Palm Bay · Buying
Buying in a flood or hurricane area in Palm Bay
Flood zone, flood insurance, wind and 4-point reports and past flood claims, before you commit.
Free · Agents who know Palm Bay · Every step in one app
Palm Bay has more residents than any other city in Brevard County.
Buying near the water or in hurricane country can bring up real worry. You may have watched storm coverage, heard about insurance prices, or wondered whether a home could flood. Those worries are reasonable.
Read the full guide: buying in a flood or hurricane area, step by step →
What this means in Palm Bay
- The typical home here is worth about $283,200. With 10% down, that is a loan of about $254,900; owners here typically spend about $1,549 a month on housing costs (Census), which gives you a real local starting point for your budget.
- To look up a home's flood zone in Palm Bay, use City of Palm Bay Flood Information. A home's flood zone decides whether a lender requires flood insurance.
- Palm Bay Utilities covers a large part of the city, but some areas have no city water or sewer yet, so check the address on the city's water/sewer map. Moving a home from a private well to city water costs a $2,049 water capital charge plus a $100 deposit (for a standard 80-foot lot).
What’s different for you
- Read the seller’s flood answers. Florida sellers answer three flood questions before you sign.
- Check the flood zone. With most mortgages, homes in high-risk flood zones must have flood insurance.
- Get insurance quotes early. Homeowners insurance doesn’t cover flooding.
- Book the 4-point and wind reports. Older homes usually need a 4-point; a wind report can lower your price.
When you start in CloseHive from this page, your plan already includes these steps, along with the usual ones for buying in Palm Bay. You always see what to do next, and your agent handles the how.
Palm Bay in numbers
- The typical home here is valued at about $283,200, which is 17% lower than Brevard County as a whole ($339,600).
- The typical home here was built around 1993, about 33 years ago. Ask about the roof's age early, because Florida insurers look at it closely.
- 80% of homes are lived in by their owners, close to the county's 77%.
- Owners with a mortgage pay about $1,549 a month in housing costs, about the same as typical rent ($1,601).
A typical Palm Bay home costs about 3.9 times the typical household income here ($72,614 a year), compared with 4.3 times across Brevard. With 10% down, the loan on a $285,000 home would be $256,500, and Florida's mortgage taxes at closing would be about $1,411.
Questions people ask
Does homeowners insurance cover floods?
No. Flood insurance is a separate policy.