Pt. Mansfield, TX: 2nd Home Investor Hotspot?

Here's a spot for second-home investors that you might not have heard about: the fishing village of Port Mansfield, Texas, about 61 miles north of Brownsville on the shore of Laguna Madre.

"Most of the buyers are second-home investment buyers," The Brownsville Herald quoted Patsy Nolte, who runs SeaWatch Realty, as saying. "People are still discovering Port Mansfield." Even now, with the real estate market collapse nationwide, sales are still hot here, according to Nolte, who said she sold about a dozen homes here so far this year.


An oddity: "the Navigation District leases the land that's luring newcomers here," the Herald says. Port Director Mike Wilson said leases 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 is quoted as telling reporter Fernando Del Valle of the Valley Evening Star. "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 is quoted as saying.