Melbourne, Florida Real Estate Market Trends

Melbourne area home prices are rising again, but slowly: the federal house price index for the Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville metro rose 2.2 percent from the second quarter of 2025 to the second quarter of 2026.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency's all-transactions index on FRED stood at 454.30 in Q2 2026, against 444.66 a year earlier. The quarters in between were close to flat, at 446.84 in Q3 2025, 448.50 in Q4 2025 and 447.27 in Q1 2026, so most of the year's gain came in the second quarter of 2026. The index covers the Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville metro as a whole and, in the series notes, is estimated using sales prices and appraisal data, which makes it a measure of price direction rather than a typical sale price.

The second quarter figures for 2020 to 2024 come from the full series download on FRED, matched to the quarter labels on the series page (the download's Q2 2025 value is the 444.66 the series page labels Q2 2025). On that reading the Melbourne area index grew no more than 3.9 percent a year after 2022 and even slipped 0.3 percent between Q2 2024 and Q2 2025. The plateau had small swings inside it: the fourth quarter of 2024 shows 449.50, a high that the Melbourne area index did not pass again until Q2 2026. The next quarterly release is scheduled for Oct 27, 2026.

The big run-up in Melbourne area prices happened between mid 2020 and mid 2022, when the metro house price index climbed 49.4 percent in two years.

On the FHFA series for the Melbourne metro, the index went from 281.27 in Q2 2020 to 323.43 in Q2 2021 and 420.26 in Q2 2022. In the four years since, it has added only 8.1 percent, reaching 454.30 in Q2 2026 (FRED). Over the full six years the gain is 61.5 percent, and about four fifths of that rise in index points came before mid 2022.

On this index the Melbourne area market has moved from a boom to a plateau rather than a fall. Owners who bought in mid 2022 have seen modest gains, while anyone who bought before 2020 is far ahead. Because the index measures the whole Brevard metro, a single Melbourne neighborhood can run ahead of it or behind it.

The City of Melbourne tax roll tells the same story of slowing growth: total taxable value rose 5.5 percent to $8.9 billion in 2025, after gains of 19.9, 12.4 and 8.8 percent in the three years before.

Schedule 5 of the city fiscal 2025 ACFR, sourced to the Brevard County Property Appraiser and the Florida Department of Revenue, lists total taxable assessed value of $8,905,971,086 in 2025, up from $8,444,232,139 in 2024, $7,759,428,790 in 2023, $6,905,805,346 in 2022 and $5,416,565,967 in 2020. Residential property was assessed at $9,346,645,480 in 2025, 4.7 percent above 2024 and 77.3 percent above the $5,271,224,050 of 2020.

Melbourne tax roll values are assessed values, not sale prices, and Florida caps how fast assessments can rise; the city's amendment page cites the current 10 percent annual cap for non-homestead property. The roll kept growing for three years after the price index leveled off, with the gains shrinking each year. The residential and commercial columns in the same schedule jump around between 2022 and 2023, when commercial value peaked at $6.88 billion before dropping, so the total taxable column is the steadier line to follow.

The Melbourne direct rate in that schedule was 6.8619 mills in 2025, down from 7.6886 in 2016, while Schedule 6 puts the combined city, school and county rate at 17.2369 mills for 2025 (Melbourne ACFR).

Falling rates have offset part of the rise in Melbourne values. In Schedule 6 the combined direct and overlapping rate fell from 21.4740 mills in 2016 to 17.2369 in 2025. Over the same years the school rate went from 7.2750 to 6.3110 and the county rate from 6.0692 to 3.6931, while the city added a debt service rate of 0.3153 on top of its 6.5466 operating rate. A Melbourne owner whose assessment rose with the roll therefore paid tax on a larger value at a lower rate per $1,000. That trend reverses for the city share in fiscal 2025-2026: the ACFR's economic factors note says City Council adopted an operating rate of 7.0112 mills, plus a voted debt service rate of 0.2977 mills for the Joseph Pellicano Law Enforcement Center.

New home building in Melbourne slowed in 2025: the city reports new residential permits fell 21 percent from 2024 and their value fell 41 percent, while new commercial permits rose 176 percent.

The transmittal letter of the Melbourne fiscal 2025 ACFR says the city issued 7,397 permits for projects valued at more than $524 million in 2025, 9 percent fewer permits than in 2024. Residential projects completed or underway by the end of 2025 included Madison Midtown Apartments, The Preserve at Melbourne/Avocet Apartments and the Kendall Pointe Townhome Subdivision.

Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville metro jobs in mining, logging and construction point the same way. The BLS Economy at a Glance page shows 16.5 thousand jobs in mining, logging and construction in August 2026, preliminary, down 3.5 percent from a year earlier, while total nonfarm jobs rose 0.5 percent to 259.7 thousand.

Yes, rents in Melbourne ZIP codes are still rising: HUD's fair market rent for a two-bedroom unit went up $50 to $100 a month between fiscal 2025 and fiscal 2026.

HUD publishes Small Area Fair Market Rents by ZIP code for the Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville metro. In Melbourne ZIP 32901 the two-bedroom figure rose from $1,510 in FY2025 (HUD FY2025) to $1,590 in FY2026 (HUD FY2026). The increase was largest in 32935, from $1,670 to $1,770.

These are HUD benchmark rents used by Housing Choice Voucher programs in the metro, not asking rents from listings, so individual Melbourne apartments can rent above or below them. Their direction is the useful signal: across these five ZIP codes the two-bedroom figure rose between 2.2 and 6.0 percent in one year, while the metro sale price index rose 2.2 percent.

The nearest scheduled change is Amendment 3 on the November 3, 2026 ballot, which would sharply raise the homestead exemption for Melbourne homeowners if at least 60 percent of voters statewide approve it.

The City of Melbourne amendment page says the measure would take effect January 1, 2027, raising the homestead exemption from $50,000 to $150,000 and then to $250,000 from January 1, 2028, while excluding school district levies from the larger exemption. It would also cut the cap on annual assessment increases for non-homestead property from 10 percent to 5 percent, require the Legislature to set a schedule for fully eliminating homestead property taxes, and make new Florida residents after January 1, 2027 wait five years for the larger exemption. Using 2026 tax roll data, the city estimates a funding gap of about $10.1 million in FY2028 and another $4.9 million in FY2029, $15 million combined.

On the supply side, the City of Melbourne affordable housing page notes that the state Live Local Act, effective July 1, 2023, is meant to encourage affordable housing, and the city posts a 2024 list of surplus land suitable for it and an expedited permitting policy for affordable projects.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, by re-reading the FHFA Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville series and its CSV on FRED, HUD's FY2025 and FY2026 Small Area FMR tables, Schedules 5 and 6 and the transmittal letter of the Melbourne fiscal 2025 ACFR, the August 2026 BLS metro page and two City of Melbourne policy pages.