Understand Manalapan before you commit to an address
Manalapan is a town of four hundred and forty-one people on the barrier island south of Palm Beach, most of it a single row of estates running the full width of the island from the Atlantic to the Intracoastal. Its typical home value of about $3.80 million is the second-highest in this layer. Figures are the same two indexes measured the same way in all 24 municipalities on this coast, on Florida's rules including the homestead exemption. Being on the barrier island puts the insurance figure here in the most expensive band in the state outside the Keys, and flood cover is a separate policy on top of it. Zillow publishes no rent index for a municipality this size, so the rent shown is the median of the eighteen here that have one, and is marked as such wherever it appears.
The cost of living in Manalapan, and what a home costs
Two calculators on Florida's own rules: monthly compounding and the month private mortgage insurance stops, and the closing costs this state actually charges.
Rent or buy in Manalapan
Whether buying here beats renting, and the year it turns over. On this coast insurance moves the answer more than the mortgage rate, and you can edit it.
Mortgage calculator
Monthly compounding, the 30-year fixed loan, the private mortgage insurance a low down payment triggers, and Florida's documentary stamp and intangible taxes on the loan itself.
Then work out whether Manalapan is the right part of this coast
No neighborhood guides for Manalapan yet. What is here instead is the whole coast on one comparable footing.
All 24 municipalities on the Palm Beach coast
Every municipality from Boca Raton to Tequesta side by side on home value, millage, the rate a homesteaded buyer pays, and which of them pay the county for fire.
Compare the coastThe 24 municipalities of the Orlando metro
Identical rules and exemptions, the same two Zillow indexes, and insurance at less than half what it costs here. It is the clearest measure of what proximity to the Atlantic costs.
Compare coast and inlandWhat buying in Manalapan actually involves
Manalapan levies only 3.0000 mills of its own and buys its fire service from Palm Beach County under a contract the town reviewed and deliberately kept, choosing the more expensive county service over a cheaper offer from Boynton Beach. The contract is paid out of the town's own budget rather than through the county Fire/Rescue MSTU, and the appraiser's chart shows none of that district's 3.4581 mills on this town's codes. The total is 15.2580 mills, the second-lowest in this layer, and a homesteaded buyer's rate of about 1.51%. On a house at this value that is roughly $57,400 a year in property tax, the second-largest bill of these twenty-four.
Ocean-to-lake lots are the defining product and there are only so many of them; the market is a handful of transactions a year, several of them among the largest residential sales in Florida. At this end insurance is arranged rather than quoted, flood exposure runs the width of the lot, and the index on this page should be treated as an indication of magnitude rather than a price.
The town is a narrow strip with the ocean on one side and the Intracoastal on the other, and the resort at its northern end is the only significant commercial presence. That single property matters to the town's finances in a way no individual house does, which is unusual and worth knowing.
Ocean-to-lake lots come with two shorelines to maintain: dune and beach on one side, seawall and dock on the other. Both are regulated, both are expensive, and the condition of each should be established before a price is agreed rather than after.
Moving to Manalapan: check these before you commit
- That a market this small cannot support a precise index: treat the figure as an order of magnitude.
- Full-width lot exposure to both the ocean and the Intracoastal, which is two coastal risks rather than one.
- The town's building and dune rules, which govern anything seaward of the control line.
- The condition of both the dune side and the seawall side, since an ocean-to-lake lot has two shorelines.
- Dock permits and Intracoastal access, including bridge clearances for anything larger than a small boat.
Manalapan levies 3.0000 of the 15.2580 mills charged here. The remaining 12.2580 is Palm Beach County, the school district and the countywide special districts, none of which the municipality sets, and none of it is the county Fire/Rescue MSTU, because Manalapan is outside it.
Sourced, dated, and separated from the guesswork
Every Manalapan figure below is cited, stamped with the period it describes, and editable, because a number for the whole city rarely describes your purchase. Appreciation and investment returns are assumptions rather than facts, and they are labelled that way. Read the methodology for how the line is drawn.
- Prices, rents and tax rates: published statistics and the official schedules.
- Nothing here is a lender quote, a pre-approval or financial advice.
Where the Manalapan figures come from
- Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI), all homes, mid-tier, smoothed and seasonally adjusted: city file, June 2026 · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: A typical home value for the 35th to 65th percentile of each municipality's market, computed on one method across all twenty-four, The same series and month the Charlotte and Orlando metro pages use, so all three American layers can be read against each other, Year-over-year change to June 2026
- Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI), all homes, smoothed: city file, June 2026 · Zillow Research · retrieved Supports: Asking rents across the whole rental stock for the eighteen municipalities Zillow indexes, No index at all for the six smallest, several of which have fewer than five hundred residents
- Taxing Authority Code Description, Palm Beach County 2025 · Palm Beach County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: One row per tax authority code, 123 codes, with a named column for every levy and a published TOTAL, which settles the district set for all twenty-four municipalities by inspection, The Fire/Rescue MSTU at 3.4581 on five of the twenty-four and on no others: South Palm Beach, Lake Worth Beach, Wellington, Royal Palm Beach and Lake Park, The county Library district at 0.5491 on eleven: Ocean Ridge, Hypoluxo, South Palm Beach, Greenacres, Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, Palm Beach Shores, Palm Beach Gardens, Jupiter, Jupiter Inlet Colony and Tequesta, The Jupiter Inlet District at 0.0722 on three: Jupiter, Tequesta and Jupiter Inlet Colony, Children's Services 0.4908, the Health Care District 0.6561 and F.I.N.D. 0.0270 on all 123 codes, which is why they are countywide here, The published TOTAL every row in this layer reproduces, from Palm Beach's 14.8690 to Lake Worth Beach's 21.6106
- 2025 millage rates by taxing authority, Palm Beach County · Palm Beach County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: The countywide levies: county 4.5000 and county debt 0.0330, school state 3.0730 and local 3.2480, Children's Services 0.4908, Health Care District 0.6561, three SFWMD levies totalling 0.2301 and FIND 0.0270, The conditional Fire/Rescue MSTU at 3.4581 and the separate Jupiter Fire/Rescue MSTU at 1.7251, Every municipality's own operating and debt millage, and the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District at 1.0800, A published total for Boca Raton of 17.0029 mills, which this layer's stack reproduces exactly
- 2026 Proposed, Rollback and 2025 Final Millage Rates, Palm Beach County · Palm Beach County Property Appraiser · retrieved Supports: The 2025 Final column corroborating the three district rates read off the code chart: Fire/Rescue 3.4581, Library 0.5491 and Jupiter Inlet District 0.0722, F.I.N.D. at 0.0270 for 2025, against the 0.0288 this layer carried for a year, which is the 2024 rate
- Table 1: Comparison of Taxes Levied, county and municipal governments, fiscal years 2024-25 and 2025-26: Palm Beach · Florida Department of Revenue, Property Tax Oversight · retrieved Supports: The adopted 2025-26 millage rate and taxes levied for Palm Beach County and every municipality in it, Independent confirmation of the municipal rates taken from the property appraiser's table