, every parcel, not a listing-site sample. Here's Melbourne's housing stock as the county appraiser sees it.
Source: Brevard County Property Appraiser public roll, mid-2026. Appraiser market value is the county's tax-purpose estimate, not a sale price; the two usually differ.
Five Melbournes, pick yours.
Downtown / historic core
The walkable stretch along New Haven near Crane Creek: restaurants, bars, the Friday-night crowd, and older homes with the charm and the maintenance that comes with it. Roofs, panels, and plumbing from another era are what kill insurance quotes here, price the 4-point items into your offer, not your regrets.
Eau Gallie
The arts district (EGAD murals, galleries, the causeway to the beaches) surrounded by mid-century block homes at the mainland's friendliest entry prices, roughly $295K median. Streets nearest the Indian River deserve a flood-zone check; plenty of the neighborhood sits safely in Zone X, but "near the water" and "in a flood zone" aren't the same thing, verify the address.
Suntree / Lake Washington
North Melbourne's established golf-and-lakes belt: 1980s-2000s homes, mature landscaping, HOAs that actually enforce, and quick I-95 access. It's the "settled" tier between central Melbourne prices and Viera's master-plan premium, without Viera's CDD line item.
West Melbourne (technically its own city)
Newer subdivisions off Minton and Hollywood: concrete block from the 90s forward, newer roofs that insurers actually like, and quick runs to L3Harris and the Palm Bay Road retail spine. It votes and taxes as its own municipality, so millage and services differ slightly from Melbourne proper, worth knowing when you estimate the tax reset.
What Melbourne isn't
The beaches. Melbourne Beach, Indialantic, and Satellite Beach are separate towns across the causeways with beachside insurance to match, roughly double mainland premiums. If your dream is toes-in-sand, budget for that honestly, and if it's a bigger house for the money at half the insurance, the mainland side of this page is your friend.
Three Melbourne realities to price in.
The age split drives everything
Melbourne's housing runs from the 1950s to last year, and in Florida the roof's age matters more than the kitchen's. A 2005 block home with a 2022 roof can cost less to insure than a charming 1962 cottage at the same price. Get insurance quotes before you're under contract, and use the closing-cost calculator's insurance line to see what it does to your cash at the table.
Commute math is the value map
Working at L3Harris or the airport? Nearly everything on this page is 25 minutes or less. Patrick SFB is a causeway commute, easiest from Eau Gallie and Suntree. Kennedy Space Center is a haul from anywhere in Melbourne, 50-plus minutes on a good day; KSC workers usually shop Titusville to Rockledge instead, and I'll say so rather than sell you a commute you'll hate.
Taxes reset, zones change
Same as everywhere in Brevard: the seller's tax bill is not your tax bill, run the reset. And if a school zone is part of your decision, verify the address directly with Brevard Public Schools before offering; zones shift and listing sites lag.
Specific communities, with the receipts.
This page covers the market. These go one level down, into individual communities: every home counted off the county roll, lot sizes measured, and the fee documents read and cited where a public record exists. Where I could not source something, the page says so instead of guessing.
Capron Ridge
A 2007-median gated Melbourne community built out in seven distinctly named phases over roughly fifteen years, confirmed independent of Viera, with a genuine historic-trail namesake and no verifiable CDD or HOA fee figure.
Read the Capron Ridge guideCarriage Gate
A 1995-median West Melbourne community on unusually large half-acre lots, a repeated wrong-ZIP-code error I'm correcting, and a completely different townhome community whose HOA gets mistaken for this one's.
Read the Carriage Gate guideCresthaven Homes
A 1962-median Melbourne community with no active HOA found, two conflicting portal descriptions of its exact location, and a 24% absentee rate I could not explain from a sourced reason.
Read the Cresthaven Homes guideFountainhead
A 1974-median Melbourne community near Wickham Park with a real voluntary HOA, a genuine French-themed street grid, and an unrelated Palm Bay memorial park sharing the exact same name.
Read the Fountainhead guideIndian River Colony Club
Not an HOA: a member-owned corporation that replaces your roof and your refrigerator, and has not levied a special assessment in thirty-five years.
Read the Indian River Colony Club guideIxora Park
A 1967-median Melbourne community near Wickham Park with no HOA or CDD found in any state or county registry, and two unrelated same-named Ixora Park subdivisions elsewhere in Florida.
Read the Ixora Park guideKingsmill
A 1987-median Melbourne community with a real, confirmed HOA and no current fee figure I trust, a coincidental name shared with a famous Virginia golf resort, and two community parks.
Read the Kingsmill guideLake Washington Townhomes
A 285-home Melbourne townhome community with a 2011 median build year, 17 recorded sales in the last twelve months, and a county-roll ownership mix worth checking before you rely on a listing description.
Read the Lake Washington Townhomes guideLansing Ridge
A 1994-median north Melbourne community built in phases under two distinct, separately incorporated homeowners associations, with an HOA fee I could not confirm from a primary source.
Read the Lansing Ridge guideLeewood Forest
A 1961-median Melbourne community, one of the largest I cover, with no confirmed active HOA, a same-name Miami-Dade association that is not this one, and a website I could not verify belongs to this community at all.
Read the Leewood Forest guideLongwood
A 1984-median Melbourne community getting a real, recently approved city road resurfacing project, with a confirmed active HOA and no independently verified fee.
Read the Longwood guideLoveridge Heights
A genuinely 1951-median Melbourne community near the Eau Gallie River, with no HOA or CDD I could verify, and an aggregator's detailed HOA description that turned out to be fabricated filler text.
Read the Loveridge Heights guidePine Creek
A hundred and eighty-nine homes built inside a four-year window, about one a month for sale, and a roof clock that runs for the whole neighborhood at once.
Read the Pine Creek guidePineda Crossing
A 1997-median Melbourne community confirmed independent of both Viera master associations, no community pool or clubhouse I could find, and a specific HOA fee that every aggregator cites and none independently confirms.
Read the Pineda Crossing guideSawgrass Lakes
Every home built between 2014 and 2021, which makes it easy to insure and means the warranty just ran out. That transition is the whole story.
Read the Sawgrass Lakes guideSherwood Park
A 1960-median Melbourne community of 885 homes built around a genuine City of Melbourne park of the same name, with an unrelated Titusville neighbor sharing the name and a widely repeated population figure that does not belong to this community.
Read the Sherwood Park guideSonesta Walk
A 2006-median attached-townhome community in Melbourne built by Mercedes Homes, which filed Chapter 11 shortly after completion, with real evidence of significant rental activity and an unverified HOA fee.
Read the Sonesta Walk guideSt Andrews Manor
A 2017-median, fully built-out Melbourne community off the Pineda Extension with no confirmed golf course despite the name, and no working HOA website to verify a dues figure against.
Read the St Andrews Manor guideUniversity Park
A 1958-median Melbourne community with a genuine nearby university and an Ivy-League-style street grid, no HOA I could confirm, and conflicting aggregator statistics that appear to describe a different boundary.
Read the University Park guideWindover Farms
A 0.62-acre median lot in a county that medians 0.18, pools on 78% of homes, and only thirty of its seven hundred houses trade in a year.
Read the Windover Farms guideWindsor Estates
A 1999-median Melbourne community near Suntree with a real HOA confirmed active since 1995, an unverified gated claim, and an HOA fee figure I could not confirm from a primary source.
Read the Windsor Estates guideWoodshire Preserve
A gated, deeded, low-density Melbourne community with lots up to 1.38 acres, sold as both Woodshire Preserve and The Reserve at Lake Washington by three different builders, with an HOA that is confirmed active but a monthly fee I could not independently verify.
Read the Woodshire Preserve guideQuestions people actually ask.
How much does a house in Melbourne FL cost in 2026?
Mid-2026 medians range roughly $350,000 to $408,000 depending on source and neighborhood. Eau Gallie runs about $295,000 median for mid-century homes; Suntree and West Melbourne new-build tiers run higher. Homes take about 59 days to sell at roughly 98% of ask.
Which Melbourne neighborhood is cheapest to insure?
Insurance in Florida follows the roof and the location more than the neighborhood. Newer concrete-block homes in West Melbourne and Suntree with recent roofs typically quote best; 1950s-60s homes downtown and in Eau Gallie need the 4-point inspection items (roof, panel, plumbing, water heater) priced in. Mainland Melbourne overall averages roughly half of beachside premiums.
Is Melbourne FL good for commuting to L3Harris or Kennedy Space Center?
L3Harris headquarters, Northrop Grumman, Holmes Regional, and Melbourne Orlando International Airport are all local, mostly under 25 minutes from anywhere in the city. Kennedy Space Center is 50-plus minutes; KSC workers usually shop Titusville through Rockledge instead.
Is West Melbourne the same as Melbourne?
No, West Melbourne is its own municipality with its own millage and services, though addresses and daily life blend together. The difference matters mainly for property-tax estimates and local rules.
Deciding between neighborhoods? No pressure.
Send me two addresses and your commute. I'll tell you which one I'd buy, and why, even if the answer costs me a bigger commission.