Surfside Estates

Surfside Estates In Merritt Island, Florida

Surfside Estates sits on the Banana River side of Merritt Island in the 32952 ZIP, reached from North Banana River Drive by way of Surfside Boulevard and South Harbor Drive. The street names tell you what the neighborhood was built around. Tarpon, Trout, Salmon, Porpoise, Dorsal, Angler, Crevalle, Fiddler and Dolphin all sit inside a grid of finger canals that were cut when the subdivision was platted in the early 1960s.

Roughly half the homes here front navigable water. Most of those are on canals that run out to the Banana River, and a smaller number sit directly on the river itself. Private docks are common on the canal lots, and the run to open water is short. Because the Banana River is the wide, shallow body on the east side of the island, this is easy water for a center console, a pontoon or a flats boat, and less obvious for anything with real draft.

The housing stock is early to mid 1960s, with infill running into the 1980s. Expect concrete block on a slab, shingle roofs, one story, three bedrooms and two baths as the standard, and about 1,600 square feet as the typical size. Lots run roughly a fifth of an acre, with some closer to half an acre. Water and sewer are both public. Garages are usually two car, and a fair number of homes have added storm shutters or impact glass.

There is no homeowners association here at all, mandatory or voluntary. No dues, no covenants, no architectural review, no rental restrictions. Brevard County code is the only standard that applies. That is a real advantage if you want a boat, a work trailer or an RV on your own property, and a real drawback if you want the guarantee that your neighbor cannot do the same.

Pricing spreads wide because water frontage does most of the work. Interior homes generally sit from the mid $200,000s to the high $300,000s. Canal homes with a dock and a pool generally run from the mid $400,000s into the $700,000s. Around $257 a square foot is a fair working number across the neighborhood, which is meaningfully below the canal neighborhoods on the Sykes Creek side of the island.