river and on the shore... I don't know how that works geographically,

The *river* is the Indian River, aka the Intracoastal Waterway. There is
also the St. Lucie River, which has lots of tributaries. It gets kind of
confusing. Yes, you can get to one from the other. When you see *river* in
Port St. Lucie real estate ads, they mean the St. Lucie River, because Port
St. Lucie doesn't abut the Intracoastal. This city is quite young, and was
originally built by GDC for retirees, with little houses. Those original
areas are giving way to commercial development, and PSL is not even close to
being a retirement community. We wouldn't have come here if it was. PSL has
been the fastest growing city in the nation. There have been growing pains;
city *leaders* are not big enough people to deal with what PSL is becoming.
They are unsophisticated people with access to tax revenues. Very dangerous
combination. Very upscale housing has come in, we've got a biomed corridor
on the drawing board. A company is coming in from CA (Torrey Pines) and more
will follow.

Compared to CA, PSL is very affordable. But since we moved here in 1999,
housing prices have essentially tripled, except in the old areas. There's a
little slump right now, but it will pick up again. My son lives in Palm
Beach Gardens (40 minutes south) and has a small, older three bedroom, one
bath house with a carport. It's worth about the same as ours, and we have 2K
sf, a canal behind us, a pool, glass everywhere, etc. So this is a good
investment area. Palm Beachers and Miamians cash in and come up here. That
pushes prices up.

Am I a whiney Californian or what? *G*

Absolutely! Very Left Coast! LOL!

Diana