immobiliermedici@yahoo.com - 561-459-1920 - www.immobiliermedici.com
PRESS
Affordable sunshine
By Robert Liebman
Published: April 25 2008
In
the late 1950s, the General Development Corporation bought up vast swathes of
former agricultural land in southeastern Florida around the St. Lucie River.
The owners, the Mackle brothers – Elliott, Robert and Frank Jr. – divided
these vast tracts into thousands of quarter-acre lots.
But
not homeowners, not yet. These pioneer landowners couldn’t build in Port St.
Lucie even if they wanted or could afford to. Although PSL incorporated as a
city as early as 1961, it was little more than a village, and threadbare at
that. Roads and residential infrastructure – water, electricity and sewage
disposal – were scarce to non-existent.
Forty
years later, the official 2000 census stated Port St Lucie’s population at
89,000, and four years after that, it soared to 118,000. This 12 per cent
annual increase earned it the title of America’s fastest-growing large city.
Today’s total is 165,000 and rising, and plenty of land is still available.
Rapid
growth was inevitable. The quarter-acre plots didn’t stay undeveloped
forever. Eventually, the absentee owners retired, moved to their plots and
built homes. Gradually, the city added roads and vital services.
As
Port St Lucie became more viable, relatively low house prices attracted
commuters who worked in West Palm Beach 40 miles south of the area. A virtuous
circle ensued: more civic improvements attracted more and wealthier newcomers,
and in their wake still more and better shops and services arrived.
Port
St Lucie is on Florida’s Atlantic coast, about 120 miles north of Miami.
Orlando is roughly the same distance to the north. The gulf stream brings
cooling breezes in summer.
The
city is not directly on the Atlantic but it counts a 20-mile stretch of
unspoiled beaches as a near neighbor. And between PSL and the ocean is another
major amenity, the Indian River. Extending northward for more than 100 miles,
this narrow Intracoastal waterway supports an extraordinary variety of fish
and other wildlife, and is a magnet for anglers, sailors, snorkelers and bird-
and manatee-watchers. It offers calm gulf-like water on the ocean side of the
state.
St.
Lucie County’s oceanfront, rich waterways, pristine preserves, splendid
savannas and other ecological amenities make this a location for outdoor
excursions of all types, including manatee sighting, horseback riding and
turtle watching.
Port
St Lucie now has plenty of schools, supermarkets, restaurants and recreational
facilities – and running water. Homes are mostly that suburban American
icon, the ranch: spacious single-story single-family homes with pitched roofs
and an integral garage. Also available are two-story Key West-style homes with
long porches, often on both levels, that are ideal for enjoying the Gulf
Stream breeze.
Family
homes are available for under $100,000, and three-bed ranch homes of 1600 sq
ft typically cost $200,000. Some of its largest, most exclusive homes sell for
$2m or more, but they are few in number, and seven-digit price tags are rare.
Current
property stock also includes palatial residences in riverside residential golf
and yacht clubs, with golf courses designed by Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer
and Nick Price. Oceanside condominiums are available in Hutchinson Island.
New
house styles are appearing in new communities. The Toll Brothers are building
188 “Mediterranean-style” homes in a 90-acre gated enclave on the city’s
west side. Small homes start at about $400,000 for the house only. The plot
and options can add $100,000 or more to the final price.
Yet
Port St Lucie has remained true to its modest roots, more Wal-Mart than
Valentino. Budget homes and McMansions alike are considerably cheaper than
comparable properties in Florida’s posher, better known towns and cities
such as Sarasota, Naples, Palm Beach and Vero Beach.
The
combination of price and quality of life lured Elizabeth and Doug Jones, both
37, to Port St Lucie from Miami nearly two years ago.
For
them, falling property values in the area are not a major concern. “Houses
like ours sell today for $315,000 to $325,000. We paid a bit more,” she
notes. But she feels that their four bedrooms will allow them to wait out the
downturn if and when they need more space. Their first child, Valerie, was
born eight months ago.
It
is anyone’s guess when the U.S. housing market will fully recover, and
estate agent Sheri Wetzel’s guess is the November presidential election at
the earliest. “The currently market is saturated,” says Wetzel,
past president of the Builders Association and broker-owner of Re/Max Midway. “In
St Lucie County at large, more than 11,000 properties are for sale not
including new construction, but we are selling only between 400 and 600 per
month.”
In
Port St Lucie itself, which has about 37,000 homes, the Multiple Listing
Service shows more than 4,500 for sale. “We have at least two years’
inventory. Prices dropped about 10 per cent in 2007 and are now falling closer
to 20 per cent.”
Estate agent concurs.
Inventory
is still very high, and it may take up to three years for prices to level off.
But I detect a bit of a bounce recently, as if buyers sense that the falls
were too steep, an overreaction. They are starting to take advantage. Our
buyers are West Palm Beach commuters, first timers, local businesspeople and
investors.
But
subprime’s tentacles are still spreading poison far and wide. There has been
a number of foreclosures and “short sales” in which lenders accept less
than the outstanding debt to spare themselves and the owners the agony and
expense of foreclosure.
Perhaps
of more concern is the the number of builders that have gone bust or left
town, sometimes abandoning homes and projects not yet finished. Toll Brothers
have more than 100 homes to shift at its new site and it is no longer setting
a completion target date. America’s largest builder of luxury homes, the
company recently reported third-quarter profits down nearly 85 per cent.
The
Toll Brothers development is in a new part of town called Tradition,
which is itself incomplete. But it is emblematic of an ambitious city
determined to continuing growing via its own economic base.
Located
on the land-rich west side of the city, Tradition is a
master-planned community that currently has several thousand homes on about
3,000 acres. It is aiming for 18,500 homes and can annex an additional 8,000
acres. Built to New Urbanist principles, it has masses of family-friendly
parks and open spaces as well as that rarity in Florida, pedestrian-friendly
sidewalks. Every year in March, the major-league New York Mets baseball team
decamp to their spring-training ground in Tradition.
This
burgeoning community is also well on its way to becoming the city’s future
employment center. The California-based Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular
Studies will open a major laboratory in Port St Lucie next year.
“The
biotech’s want out of Southern California,” says Ed Cunningham, spokesman
for PSL’s City Council. “Homes that cost $750,000 in San Diego cost only
$250,000 here. The whole state of Florida wants to attract the biotech
industry, to create a biotech hub here along the lines of a Silicon Valley.”
One
firm does not a hub make, but dividends have already arrived: “Torrey Pines
told us that spin-off companies would also come here,” adds Cunningham. “Medical
entrepreneur Alfred E. Mann intends to build 400,000 square feet of labs and
offices, and Oregon Health and Science University’s Vaccine and Gene Therapy
Institute will also locate here.”
Today,
as in the days of the Mackle Brothers, affordable sunshine is still a big
draw. Every month, 1400 newcomers arrive in Port St Lucie. As recently as
1970, the total population barely nudged 300.
Immobilier
Medici Floride will find your dream home.
source
- Around the world,
www.
FT.com is the trusted source of up-to-the-minute news, data and authoritative
opinion. Discover more ways you can use www. FT.com to give you the edge in
business.
$295,000
$214,999
$179,000
$199,900
Port St Lucie has 37,000 homes with 4,500 for sale
PALM BEACH COUNTY
ELEGANT LIVING
$2,500,000
$2-3,995,000
$16,900,000
Homes that cost $750,000 in San Diego cost only $250,000 in St. Lucie County.
Every month, 1400 newcomers arrive in Port St Lucie.
The Town of Tradition in Port St. Lucie, Florida is a new master- planned, mixed-use community located in the heart of one of America's fastest growing regions along Florida's Treasure Coast.
immobiliermedici@yahoo.com - 561-459-1920 - www.immobiliermedici.com