Best PlacesMelbourne, FL Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in the Melbourne metro, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. Distance to the water drives a lot of the difference between one part and the next. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.
Photo by MicheleHaro, CC BY 3.0, via commons
Melbourne ranks 116th of 387 U.S. metro areas on the BestNeighborhood index. The coast is about 14 minutes away. Its strengths are good schools and state infrastructure. The cost shows up in summer heat, disaster risk, and car insurance costs.
The best neighborhoods in the Melbourne metro
BestNeighborhood is the only ranking that scores 40 measures of daily life neighborhood by neighborhood and lets you re-weight every one of them yourself.
The best areas in Melbourne
The towns and districts of the Melbourne metro, ranked by the BestNeighborhood standard score across every neighborhood in each, highest scoring first. Each note says how that part differs from the rest of the metro.
Rockledge
Local pay stretches further, incomes run higher, and crime runs lower.
Downtown Melbourne
Fewer homes sit empty, though fewer households have young kids.
Cape Canaveral
Biking is better and streets are more walkable.
Satellite Beach, Indialantic & Indian Harbour Beach
More adults hold degrees, though tree cover is thinner.
Merritt Island
Schools score higher, though prices have run up more.
Palm Bay
Scores close to Merritt Island, except that health care is harder to reach here.
Melbourne Beach, Micco & Grant-Valkaria
Titusville & Cocoa
Homes cost less.
Melbourne shows why a single number is not enough. Some neighborhoods score in the bottom 6% of the country and others in the top 2%. Pick the area first, then the home.
Melbourne's strengths and weaknesses
Melbourne lands in the middle because its strengths and weaknesses roughly balance. Good schools is the standout, in the top 1% of metro areas. State infrastructure and low taxes follow.
The one real hole is summer heat, near the bottom of the country. Disaster risk and car insurance costs also cost it ground. That varies block to block rather than evenly, and the map below shows where.
Where Melbourne ranks high
- School gradeA, better than 99% of metro areas
- State infrastructureBetter than 97% of metro areas
- Low income/sales/gas taxBetter than 96% of metro areas
- Crime safetyBetter than 91% of metro areas
- Air qualityBetter than 89% of metro areas
Where Melbourne ranks low
- Heat safetyBetter than only 2% of metro areas
- Disaster safetyBetter than only 5% of metro areas
- Cheap car insuranceBetter than only 9% of metro areas
- Low vacancyBetter than only 18% of metro areas
- Housing crash safetyBetter than only 20% of metro areas
What it costs to buy a home in Melbourne
A household needs to earn about $90,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Melbourne home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is only a little above the area's median income of $84,823; the gap is small, which keeps homes within reach of local pay.
Where the monthly payment goes
Assumes a 20% down payment, a 6.6% 30-year fixed rate, and a 28% share of income going to the payment. The rate is the 2026-07-23 30-year fixed average, series MORTGAGE30US from the St. Louis Fed, which publishes Freddie Mac's weekly survey. Against the median home value, property tax uses Melbourne's effective rate of 0.68%, and insurance is estimated at 0.4% of home value a year.
Renting versus buying
At today's prices, buying tends to cost more than renting for about the first 7 years, then pulls ahead as rent keeps rising and the mortgage builds equity. The chart tracks the running cost of each.
Who lives in Melbourne
Melbourne runs older than the country.
Residents by age
Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Melbourne.
Who works in Melbourne, and how
Work in Melbourne centers on health care & social and manufacturing. Unemployment is close to the national rate, and jobs are growing.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 81%
- Work from home 15%
- Transit, walk, or bike 4%
Life in Melbourne
Melbourne has less parkland per resident than most metro areas. The coast is about 14 minutes away. That concentrates in some parts of Melbourne and thins out in others, which the map shows.
Is Melbourne growing, and who is moving in?
Melbourne has grown about 18% over the last decade. The largest inbound stream comes from Orlando, FL.
Where new residents come from
Where people leaving Melbourne go
Move counts are the latest county-to-county migration flows, each county grouped into its metro.
What the weather is like in Melbourne, month by month
Melbourne sees roughly 108 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 92 degrees. January highs sit near 74, with lows near 51. The comfortable stretch runs November through April.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 74° | 62° | 51° |
| April | 84° | 74° | 64° |
| July | 92° | 83° | 75° |
| October | 86° | 78° | 70° |
Flying in and out of Melbourne
The nearest airport, Melbourne Orlando International, is about 4 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is Orlando International, about 43 miles away.
The best schools in and around Melbourne
Schools across Melbourne average an A, better than 99% of metro areas.
Top elementary schools
- Robert L. Stevenson Elementary SchoolA+ · 90% proficient
- Freedom 7 Elementary School Of International StudiesA+ · 88% proficient
- W. Melbourne Elementary School For ScienceA+ · 85% proficient
Top middle schools
- Delaura Middle SchoolA+ · 70% proficient
- Herbert C. Hoover Middle SchoolA · 64% proficient
- John F. Kennedy Middle SchoolA · 61% proficient
Top high schools
- West Shore Junior/senior High SchoolA+ · 93% proficient
- Edgewood Jr/sr High SchoolA+ · 93% proficient
- Satellite Senior High SchoolA · 70% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Melbourne school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Melbourne measure by measure
Cards are ordered by how much each measure matters to you, so the ones you weighted highest come first. Expand to see every measure. Percentages compare Melbourne against the other 386 metro areas.
Who Melbourne suits
Remote workers
Internet is fast and widely advertised and 15% already work from home.
Retirees
The weather beats 66% of metro areas and health care access beats 82%.
Common questions about living in Melbourne
Is Melbourne a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Melbourne ranks 116th of 387 metro areas. It scores highest on good schools, state infrastructure, and low taxes, and lowest on summer heat and disaster risk. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Melbourne expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $351,239. The overall cost of living runs about 8% below the national average. Set against a $84,823 median income, cost of living beats 67% of metro areas.
Is Melbourne safe?
Yes, Melbourne is safer than 91% of metro areas. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $152 per resident a year.
What is the weather like in Melbourne?
July highs average about 92 degrees, and January highs near 74 with lows near 51. That works out to about 108 pleasant days a year, more than 66% of metro areas.
What are the best neighborhoods in Melbourne?
Using the default rankings, the highest-scoring areas are Rockledge, Downtown Melbourne, and Cape Canaveral. The ranked list and the re-weightable map above let you re-sort them for your own priorities.
Is Melbourne good for families?
Schools beat 99% of metro areas, crime safety beats 91%, and childcare runs $839 a month.
Is Melbourne good for remote workers?
Cost of living against local pay beats 67% of metro areas, and the fastest advertised internet here beats 76% of metro areas. About 15% of workers already work from home.
Compare Melbourne with other metro areas
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Melbourne. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Melbourne represents the same real quantity as a 60 anywhere else, and the ranking is a weighted average of those absolutes. The map colors come from a national scale calibrated against a population weighted random sample of 5,000 neighborhoods. That absolute scoring is what no other places-to-live ranking does: it puts a single neighborhood, a town, a metro, and a state on one scale, so the same 40 measures answer both which metro to move to and which street inside it to buy on. Read the full methodology.
Melbourne detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Melbourne: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Melbourne: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Melbourne: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Melbourne: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Melbourne detail on related sites:
- CrimeGrade: neighborhood crime rates behind the crime safety score.
- ISPreports.org: provider by provider internet availability and advertised speeds.
- CoverageWatch: the car insurance premiums behind the cheap car insurance score.
Federal and public data:
- U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey: income, home value, rent, vacancy, commute time and mode, educational attainment, home age, age structure, household type, industry, and race.
- U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program: population growth and net migration behind the population-change section.
- NOAA Global Surface Summary of the Day: the daily station record behind the monthly temperatures and the pleasant-day count.
- FAA Passenger Boarding Data: airport size and annual passenger counts.
- Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey: the 30-year fixed rate used in the cost-to-buy estimate.
- FBI Crime Data Explorer: reported offenses behind the tangible crime cost estimate.
- U.S. EPA Air Quality System: five year average air quality index.
- FEMA National Risk Index: expected annual loss from natural hazards.
- CDC PLACES: disease burden, preventable risk, and barriers to care.
- National Center for Education Statistics: school enrollment and assessment inputs behind the school grade.
- FCC National Broadband Map: internet and wireless availability.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: employment and job growth behind the local economy score.
- Religious activity uses a proprietary religious signal measurement.
Your priorities
Move a slider to say how much a measure matters. Zero turns it off.