Housing Stock — Palm Bay, Florida

Palm Bay had 50,147 housing units in the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates, and 91.4 percent of them were occupied, a much fuller stock than Brevard County or Florida as a whole.

Of those 50,147 Palm Bay units, 45,850 were occupied and 4,297 were vacant (ACS DP04, Palm Bay city). The vacancy share in Palm Bay was 8.6 percent, against 13.9 percent across Brevard County (ACS DP04, Brevard County) and 14.7 percent statewide (ACS DP04, Florida).

Two narrower rates tell the same story for Palm Bay. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.2 percent, and the rental vacancy rate was 6.3 percent in the same survey (ACS DP04, Palm Bay city). Brevard County's rental vacancy rate was 10.8 percent (ACS DP04, Brevard County), so a vacant apartment or rental house is scarcer inside Palm Bay city limits than in the county overall.

Palm Bay holds about one in six Brevard County homes: 50,147 of 299,305 units, or 16.8 percent, dividing the two published ACS totals (ACS DP04, Brevard County). Owners occupied 36,555 Palm Bay homes and renters 9,295, so 79.7 percent of occupied units were owner occupied, above the Brevard County figure of 76.7 percent and Florida's 67.6 percent.

The median Palm Bay home was built in 1993, five years newer than the 1988 median for both Brevard County and Florida in the ACS 2020-2024 estimates (ACS B25035, Palm Bay city).

The 1980s are the single largest building decade in Palm Bay: 16,008 units, or 31.9 percent of the stock, date from 1980 to 1989 (ACS DP04, Palm Bay city). The 2000s come next, with 13,547 units (27.0 percent) built from 2000 to 2009. Brevard County's medians come from ACS B25035, Brevard County and Florida's from ACS B25035, Florida; the county's own largest decade share was also the 1980s, at 23.8 percent.

The last row adds three published Palm Bay categories: 446 units from the 1950s, 42 from the 1940s and 207 from 1939 or earlier, which sum to 695 units and 0.9 + 0.1 + 0.4 = 1.4 percent (ACS DP04, Palm Bay city). The Brevard County and Florida figures in that row are summed the same way (6.2 + 0.6 + 0.8 = 7.6 percent for the county; 6.5 + 1.7 + 1.9 = 10.1 percent for Florida). Very little of Palm Bay predates its incorporation as a city.

The city's own timeline explains the shape. Early homesteaders settled at Tillman, at the mouth of Turkey Creek, in 1887, and Palm Bay was incorporated as a city in 1960 with 2,808 residents (City of Palm Bay history). By 1990 Palm Bay was the most populous city in Brevard County with 62,632 residents, and in 2006 its population passed 100,000. That climb lines up with the 1980s and 2000s building waves in the Census table.

New construction has picked up again in Palm Bay. The 2,599 units built in 2020 or later make up 5.2 percent of the city's stock, a larger share than Brevard County's 2.9 percent or Florida's 3.2 percent (ACS DP04, Florida). The city history page records the southern portion of the St. Johns Heritage Parkway being completed in 2016, along with a new I-95 interchange announced for south Palm Bay; the city's first library had opened on Port Malabar Boulevard back in 1984.

Palm Bay is overwhelmingly a city of detached single family houses: 41,884 units, or 83.5 percent of the stock, are one-unit detached buildings, compared with 65.9 percent in Brevard County and 54.7 percent in Florida.

Everything else is small in Palm Bay. Buildings with 20 or more units hold 1,445 homes (2.9 percent), against 8.1 percent countywide and 14.4 percent statewide (ACS DP04, Florida). Mobile homes account for 1,593 Palm Bay units (3.2 percent), less than half the Brevard County share of 7.2 percent (ACS DP04, Brevard County). Attached single family homes such as townhouses add 950 units (1.9 percent), and 2 to 19 unit buildings together add 4,198 units, the sum of 497, 1,098, 1,712 and 891 in the ACS DP04, Palm Bay city table.

The grouped rows add published Palm Bay categories: 2 units (497, 1.0 percent) plus 3 or 4 units (1,098, 2.2 percent), and 5 to 9 units (1,712, 3.4 percent) plus 10 to 19 units (891, 1.8 percent); the county and state rows are added the same way. The City of Palm Bay describes local housing styles as single family homes, apartments, condominiums, town homes and gated subdivisions (City of Palm Bay housing), but the counts show how thin every type except the detached house is in Palm Bay.

The three-bedroom house is the Palm Bay standard: 29,043 units, or 57.9 percent of the stock, have three bedrooms, well above the Brevard County share of 45.5 percent and Florida's 38.1 percent.

Four-bedroom homes add 9,864 Palm Bay units (19.7 percent) and five or more bedrooms 1,084 (2.2 percent), so 79.8 percent of Palm Bay homes have three or more bedrooms (57.9 + 19.7 + 2.2, from ACS DP04, Palm Bay city). Small units are rare: 367 have no bedroom and 1,512 have one bedroom, together 3.7 percent, against 7.5 percent in Brevard County (ACS DP04, Brevard County). The median Palm Bay home has 5.7 rooms, compared with 5.5 in the county and 5.2 statewide.

Palm Bay households are larger to match. The average owner household in Palm Bay had 2.77 people and the average renter household 2.99, while Brevard County averaged 2.45 for owners and 2.35 for renters (ACS DP04, Brevard County). In Palm Bay, 2.6 percent of occupied homes had 1.01 to 1.50 occupants per room, more than double the county's 1.2 percent.

Heating in Palm Bay is almost entirely electric: 42,914 occupied homes, or 93.6 percent, heat with electricity, and only 2.4 percent use utility gas, against 9.6 percent in Brevard County (ACS DP04, Brevard County). Solar energy is the main heating fuel in 613 Palm Bay homes (1.3 percent), a higher share than the county's 0.7 percent or Florida's 0.5 percent (ACS DP04, Florida).

The median value of an owner occupied Palm Bay home was $283,200 in the ACS 2020-2024 estimates, below the Brevard County median of $339,600 and the Florida median of $359,000.

Palm Bay values are bunched in the middle of the market. Homes valued from $200,000 to $299,999 make up 36.1 percent of owner occupied units and homes from $300,000 to $499,999 another 39.7 percent (ACS DP04, Palm Bay city), so 75.8 percent fall between $200,000 and $499,999. Only 4.8 percent of Palm Bay owner homes are valued at $500,000 or more (4.3 + 0.5), compared with 21.8 percent in Brevard County (18.6 + 3.2, ACS DP04, Brevard County) and 27.0 percent in Florida (21.1 + 5.9).

More Palm Bay owners carry a mortgage: 23,759 homes, or 65.0 percent of owner occupied units, against 56.3 percent in both Brevard County and Florida (ACS DP04, Florida). The median monthly owner cost for a Palm Bay home with a mortgage was $1,549, and $519 for a home owned outright (ACS DP04, Palm Bay city). Rent runs the other way: the Palm Bay median gross rent of $1,601 was slightly above the Brevard County median of $1,556.

Turnover in Palm Bay is recent. Of 45,850 occupied homes, 19.0 percent of householders moved in from 2020 to 2022 and 4.6 percent in 2023 or later, so 23.6 percent arrived in 2020 or later; another 42.7 percent moved in from 2010 to 2019 (ACS DP04, Palm Bay city). Only 4.5 percent of Palm Bay householders have lived in the same home since 1989 or earlier.

The Housing Element of the Palm Bay 2045 Comprehensive Plan sets the goal to cultivate a diverse, safe and affordable housing stock, and its policies aim at the city's narrow mix of building types.

The City of Palm Bay adopted the remaining elements of the 2045 plan, including the Housing Element, on May 18, 2023, and they took effect on July 20, 2023 (City of Palm Bay comprehensive planning). The Land Development Division at 120 Malabar Road SE, (321) 733-3042, is updating the Palm Bay Land Development Code to match the plan, as section 163.3202, Florida Statutes, requires.

Several Housing Element policies speak directly to the 83.5 percent detached stock in Palm Bay. Policy HSG 1.1C calls for amending the code to permit missing middle housing such as duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes in select low density residential districts, and Policy HSG 1.1E for allowing accessory dwelling units, tiny homes, houseboats and cottage neighborhoods in select districts (Palm Bay Housing Element, page 1). Policy HSG 1.1G keeps future land use and zoning categories that allow mobile homes, and Policy HSG 1.1F asks the city to work with landlords to expand the supply of rental units.

The plan also addresses the condition of existing Palm Bay housing. Objective HSG 1.2 seeks to repair and improve substandard housing to prevent city-initiated demolitions, and Policy HSG 1.2B calls for regularly scheduled reviews of local housing conditions, published in a report each year. Policy HSG 1.3K places housing programs with the Palm Bay Housing and Community Development Department (Palm Bay Housing Element, page 2), and Policy HSG 1.6C keeps an energy efficiency package in the city's Housing Rehabilitation Program covering appliances, windows, insulation and HVAC systems (Palm Bay Housing Element, page 3).

Last verified: October 12, 2026, on the City of Palm Bay website and data.census.gov.