Fishing hot spot defying real estate market as construction continues on the mansions of Port Mansfield

Ten years ago, world-class fishing led Patsy Nolte and her husband to buy a vacation home in this tiny village on the shore of the Laguna Madre, she said.

"My husband had fished here for 30 years," she said. "I thought it was a great opportunity at the time of retirement. I could see the community was changing."

When they moved here from the New Braunfels area four years later, she started selling homes to couples who are slowly turning this fishing town into a ritzy vacation spot, she said.

"Most of the buyers are second-home investment buyers," said Nolte, who runs SeaWatch Realty here. "People are still discovering Port Mansfield."

After the real estate market collapsed around the country, sales are still hot here, said Nolte, who said she sold about a dozen homes here so far this year.

"It's stable," she said.

Twenty years ago, the town was "a prosperous sleepy little coastal fishing village," said Walt Kittelberger, a fishing guide who moved here in 1987.

Back then, the town built around the fishing industry was mostly filled with fishing cabins and wood-frame homes, he said.

"There weren't really any big homes in Port Mansfield," he said.

In the last five years, large houses started springing up, said Terry Neal, president of the Port Mansfield Chamber of Commerce.

"The town is changing," said Neal, a fishing guide in the village where about half of the 400 year-round residents are retired. "The boom's because this is some of the last waterfront property on the Texas coast."

Some move in from as far as New York and Alaska, but most come from Houston, Dallas and San Antonio, Nolte said.

"They're professionals with disposable incomes," she said.

Traffic and the high cost of living are driving many out of resort communities in towns like Rockport, Port Aransas, Port O'Connor and Padre Island, Nolte said.

In the last five years, about 30 new homes have gone up here, ranging from about $200,000 inland to $450,000 on the bay, she said.

"They're magnificent, beautiful, big homes," she said.

The "little boom" drove up land values, but the newcomers' business hasn't bailed out the town's sinking fishing industry, Neal said.

Soaring gasoline prices have forced anglers to slash their visits here, cutting tourist dollars by 30 to 40 percent, he said.

"As far as improving the business and the economy of the town, I don't think it has a lot of bearing," Neal said.

The town's new image is transforming this fishing village where neighbors feed deer in their backyards, some old-timers say.

Early this year, the Willacy County Navigation District voted to evict Steve Banyai, claiming he turned his $34,000 home into a "nuisance."

"They have to explain to a judge how stealing my house is legal," said Banyai, a handyman who took his case to a Willacy County justice of the peace. A court date hasn't been set.

In March, the Navigation District's board members voted to terminate Banyai's lease because his failure to maintain his home violated his lease agreement, said Mike Wilson, the district's longtime port director.

n Port Mansfield, the Navigation District leases the land that's luring newcomers here.

"It probably looks like an unusual way to have a home," Wilson said of leases that go for monthly charges of $3 per square-foot along the harbor to annual fees of $3 to $6 a square-foot in other parts of town.

The 30-year leases can be renewed any time, Wilson said.

"Under the terms of the lease, you agree to certain (conditions). You're not as in-control of property as you would if you have a title to land. We have ordinances much like a town does," Wilson said.

But evictions are "very unusual and very rare," he said.

The Navigation District isn't pushing to transform the town to overshadow the village's smaller, older homes that start at about $40,000, Wilson said.

"We're not trying to convert the whole town over to high-priced homes," Wilson said. "We still have some nice smaller places. I think Port Mansfield remains affordable."

Nearly 30 years after he came to town, much is still the same here, Neal said.

"It's just a real laid-back community. There's three stop signs and no stop lights. There's turkey and deer walking around," Neal said. "Now there's a lot more people moving in to town."