Brevard County - Melbourne/Palm Bay and points north toward Titusville (Venice: real estate, insurance)

[logybogy]

Anyone familiar with the area can give a basic lowdown on the various cities in Brevard in relation to cost of living, jobs, traffic, shopping, entertainment, etc.

Looking at the real estate, from the listings i've seen it's much much much more affordable than anything in South Florida. There's some very nice homes in the $300k range I'm looking at. So, that's a big plus in my book.

I would be looking for a brand new home or house built within the last few years with the stronger hurricane codes and most importantly west of any high risk insurance pools that citizen's runs.

In South Florida, the dividing line for the insurance high risk pool is I-95. Anything east of this and you are forced into citizen's. Is this also true in Brevard? Are you able to buy from insurance companies other than citizen's east of I-95? What are the insurance rates like in Brevard?

[sunrico90]

We did talked in reference to your question in another thread. Can someone help on this one....

[eartheasy]

Lots of traffic in south Brevard - roads are congested and development just continues on.

No dividing line for insurance in regard to I-95, but Brevard is one of the coastal counties being hit hard by insurance companies choosing not to renew policies and insurance rates are skyrocketing.

Lots of shopping and entertainment available in Melbourne, West Melbourne, and Viera/Suntree.

[shedav]

I read a article in a retirement magazine yesterday while at the orthodontist with my kids and it said that Melbourne was considered to be below cost for living. It then featured Venice and it was considered above.

The article was about top 10 retirement destinations the other 9 destinations was not in Florida!!!