Family relocating to Melbourne area in 2 months. Advice appreciated. (Tampa: rental homes, insurance)

[vatofl2012]

Hello everybody! My family and I found out recently that my company will be relocating us to the east coast of Florida in
December. We can live anywhere between Cape Canaveral and Jupiter. Although we have not taken a house hunting trip yet (trip planned in a couple weeks) , our online research has us highly favoring the Melbourne area. Our main areas of interest are Viera and Beachside. We have a 3rd grader and a kindergartner so good schools are our top priority.

We are looking for specific neighborhood advice in mainly these two sections of the Melbourne area. We will be renting a home for a year or so initially. Budget is $2200 or (preferably) less.

Does anybody have any info on the following neighborhoods?

1. Ocean Ridge (or that neighborhood just south of there with a street called La Costa): Are there kids/families there? Is it mainly a snowbird neighborhood? Is it so far away from the causeway that it feels isolated?

2. Wingate Estates: Do the kids there go to Viera schools? Is it a high traffic area? It looks like all the neighborhoods are interconnected in that area.

3. Sonoma: Any opinions on this neighborhood? Can you hear I95 in the part that backs up to it?

There are other neighborhoods we have questions about as well, but I guess that's enough for now. Any info on Viera and Beachside would be greatly appreciated. Also, if anyone knows of any resources for locating rental homes in these areas other than the MLS, Trulia, etc., we would love to hear about it.

Thanks in advance for any and all assistance!

[chopchop0]

You can't go wrong with either viera or beachside areas like satellite or indiatlantic. Brevard county is a top 10 county for schools in FL and those areas are the best along with cocoa beach.

[vatofl2012]

Thanks for your response chopchop0!

Question: As far as Beachside goes, are Satellite and Indieatlanic as family friendly as Melbourne Beach? Is there a lot of tourist traffic there? Is there a greater chance in those locations of living next door/near to a house that may frequently throw wild parties?

Also, do you know if it is true that folks living on the barrier islands face mandatory evacuation during every named storm?

Thanks again for your input!

[chopchop0]

Based on my very subjective opinion, I get the feeling that satellite and Melbourne beach are a little quieter than Indiatlantic. Maybe being closer to the 192 causeway, Indiatlantic seems a little busier.

Not sure about the mandatory evacuations.

[Rabflmom]

Mandatory evacuations for hurricanes? If one is really headed our way, they do do mandatory evacuations, but they will not force you to leave with threats. What they will do is close the causeway when the winds hit a certain speed like 48-50 mph. Once that happens you are stuck and on your own.. They will not respond to fire, ambulance call, etc. until it is safe to drive over the causeway again. They usually go door to door basically and have people staying on the island give their next of kin to be notified if they should die during the storm etc. Every hurricane there are people who call in once the winds get up to 100-115 mph who have changed their mind and want to leave.
Hurricane prediction is pretty accurate so there is time to prepare your home and make plans to go stay somewhere safer. You head inland to Orlando or Tampa or even go south if the storm path is bringing the storm farther North. I had friends who loaded up everything they didn't want to lose in a U-Haul truck and pulled their boat behind it on several of the storms in 2004. I also had a friend who by the 3rd storm just stayed in her condo/mobile home in the added on room and watched Jeanne come in because she was too tired to move out again.

[vatofl2012]

Thank you both for your response! All info is greatly appreciated.

[Manuel de Vol]

Originally Posted by Rabflmom

Mandatory evacuations for hurricanes? If one is really headed our way, they do do mandatory evacuations, but they will not force you to leave with threats. What they will do is close the causeway when the winds hit a certain speed like 48-50 mph. Once that happens you are stuck and on your own.. They will not respond to fire, ambulance call, etc. until it is safe to drive over the causeway again. They usually go door to door basically and have people staying on the island give their next of kin to be notified if they should die during the storm etc. Every hurricane there are people who call in once the winds get up to 100-115 mph who have changed their mind and want to leave.
Hurricane prediction is pretty accurate so there is time to prepare your home and make plans to go stay somewhere safer. You head inland to Orlando or Tampa or even go south if the storm path is bringing the storm farther North. I had friends who loaded up everything they didn't want to lose in a U-Haul truck and pulled their boat behind it on several of the storms in 2004. I also had a friend who by the 3rd storm just stayed in her condo/mobile home in the added on room and watched Jeanne come in because she was too tired to move out again.

Now you're scaring me, Rabflmom!

We decided to move here in 08 (and committed ourselves.) Originally, we bought land intending to build, but because we were overseas we came back in early 11, sold our land and bought a 'ready built'.

Our house is about 25 years old, so it doesn't comply with the most modern building regs.

We had been told: "There has never (in recorded history) been a major hurricane here ... Why do you think the government put Canaveral where they did?"

That could've been BS ... however:

When we bought our house it had the original windows. Aluminum frames, single panes of glass (thermal insulation: About Zero. )

However. The house had single-pane (and probably rather brittle after 25 years) glass windows. It didn't have storm shutters!

And ALL the glass was original! There had never (as far as we know) been a broken window.

That is absolutely amazing. - We live by the 6th tee on a golf course and the golfers here couldn't hit a ball in a straight line to save their lives. Yet nobody ever managed to break a window in our house - and it never suffered a broken window through storm damage.


If a hurricane comes along and wipes out our house - that's tough luck (and it's why we have insurance.)

Am I worried about it? - Hardly.