When Chuck and Glenda Swanson recently decided to "downsize," they scoffed at a Realtor’s suggestion they could sell their Palm Bay home for significantly more than the $110,000 they paid for it in 1993.

Now, they almost feel like they won the lottery. On Monday, they are closing on the sale of their four-bedroom, two-bath home for $179,900 -- a jump of 64 percent.

"Our heads are still spinning," said Chuck Swanson, who wanted to move to a smaller home after his two daughters moved to Orlando. "We want to get out of here before anyone changes their mind."

Experts say Brevard is benefiting from this combination of forces and has some alluring attributes of its own.

Central Florida theme parks, but without the gridlock.

--- Jobs: The area has a strong job market, with higher-paying wages because of its ties to aerospace and defense, which has hired in a stagnant economy where other companies laid off.

--- Lifestyle: The area has a range of attractions, including miles of beaches, nature preserves and the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

--- Good schools: Ninety-six percent of Brevard County’s schools earned an A or B, based on scores from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test in the last school year, coaxing families to choose the area for children.

The result: The value of residential property is rising quickly in most parts of the county. The median sale price for existing homes in Brevard County rose to $145,900 in July, up from $105,900 in July 2001 -- a gain of almost 38 percent in two years. At the median, half the homes sell for more and half for less.

That has allowed residents to use their equity to get into a bigger and better home, or simply refinance, gaining extra cash to wipe away debts or put money into home improvements -- in turn, propelling the economy.

Those increases, especially in the past year, are no surprise to Tony Ayala, the Realtor who helped Chuck and Glenda Swanson sell their Palm Bay home.

More than 20 people toured the home. It sold in nine days. With the extra money, Chuck Swanson paid off all his debts.

Ayala said some pool homes in Palm Bay that were $150,000 last year are $180,000 this year.

"It’s getting incredible," he said. "The toughest thing is keeping your inventory up. I used to hold eight, 15, 20 listings, and now I have three, and they are gone." Supply, demand

The first rule of business for any market is supply and demand, said Jack McCabe, president of McCabe Research & Consulting in Deerfield Beach, which specializes in research and consulting to the apartment and home-building industry.

And, right now, "supply can’t keep up," he said. "That is pushing prices higher and property values up. Construction materials and land are more expensive. As a result, the appreciation rates in Florida have been skyrocketing, and Central Florida is a great example of that."

For the past three years, the boom allowed Central Florida-area residents to see their homes appreciate 8 percent to 15 percent each year, giving them "a lot more equity in their homes, increased financial well-being and net worth," McCabe said.

The downside: "Higher home prices are pricing a lot of folks out of being able to buy a home, even with rates so low," he said. "As rates go up, more and more people will be priced out of an opportunity to buy until builders come out with more-affordable housing. But that is tough because the cost of everything to build a home -- permits, engineering and materials -- is going up."

Still, McCabe said Brevard has several drawing points to keep up the influx of new residents.

Some pluses, he said, are the nearness to Orlando-area theme parks, good highways to commute to the northern and southern parts of the state, a strong labor pool with high-tech jobs available, good universities not too far away and a lower cost of living. Right industries

"The only industries that seem to be making any money the past three years are building, defense, oil and high-tech," he said. "Brevard has definitely benefited from the increase in defense spending," with major employers such as Boeing, Harris, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.

In addition, McCabe said Florida is one of only four states that doesn’t allow creditors to take away someone’s home if the homeowner declares a bankruptcy.

On the tax side, Florida has a $25,000 homestead tax exemption, meaning property owners do not pay taxes on the first $25,000 of the value of their home. There also is a state constitutional amendment enacted in 1992, called Save Our Homes, that limits increases in the assessed value of a home to 3 percent a year or the inflation rate, whichever is less.

"That is a huge benefit to a lot of homeowners," McCabe said. Discovered county

"Brevard has been discovered," said Bob Grimstead, a sales manager for Century 21 United Realty in Melbourne.

"For a long time, we were an island unto ourselves, relatively untouched from Orlando, Daytona and Palm Beach," he said. "But that has all changed. Commuting is much more common now than ever before. As Brevard is better exposed to surrounding areas, we are going to find ourselves more and more popular, and prices will escalate even more than they have already."

Local Realtors are noticing jumps of 20 percent in the past two years, said Terry Lolmaugh, executive vice president and broker of Trafford Realty Co.’s Viera office.

"We expect that trend to continue into 2004," he said. "Prices are going higher, but people are still able to afford more house because of the lower interest rates."

He said one of the hottest parts of the county is the Viera/Suntree area. And while prices are going up, they still are much lower than those moving here from other states have experienced.

"Brevard has been one of the best-valued home markets any place you can think of," Lolmaugh said. "We have been lower-priced, and it is finally catching up with us. It doesn’t hurt we have a beautiful tropical paradise, water and a low jobless rate, compared to other places."

With the stock market eking its way out of a three-year bear market, more renters are choosing to buy a house and get a return on their investment.

That is just what happened with Andrea Padinha. In 1998, she moved into an apartment complex in the Suntree area from Virginia, so her children could be closer to their grandmother. But after watching the stock market go down and property values go up, she made a change.

Padinha decided to buy her first home -- a four-bedroom, two-bath home in a Rockledge development called Pelican Harbor. She closed on her new home Friday and is going to start moving in today.

"It seemed to be the right time to get into a new development and would be a good investment to buy my first home," she said. "I asked myself, ’Where can I put my money where I know it will be safe and I know I will have a return a few years down the road?’ "

Is she worried about making such a commitment to Brevard living?

"I am on cloud nine right now," she said. "Five years ago, this place was a secret. Now, it seems like everyone knows it’s a great place to live." Good return

Danielle Abbott, a Realtor associate with Coldwell Banker -- First U.S. Area Realty, began noticing property values taking flight about three years ago, when sellers were getting the prices they wanted for oceanfront condominiums.

Four years ago, Abbott helped a client sell a one-bedroom condo in Cocoa Beach for $82,000.

"In June of this year, I sold the same little apartment for $165,000," Abbott said. "That’s not a shabby return."

Another condo sale Abbott helped with in May netted the owners $215,000 more money than they had paid for the unit less than three years earlier.

If more and more investors return to the stock market, and if mortgage rates increase, then home values probably won’t rise as quickly, Abbott said.

"But I don’t believe that they will go down," she said.

Joseph Souza of Merritt Island doesn’t think they will, either.

For the last few years, Souza has been acquiring Brevard residential properties, improving them and selling them for a tidy profit.

His latest project is a home in Titusville that he purchased for about $100,000. Souza is selling the property -- a 3,100-square-foot house on an acre of land -- for $174,900. And he’s confident he’ll get what he’s asking for hit.

"Property values are skyrocketing," Souza said. "Of course, more so in some areas than others."

Beachside and waterfront areas are showing particularly big appreciation, Souza said, as people from other Florida counties find their money buys a lot more property in Brevard than it does in other communities.

"And Brevard County still has plenty of growing potential," he said.

—————————————————————————————