Palm Bay Native for 33 years...
The breakdown by Ghandi is pretty accurate but ill add some more detail because Palm Bay is huge quite frankly.
NE, between clearmont and us1 on the north/south side of port malabar, the "bianca" area, used to be cheap, a high crime, now its expensive and mid/high crime
NE east of lipscomb, south of florida ave, unless you like are looking for D and F rentals... just stay away
Honestly anything north or Palm Bay road, east of Babcock is pretty sketchy.
SE (where I live) is huge and it is made of multiple neighborhoods.
SE Bayside is full of gated communities and golf communities, some very pricy on big lots with custom homes, and some are extremely cookie cutter and you can probably spit in your neighbors window.
SE The extreme south side of SE, the san fillipo loop is generally cheaper land and cheaper houses because you aren't really close to anything and there is no city water/sewer. For a city water sewer map of palm bay see here
City of Palm Bay Public Map (palmbayflorida.org)
There is no city water (few exceptions) south of bayside area
SE north of bayside but south of malabar is hit or miss, it really is neighborhood to neighborhood. Some are really nice and quiet, and some are very sketchy
SW cheaper lots, very out of the way, distance from I95 and bayside is closest grocery store/gas station, also cheap because there is almost no city water/sewer. This area is known as the "compound" it is a 30+ year old development by a company called GDC that sold all the lots, paved all the roads, then filed for bankrupcy. So the description of some of the roads might be "paved" but thats basically false because they beat up pretty bad. Also watch how far west you look because the lots west of center are not buildable, there is no power
NW is slightly out of the way but a new parkway was just finished on the west end that runs malabar road all the way north to 192 (west melbourne) and dumps out at a 95 exit. So the commute to melbourne for work is very easy. Most of NW is also city water.
NE lockmar is probably the most desirable neighborhood as stated.
There are 2 areas of palm bay where land is available that is zoned multi family... SE, on the west edge of babcock, starting from Santos street, going south to Belem Street (look on a map youll see the double driveways) there is A TON of vacant land that is zoned for duplexes that already has many duplexes.
The other area, also SE is around agora circle and corvair street, this is the neighborhood just south east of the babcock/malabar road intersection. These are mostly quads
Right now builders are building like crazy, you can't drive down any residential street and not find a house being built. They are also building whole neighborhoods seemingly overnight and Massive apartment complexes just about everywhere.
As someone who lived through the 05-09 debacle here, it looks JUST LIKE IT DID THEN... I have 3 houses on my street that have been built for over a year, priced too high, with no one living in them. Builders are building without buyers (just like before) If the market only ever goes up, then they have nothing to worry about. But Palm Bay was one of the hardest hit areas in the country last time because builders like to buy 3 lots in a row for a discount and slap together 3 houses overnight and then put them on the market. It works great, until it doesn't.
If you have a specific area of Palm Bay in mind, let me know. Im not a realtor, i'm a small time investor but I know the area, and I know the sub areas.
