Articles: Housing in Port St. Lucie Surging!

St. Lucie County, home to the nation's second-fastest-growing city - Port St. Lucie, continued its phenomenal expansion in the second quarter of this year by posting a 60 percent increase in new-home construction, a recently released report shows.

In St. Lucie County -- which is expected to swell by 200,000 new residents in the next two decades -- builders broke ground on 709 single-family homes in the second quarter, compared with 443 in the second quarter of 2003, Boca Raton-based Metrostudy said. The firm tracks new-home construction in South Florida subdivisions.

In Palm Beach County, new-home starts declined by 27 percent as builders continued to run out of land, Metrostudy said.

Like the nation -- which recorded a 25-year-high in new-home starts last year -- Palm Beach also had record home-building activity last year. Those rates just aren't sustainable as land dries up, said Brad Hunter, Metrostudy's director of consulting. And that helps account for the double-digit second-quarter decline.

Buyer demand for new homes in Palm Beach County remains high, however, pushing prices to "severe" levels of appreciation, he said.

To the north, Martin County -- believed by many to have the toughest growth rules in the state -- had a slight 2 percent dip in new-home starts, the report said. Many builders acknowledge they prefer to leapfrog over Martin into St. Lucie County, which has more builder-friendly policies.

Previous growth in St. Lucie County, long one of the country's hottest housing markets, has come from single-family homes. But the area is poised for an explosion of townhomes, Hunter said.

"When a single-family lot in St. Lucie County cost $6,000, there was no reason to do townhomes," Hunter said. "Now that those same lots cost $50,000 or $55,000 -- driving the price of the home on that lot into the mid-$200,000s -- it starts to make sense to look at more affordable alternatives (such as) attached housing."

Few if any townhouse developments existed in St. Lucie County a mere two years ago, Hunter said, but 20 projects are now either under way or about to begin. The biggest concentration of townhomes is in St. Lucie County's PGA Village development, Hunter said, citing Castle Pines and Clubside. The latter is already sold out, he said.

Townhomes in Bent Paddle, in the River Place development east of Florida's Turnpike, are under construction, Hunter said. And several townhome projects also are in the works for Core Communities' 5,000-acre Tradition development.

"We sold out our first phase in Tradition -- 183 units -- in 4 1/2 hours on a Sunday," said Phil Petruzzelli, president of Hanover Homes in Port St. Lucie. Five townhouse buildings are being built as part of Phase 1, he said, with another 60 townhomes planned for Phase 2.

"There's tremendous interest in the townhomes," he said. "They have the same amenities as our single-family homes -- garages in back and porches in front — but they cost less because the per-unit land costs are less with attached homes."

Petruzzelli said prices for the units had not yet been set.

But prices in St. Lucie County — a beacon of affordability to buyers blinded by Palm Beach County's stupendous new-home prices -- are likely to remain relatively reasonable, Metrostudy's Hunter said.

"There's a 20 percent discount, so to speak, in taking a home out of Wellington and plopping it into Tradition."

Metrostudy did not have information on new-home prices, Hunter said, and the U.S. Commerce Department doesn't track local new-home prices, either. However, for 2003, the latest figures available, the average price of a new home in Palm Beach County was $330,805, according to Miami-based Integra Realty Resources. The consulting firm does not track Treasure Coast real estate.

Looking ahead, the National Association of Realtors on Tuesday upgraded its 2004 housing forecast, predicting the strongest level of new-home building since 1978. If housing starts come in at the association's predicted seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.9 million units, this would be the second year in a row new-home construction breaks a 25-year high.

Locally, St. Lucie County definitely will set a record for new-home construction this year, Hunter said, and next year, too.

But Palm Beach County's lack of land will continue to slow new-home building, he said. At the end of June, for instance, there was only an 8 1/2-month supply of vacant developed lots in Palm Beach County, Hunter said.

>>Article from the Palm Beach Post<<