Housing and Home Values — Grant-Valkaria, Florida

The median owner-occupied home in Grant-Valkaria is valued at $550,400 in the Census Bureau's ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates, about $210,800 above the Brevard County median of $339,600 and well above the Florida median of $359,000.

The Grant-Valkaria column comes from the Census Bureau DP04 table for Grant-Valkaria town, the county column from the same table for Brevard County and the state column from the Florida table. The figures are owner estimates of what each home would sell for, gathered by the American Community Survey, not sale prices or appraised values from the Property Appraiser.

The Grant-Valkaria estimate is less precise than the county one. The Census Bureau publishes a margin of error of plus or minus $84,833 on the $550,400 median, because the estimate rests on a survey sample in a town of 1,927 owner-occupied homes. Even at the low end of that range, the Grant-Valkaria median stays above the county and state medians.

The pattern holds against close neighbors. The same 2020-2024 table puts the Malabar median at $451,100 (DP04, Malabar town) and the Palm Bay median at $283,200 (DP04, Palm Bay city), so Grant-Valkaria has the highest median of the three places.

The Grant-Valkaria median home value rose from $319,400 in the ACS 2015-2019 estimates to $550,400 in the ACS 2020-2024 estimates, an increase of $231,000 or about 72 percent.

The earlier figure comes from the ACS 2015-2019 DP04 table for Grant-Valkaria. The arithmetic is $550,400 minus $319,400, which equals $231,000, and $231,000 divided by $319,400 is 0.723. Each survey reports values in its own year's dollars, so part of the rise reflects inflation between the two five-year periods rather than a change in the homes themselves.

Monthly costs moved with values. In 2015-2019, Grant-Valkaria owners with a mortgage had median selected monthly owner costs of $1,781; in 2020-2024 the median is $2,678, an increase of $897 a month. The share of occupied homes that owners live in also climbed, from 92.1 percent in the 2015-2019 table to 97.4 percent in the 2020-2024 table.

The top of the Grant-Valkaria market has grown into a real segment. In 2020-2024, 11.3 percent of owner-occupied homes in Grant-Valkaria are valued at $1,000,000 or more, more than three times the Brevard County share of 3.2 percent. Another 44.0 percent fall between $500,000 and $999,999. Only 5.2 percent of Grant-Valkaria homes are valued under $300,000, against 41.3 percent countywide; both shares add the five DP04 value bands below $300,000 (for Grant-Valkaria 0.0, 0.0, 1.1, 1.5 and 2.6 percent).

Grant-Valkaria housing is young: 44.0 percent of its homes were built in 2000 or later, compared with 29.6 percent across Brevard County and 32.3 percent in Florida, by ACS 2020-2024 estimates.

The 2000 or later totals add three DP04 rows for each place: 7.0, 13.7 and 23.3 percent for Grant-Valkaria; 2.9, 8.0 and 18.7 for Brevard County; 3.2, 11.0 and 18.1 for Florida. The 1969 or earlier row adds the 1960s, 1950s, 1940s and pre-1940 rows (3.8, 0.2, 1.1 and 1.7 percent in Grant-Valkaria). In unit terms, the Grant-Valkaria DP04 table counts 155 homes built in 2020 or later, 303 built from 2010 to 2019 and 514 built from 2000 to 2009.

The 2000s decade is the largest single building period in Grant-Valkaria, and it matches the years around the 2006 incorporation. Older housing is scarce in Grant-Valkaria: only 0.2 percent of Grant-Valkaria homes date from the 1950s, against 6.2 percent countywide (DP04, Brevard County).

The Census counts tell the same story in whole numbers. Grant-Valkaria had 1,767 housing units in the 2010 Census and 1,989 in the 2020 Census, a gain of 222 units or 12.6 percent over the decade. The ACS 2020-2024 estimate of 2,207 units is a survey estimate, not a count, so it is not directly comparable with the two census figures.

Grant-Valkaria is almost entirely detached single-family homes on their own lots: 96.3 percent of its housing units are one-unit detached houses and 97.4 percent of occupied homes are lived in by their owners (ACS 2020-2024).

The comparison with the county is sharp. Brevard County has 65.9 percent detached houses and Florida 54.7 percent, while 7.2 percent of Brevard units and 8.0 percent of Florida units are mobile homes, against 1.9 percent in Grant-Valkaria (DP04, Grant-Valkaria; DP04, Florida). Renters occupy 23.3 percent of Brevard County homes but only 2.6 percent of Grant-Valkaria homes. The survey finds just 23 occupied units paying rent in Grant-Valkaria, too few for the Census Bureau to publish a median rent.

Grant-Valkaria homes are also larger. The median home has 6.8 rooms, against 5.5 in Brevard County and 5.2 in Florida. Three-bedroom houses make up 55.5 percent of the Grant-Valkaria stock and four-bedroom houses 28.6 percent, with 4.1 percent at five bedrooms or more; the county shares are 45.5, 19.2 and 2.6 percent.

Most Grant-Valkaria householders moved in during 2010 or later. Of occupied homes, 7.0 percent have a householder who moved in during 2023 or later, 15.9 percent from 2020 to 2022 and 38.6 percent from 2010 to 2019. Another 23.0 percent moved in during the 2000s, and only 5.4 percent have lived in the same Grant-Valkaria home since 1989 or earlier. Of the 2,207 units, 229 were vacant at the time of the survey; the homeowner vacancy rate is 2.2 percent.

Grant-Valkaria owners with a mortgage have median selected monthly owner costs of $2,678, about $873 more than the Brevard County median of $1,805 and $719 more than the Florida median of $1,959 (ACS 2020-2024).

Selected monthly owner costs are the Census Bureau's measure of an owner's regular housing outlays in the Grant-Valkaria DP04 table. In Grant-Valkaria, 53.9 percent of owner-occupied homes carry a mortgage and 46.1 percent are owned free and clear, close to the Brevard County split of 56.3 and 43.7 percent (DP04, Brevard County).

Grant-Valkaria owners without a mortgage still pay a median of $735 a month, compared with $608 in Brevard County and $673 in Florida. The higher Grant-Valkaria figures line up with the larger, higher-valued homes described above.

One reason Grant-Valkaria stays low-density is its 2006 charter, which writes rural development rules into the town's founding law, including private wells and septic systems and a six-vote council threshold for any increase in development intensity.

Section 9 of the charter lists the elements that make the town rural, starting with low development intensity and an abundance of agricultural lands, and naming the aquifers, wetlands and the waterways of the Indian River Lagoon (enrolled CS/HB 1297, section 9). It tells future development in Grant-Valkaria to continue the use of private wells as sources of drinking water and private septic systems, and to protect the scenic highway designation of U.S. 1.

The same section puts procedural brakes on density. Before the Grant-Valkaria Town Council votes on a proposed increase in development intensity, including density levels, building heights or traffic impacts, the town must notify every property owner in town within 1,500 feet of the change at least 30 days ahead. As enacted in 2006, an affirmative vote of six or more of the seven council members is required to approve such a change.

Those rules help explain the Grant-Valkaria housing figures above: almost no apartments, very few rentals and a housing stock that is 96.3 percent detached houses. The charter text quoted here is the 2006 enrolled act, which also required the town to adopt its own long-range comprehensive plan and future land use map within 1 year after incorporation.