Your thoughts on some towns in Brevard County (Miami, Palm Bay: transplants, short sales)

[tommyboa]

Hello,

My husband applied for a couple jobs at Patrick AFB.
We were wondering about Rockledge.
Is it safe? Are there things to do?
Are there any surrounding towns that we should consider,
or stay clear away from?
Our price range for a house would be $70,000 or less.

And, could someone please list these in order from safest
to least safe.....
Melbourne, Palm Bay, Cocoa, Rockledge.
I'm just trying to get some kind of idea.
Thank-you in advance for your help!

[Rabflmom]

Originally Posted by tommyboa

Hello,

My husband applied for a couple jobs at Patrick AFB.
We were wondering about Rockledge.
Is it safe? Are there things to do?
Are there any surrounding towns that we should consider,
or stay clear away from?
Our price range for a house would be $70,000 or less.

And, could someone please list these in order from safest
to least safe.....
Melbourne, Palm Bay, Cocoa, Rockledge.
I'm just trying to get some kind of idea.
Thank-you in advance for your help!

Palm Bay
Melbourne
Rockledge
Cocoa

Maybe Melbourne and Rockledge could be interchanged there because I can't remember how they ranked.

This was published in the paper Sept. 2011.
Hometown News

[singlefin]

We live in Indialantic. $70,000 for a house? You might think its cheap, but drive through any neighborhood with houses at those prices and you will be locking your car door as soon as you turn onto the street.

[troyc]

Beachside and Rockledge/Cocoa are going to be a different price range. You can probably find an older house in those areas around that price. Also Port St John may be a place to look. It is a longer drive than Cocoa or Rockledge but not all that much. It is basically one giant neighborhood.

Also crime statistics will be relative to the worst neighborhoods in each of those towns. They all sort of border one another these days anyway.

You may consider renting as well-especially in the housing market on the Space Coast; unless you plan on being there for several years. I am assuming it is a govt contractor job.

[chopchop0]

Originally Posted by Rabflmom

Palm Bay
Melbourne
Rockledge
Cocoa

Maybe Melbourne and Rockledge could be interchanged there because I can't remember how they ranked.

This was published in the paper Sept. 2011.
Hometown News

Parts of pb seem worse than Rockledge to me

[jghorton]

Generally speaking, Palm Bay is overbuilt and under-facilitized (roads, trash, water) -- There are probably more neighborhoods there in financial trouble (foreclosures, short sales, etc) than anywhere else (You will also likely be looking at a 1-hour commute to PAFB). Cocoa is really a mixed-bag -- You need to closely check-out the schools and neighborhoods. Rockledge is similar to Cocoa, particularly in the $70K housing range. Melbourne is too large and diverse an area to 'group' into one rating.

Except for your housing price range (and many are dropping into that range), you might want to consider Satellite Beach and Viera (schools, housing values, family/child-friendly, beach proximity, etc). A lot depends on where you intend to work, your school needs and your housing requirements (price, $70K) can be achieved numerous ways ... lease, option, downpayment/mortgage, cash-buy ... what do you have in mind? (btw, much of Patrick's base housing has now been converted into private developments and rentals ... 'Pelican-something' --- It is lower cost housing, with close proximity to the beach and PAFB)

[Rabflmom]

Originally Posted by chopchop0

Parts of pb seem worse than Rockledge to me

It is actually hard to see PB unless you have about 4 hours to drive around. You can get lost here in town if you don't watch how you get into a neighborhood. It is a city larger in square foot of streets than Miami.
We really do not have a ghetto here. Some houses are smaller because they were built before the ordinances requiring so many feet and 2 car garages.

We did have a lot of foreclosures here....mostly people who speculated and bought more than 1 home to turn over, but they got caught and lost the homes. Also a lot of people bought bigger homes when they moved down than they could afford and walked away when they found out Florida does not pay as well and they miscalculated what they could pay for living here. It is much easier to retire to Florida and make it than to come down and raise a family-especially if you were already struggling up north.

Houses are selling and neighborhoods are getting back to what they were. Lots of the pre 2000 homes have been updated and things are looking better again.

PB and Rockledge are pretty similar but PB is more spread out and can take 40 minutes to get from the South areas to the North areas of the town. It is a town still playing catch up with utilities. Show me a town with a population of 19,000 that goes to 90,000 in 20 years and to about 110,000 in the next 20, that can keep the roads and water and sewer when people tend to not want to pay taxes to build it. Personally we opted to pay the almost $7000 to change from well to city but not many of our neighbors did so it is a costly undertaking for the city to bring it to all areas.

[MartinEden99]

Originally Posted by chopchop0

Parts of pb seem worse than Rockledge to me

The parts of Rock that are closer to Viera might be considered more desirable than many parts of Palm Bay to a lot of people (especially transplants) but are also more expensive. The parts of Rock that are closer to Cocoa are less expensive but I wouldnt recommend being close to Cocoa, personally (not all bad nor the people, but the usual problems with extremely low/no income neighborhoods).

I agree with Rabflmom on the safety, in the $70k price range, being better in Palm Bay than the other areas. PB is just a further drive & a bit more removed from the beach & other county-wide attractions. The sheer size & population of PB means you'll find any & all types of people. But its primarily a suburban-to-rural place.

I also agree with jghorton on his point about Melbourne. It is extremely diverse and hard to characterize "Melbourne" as being any particular type of place. It has VERY rough parts (much rougher than PB) to fairly higher end parts (old-money type of neighborhoods) to everything in between. but at $70k for a SF Home...you are likely to be closer to the very rough parts of Melbourne than the nice parts unless you are talking about a complete gutjob foreclosure which really isnt a $70k "livable" home...its a $70k "plus whatever it takes to rehab it" home.

[kyle19125]

Originally Posted by MartinEden99

The parts of Rock that are closer to Viera might be considered more desirable than many parts of Palm Bay to a lot of people (especially transplants) but are also more expensive.

I agree and it's good to see a descriptive entailing the west side of Rockledge as there seems to be a tendency to lump the whole town as undesirable, which clearly isn't the case if one has been there.

[Mom_of_Five]

I moved from Indiana to Palm Bay, and I really liked it there. I really like the Bayside area. We no longer live there, not by my choice, but I would love to go back. Good luck!