Melbourne Beach area help...LOTS! (Palm Bay, Cocoa: rental, houses, buying)

[CooperTed]

After 2 years of living in separate states for work reasons, our family of six is being reunited in Florida. My husband has accepted a position near Patrick that starts in a few weeks. I will remain with the kids till school is out and hopefully house is sold. My goal throughout the last two years was to keep everything as stable as possible for the kids, knowing that where he was working was not where we wanted to be and the position was only to be for a year...but stretched to 2! So a couple more months of being apart to wrap up school is a drop in the bucket!

We came down last summer for a tour and briefly looked at houses. While I know the wisest advice is RENT FIRST, I am finding it very challenging to find a rental to accommodate us and our large dog (and cat and 2 guinea pigs). Likewise, the goal of stability and reducing the number of moves for the kids is pushing us to purchase a house rather than spend the year looking and moving twice. I have researched zillow, realtor.com and read this website for about a year and a half. I feel we are fairly certain we want beachside. We currently live in a Viera type area, and I find myself driving the 15 minutes to the beach, wishing I was living there. The houses we looked at were in various areas: Melbourne Beach, Indiatlantic, Satellite Beach, Merrit Island, and Cocoa Beach. I very much like the non commercialization of the further south Melbourne Beach. I did not think Merrit or Cocoa was for us. I have focused the majority of our house hunt on the SOFA area with the Gemini school district, with the understanding that the house we most likely get will need updating and potentially an addition to accommodate the kids.

We have an 8 grader, twin second graders and a Pre-K kiddo. All the public elementary look very good on zillow. I do have some concern for the 8th grader, rising 9th. She has learning disabilities that are pretty significant. She currently is in a private Catholic school (we aren't Catholic) that caters to children with ADHD, autism, and learning issues. I am not opposed to sending her to the public high school, I just want to make sure she will be in the right place and be safe. On that note, can anyone explain Westshore to me? Is this a gifted school that is a lottery? My other three are pretty bright, and one is a super hard worker. The littlest seems really bright because his older sister makes him go to her Saturday school.

So my questions?

Am I on the right track? Should I be looking at any other areas? Am I missing anything?

Restaurant recommendations? I love a good meal, and my kids love Chick fila. Our friends will be meeting us for Friday night on their way back from the other side of Florida. It would be great to have a relaxing meal, somewhere beachside?, but not necessary...good food, tolerant of 5 kids, most of them around 5-8 years old.

I'll have many, many more questions, I'm sure...(One completely random one is a side of beef! I get a half a grass fed cow each year from a local farm and have become addicted to great beef! Know of a place within 3 hours drive that I can get from or get delivered?) Plus, I will have lots of questions about kids activities...piano, gymnastics, maybe sports rec, Spanish (my youngest has done Spanish in preschool and learned so very much, I would hate for him to lose it)...

If you have any recommendations, thoughts, advice, I would be very grateful. We are looking forward to being a family again. It was heartbreaking when my 7 year old asked me last fall if daddy would be home for Halloween or Christmas. Kids are also excited at the quick trip to visit a favorite mouse of theirs (and Mom's too!).

[narex14]

I don't have any great advice for you, but I'm in a similar situation. We have two dogs and are about to have our 4th kid and our oldest is 15 and we are moving to the Cocoa Beach area at the end of June. We have tried to figure out the buy vs. rent thing as well.

I hate the idea of moving twice and perhaps not being able to find a house to buy where we rent, so having to change schools for the kids again...which I refuse to do.

That being said, we are leaning towards buying at this for all those reasons.

One other concern that I have is hot much the prices have done up lately. I'm nervous that I'm buying at the top of the market again. I did that in 2006 and it was very painful.

Good luck on your journey. I'm sure it will be exciting to be together and near the beach.

[jghorton]

We lived directly on the ocean in Satellite Beach and Indialantic for several years. While it is nice to not have to drive 15-minutes to the beach, we spent less time actually on the beach, than we had previously spent there when we lived much further away and had to drive to get there.

One reason the Melbourne Beach area is non-commercialized is it's lower, full-time population base does not justify the amenities you will need elsewhere. You will also be trading an occasional 15-minute drive to the beach for a daily 30-40-minute one-way commute to the Patrick AFB area. Also, other than Gemini and Apollo Elementary (?), your kids will have to commute daily to Junior High (Hoover, Johnson?), or High School (Melbourne, Palm Bay?)

Think about it this way: Are you willing to trade an occasion 15-minutes driving to the beach, for a several, longer daily commutes to get to work, town and school? (Satellite Beach is at the beach, yet, only minutes away from Patrick, junior/high schools and Viera/Melbourne amenities). For someone with kids, it's a much better fit.

[ExIslander]

I will second some of those thoughts. I like Melbourne Beach a lot myself, we are currently going over there a few evenings a week (my daughter is a volunteer assistant soccer coach at Flutie Fields right across the street from Gemini), I would happily live there -- but yes, you and the family will spend more time in the car commuting to jobs, schools and kid activities than you would in other areas, especially with four kids to coordinate. But perhaps there are more kid activities tucked away south of 192 than I know about.

Westshore is one of the top publics in Florida. Very challenging, from what I hear. Assume it would be at least as intensive as an IB-type program. Because it's a lottery school and a popular one at that, you need to be comfortable with your zoned schools or nearby private options in case they don't get in. In the area you're looking, that would be Melbourne High for the oldest. Since she is already in a Catholic school, you may also check out Melbourne Central Catholic, which is well regarded. They do accommodate certain kinds of learning-disabled kids. They were not able to admit our youngest, who is moderate-to-severe autistic and requires a great deal of supervision, but that was more behavioral than learning-related. I was grateful they were at least willing to consider it!

[BrevardREALTOR]

I know families who LOVE living in South Melbourne Beach for the quiet, seclusion and small town feel. They do tend to spend more hours in the car since a lot of people are not willing to drive down there for play dates etc..
I live in Indialantic (SOFA), and since the choice schools lost bussing at one point, I drove my boys to Cocoa Beach for several years to attend Freedom 7. It was a 1/2 hour each way twice a day. I found instead of resenting it, though, that I loved the time in the car to catch up with them and hear about their days before the homework and sports craziness began. By the way, part of the curriculum at Freedom 7 is Spanish education, so that might be a good fit.
I love that so many people ride around on their golf carts in S. Melbourne Beach.

Westshore is definitely built to be a more challenging school. They must take at least 2 AP courses to graduate. Students are chosen through a lottery (my first son was #456 on the waitlist to give you an idea of demand). My younger son goes to Westshore and LOVES it. One downfall for some students is the limited number of sports. They have soccer, lacrosse, track, cross country, and basketball, golf, swimming and diving. No baseball or football which can be a big loss for kids who are big into them. There is also the IB program at Melbourne High that is also more challenging and has all of the sports and marching band.

For your oldest daughter, I would suggest scheduling a meeting with the guidance department at any potential schools you are considering. Make sure her IEP is up to date and meets her needs so she can get the services she needs when she get here. Bring that with you to the meeting. They will have to re-evaluate her, but her current IEP will be honored in the meantime.
Good luck!

[ExIslander]

OK, I've lived here for a few years now but I've never heard anyone talk about "SOFA" as an area. What does it mean/stand for?

[chopchop0]

Originally Posted by ExIslander

OK, I've lived here for a few years now but I've never heard anyone talk about "SOFA" as an area. What does it mean/stand for?

South of 5th ave aka 192 (I think)

[ExIslander]

Thanks, that makes sense. For some reason I was reading it as "S of A" and wondering what the A was.

[Rabflmom]

Originally Posted by ExIslander

OK, I've lived here for a few years now but I've never heard anyone talk about "SOFA" as an area. What does it mean/stand for?

Been here 40 years and had to think about it to figure what it meant too. Guess it is the new yuppy way of designating the space to make it sound more "hip"instead of just saying South of 192.

[CooperTed]

I want to thank you all for your thoughts. We viewed about 8 houses, ranging all over the budget, but primarily Melbourne Beach. While I loved the isolation of further south on Melbourne Beach, it is just too much driving to get kids to schools (either me or the bus) and too much commuting for my husband. We did look at two in Indiatlantic. I still feel like I prefer Melbourne Beach near 192.

On that note, I apologize about the SOFA...I guess its all the realtor-ese I had been reading on zillow and realtor.com. I thought it was a common term!

It seems we are now focusing on remodeling an existing home. Can anyone give me some recommendations for remodelers...looking to do a kitchen/living area, update master bath, and build a two story addition.