Douglas Caraballo grew up surfing in Cocoa Beach, and now he’s launching his new real estate development company nearby.
“The Cape has great memories for me,” he said. “Watching some of the recent rocket launches is probably more miraculous than what we give credit to – we’re so used to it today. But it’s still quite a show to see them.”
Today the Miami-based developer is putting together a townhome community on Cape Canaveral’s barrier island with an eye-catching amenity: rooftop terraces with direct views of NASA and SpaceX launches at the nearby Kennedy Space Center. “It’s going to be a lot of fun,” Carabello said.
The development will be marketed as “attainable luxury.” Caraballo’s new company, EverHome Living, is entering the real estate market with this stated goal: “to close the gap between commoditized production housing and out-of-reach luxury with design-forward homes at attainable price points.”
And they’re looking to bring the same concept – without the space launch views – to the Orlando area, specifically the Horizon West community.
But first, in Cape Canaveral, they intend to build three-story townhomes with a modern look, relatively large at 2,800 square feet each, with three or four bedrooms and the rooftop terraces. They’ll be priced at an average of $650,000.
“As a company, we’re focused on the mid-market. We like to say that we’re not a starter home company and we’re not a luxury custom builder,” Caraballo said. He shared that $650,000 still sounds like kind of a big number to him because he recalls his mother buying her first house in Miami for $43,000. That was a long time ago, though. “It’s different times, right? But the affordability factor is a big deal.”
He said EverHome can keep its prices relatively attainable because of its vertically integrated platform, which spans land development through construction.
For comparison, Tri Pointe Homes opened sales earlier this year for its first Florida townhouse community, EvenTide, in New Smyrna Beach, with prices starting at $730,000.
Carabello was one of the principal founders of Quinn Residences, which is based in Atlanta and specializes in build-to-rent subdivisions and townhomes. In the Orlando area, it developed a pair of purpose-built rental townhouse communities in the Narcoossee corridor.
Unlike build-to-rent communities, EverHome’s townhouses will be for sale.
“Today’s market has kind of shifted. We think that the market is now ready for people to come back into buying a house for themselves and having some pride of ownership,” Carabello said. “We also think that interest rates should be coming down over the next couple of years, and it’s going to make those payments a lot more affordable.”
The plan is for the Cape Canaveral townhome community to have 94 three-story units on slightly less than eight acres. The project is in the permitting stage.
“It’s a smaller piece of land than we normally work with,” Carabello said. “Our goal is to break ground by the end of the year and start pre-sales coinciding with that groundbreaking. And then we should start home building by April of 2027.”
As far as amenities go, “the Cape is the amenity, so to speak,” he said. “There’s so much to do on the Cape – the outdoors and everything else.” Still, for the townhome community’s relatively small parcel of land, Everhome’s architects and designers are looking at golf simulators, plunge pools and other ways to bring people together.
At the same time, EverHome Living is planning a community in Englewood on Florida’s Gulf Coast that will be a mix of townhomes and single-family cottages near the beach, targeting buyers seeking coastal living without the luxury price barrier.
In the Orlando region, EverHome’s land development division owns 462 lots within the master-planned Horizon West community. “One of our partners, Dream Finders, is buying some of those lots coming up this year,” Carabello said, “and then on the remaining lots, we’re looking to see if Everhome steps in and picks up some of those, or other builders.”
EverHome is also looking at property in Clermont and in Orlando’s Mount Vernon neighborhood. “Orlando is a big market for us,” Carabello said.
Seeking a sleek and modern look for its townhomes, EverHome says it interviewed 50 architects before choosing one.
“When you look at today’s houses, if you look at a lot of the larger home builders, they’ve been building the same type of style for probably over 30 years now. We believe that the consumer today might want something different,” Carabello said. “If you’re going to ask someone to put a down payment on a house – you know, part with upwards of $50,000 for a deposit – it has to be compelling, right? Because they have so many options on what they can do with that money.”
Ultimately, EverHome plans to scale to 1,000 homes annually across high-growth Sun Belt markets, positioning itself as a new player in the “attainable luxury” category. Said Carabello, “Our goal is to grow the company in Florida’s major markets, and then from there, continue growing throughout the U.S.”
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