Understand Palm Beach Gardens before you commit to an address
Palm Beach Gardens is sixty-three thousand people north-west of North Palm Beach, another John D. MacArthur creation: announced in 1959 as a garden city on cattle land, and now the north county's commercial and medical center, with the PGA of America's headquarters, two major hospitals and the Gardens Mall. 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.
The cost of living in Palm Beach Gardens, 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 Palm Beach Gardens
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 Palm Beach Gardens is the right part of this coast
No neighborhood guides for Palm Beach Gardens 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 Palm Beach Gardens actually involves
The city levies 5.0537 mills, runs its own fire department so pays no county MSTU, sits inside the county library district, and totals 17.8608: a homesteaded buyer's rate of about 1.68%, or roughly $11,700 a year on a typical home value of $696,721. That is a moderate rate on high values, sustained by an unusually strong commercial, medical and office base for a city of this size.
The market divides between the older MacArthur-era neighborhoods near the city center, the gated golf communities along PGA Boulevard and Donald Ross Road, and newer development further west. Many of the golf communities carry mandatory club membership as a condition of ownership, which can be a five-figure annual obligation entirely separate from anything on this page. Being ten kilometers inland from the ocean helps the insurance materially.
The city has a genuine employment and medical base of its own along PGA Boulevard and Alternate A1A, including hospitals and a large office and retail concentration, which is why its daytime population exceeds its residential one. That base is part of why the municipal rate stays where it is.
New development has been concentrated in a few large planned communities on the western side of the city, which is where the newest housing and the highest association fees are. The older MacArthur-era neighborhoods nearer the center are cheaper per square foot, older in their systems, and generally free of the club obligations attached to the golf communities.
Moving to Palm Beach Gardens: check these before you commit
- Mandatory club membership, which is attached to the deed in several of the golf communities here and is not optional.
- Homeowners association fees and reserve funding, which vary widely between the gated communities.
- Which corridor: PGA Boulevard, Donald Ross and the older central neighborhoods are distinct markets.
- Which era the neighborhood belongs to, since the older sections and the new western communities differ sharply.
Palm Beach Gardens levies 5.0537 of the 17.8608 mills charged here. The remaining 12.8071 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 Palm Beach Gardens is outside it.
Sourced, dated, and separated from the guesswork
Every Palm Beach Gardens 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 Palm Beach Gardens 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