SperlingViews - Port_St._Lucie, Florida

New to PSL from Charlemagne, Quebec Canada. [read more...]

I just bought a house in port st.lucie and could not be happier.I live in montreal and that is a fun city to visit but to live there is not great.I pay 30 percent income tax 15 percent sales tax and 35percent more in gas than in florida.I pay 3000 dollars a year to heat my house and spend 4 1/2 months bundled up complaining about the snow and ice and minus 15 degree temperatures.We have a provincial governement that allows our construction industry to be run by members of the mob and they are so far in debt that I do not think there is any way we could ever pay it off.They lie and hide the debt as much as possible to get re-elected and we elect them again because the only other choice is the other party that wants to split our country in two and remove all english from the province.Despite all the over taxation our governement is unable to keep our roads,bridges and overpasses safe to use,we keep having pieces of the overpasses falling down and our bridges are bad enough that they would not release the saftey report because they thought we would be too scared to use it.So for me I look at port st lucie as a great place to live and as soon as my kids finish school and move out I will look at living in florida full time.A city can only be as good as the citizens in it and so far everyone i have met has been really nice and I can't wait to visit again in january.[read more...]

We moved here from Jersey and it was a culture shock..I don't know what it is but we can't seem to find anyone that we share common ground with. They are either too young or too old. Our son had no problems at all finding friends..our neighborhood was filled with boys and so life was good for him. I love the beach but there's no Boardwalk so it is a bit boring..the block we live on has extremely bizarre and nasty ppl. The only fun thing to do here is go to Thrift shops.[read more...]

I am going to speak from the heart here so bare with me. I could not be happier with my decision to move to Port Saint Lucie. I have lived here for 3 years now(Homeowner). Moved to Florida from Chicago about 10 years ago to get away from the Crime I.E.(Murder,Gangs,Violence,Bullets flying by your head while you sleep in your bed,Pollution,Drug Abuse,Poverty,Homeless People hanging out in front of EVERY business CRYING from hunger, asking for money, people that WILL shoot you for wearing the wrong color T-Shirt)etc. I'll stop there because I tend to Psychobabble(LOL). Anyone complaining about the educational systems lack of communication has never dealt with a government funded public school whose main focus is sending your kid home alive. ANYONE TALKING ABOUT THESE THINGS HAS NEVER HAD TO LIVE WITH THEM. PLEASE DON'T COMMENT BACK THAT YOU KNOW AND UNDERSTAND BECAUSE I ASSURE YOU, YOU DON'T. Palm Beach is an ok place to live, but they have a lot of the same problems. Needless to say that didn't work out so well 7 years later. This area is pristine in terms of condition. The air is breathable yes I said breathable (very important) and the water treatment facilities are of the best in the country (tasty water). In terms of Quality of Life. The conditions here to raise a family with Morals, Strength, Health, Happiness,Compassion,Understanding, and Equality could not be any better anywhere else. There are good people here don't let the foreigners such as myself confuse you to who actually lives here. They aren't standoffish they are protective, BIG DIFFERENCE. My neighbor is a school teacher for a local middle school I haven't met a nicer friendlier person in my life. Port Saint Lucie has SOOOO much to offer. The funny thing is that all this crime and punks we so candidly talking about are all of YOUR children. Same problem exists here as it does everywhere else, ready for it, wait for it, The Lack of Responsibility,Arrogance, no not me I'm not contributing to the problems. I'm perfect. I'm GOD. Sorry let me not continue anymore(Psychobabble from actually growing up in a BAD situation). The Moral (???MORALS???) of the story here kids is you will not find a better place to live...... Unless you go hide in the hills and the people who already live there don't want you there either. WHERES THE LOVE????? Port Saint Lucie is a PARADISE enjoy it while it lasts. Don't know what you got till it's gone..... I'm 30 years old crazy HUH? I have an IQ of 162 crazy HUH? I'm Happy here there is no REAL crime here it's Comfortable,Convenient,Nice place to live just not next door to me. [read more...]

Port St Lucie in the summertime is humid and hot. Better get all outdoor activities done beore 10 am or after 6 pm.[read more...]

I enjoy the perfect weather during the fall and winter seasons.[read more...]

Can anyone tell me if Tradition area is any better than the rest of Pt. St. Lucie. Want to move there from CA, since it is much cheaper, but a bit fearful of the crime and rude people...[read more...]

I have lived here my whole life, 21 years, and I hate the heat. I also can't stand the sun and the rain. It's almost as bad as Washington state.[read more...]

Okay, yes, it is nice here. It "looks" nice here. If you move from the Palm Beach area, up to this area, yes, it is really nice to look at. But its skin deep. A lot of the people here are in a perpetual bad mood. I can't blame them. In order to look nice this city has taxed people to high hell. Its crazy! They just dropped the property tax but the auto insurance rates keep going up on everyone. Home owners insurance had near tripled since the hurricanes which is bull crud since our home never had any damage. We didn't make a claim and only lost one stinking shingle. O.o Yeah.. its nuts. And there are no jobs. None. We're number 4 in the national list of cities with high unemployment rates. 16% I think. Its not pretty. Boy, I tell you, I can not wait to move. its going to take me at least a year to get enough money to move but we'll get out of here some how. Oh, and if you require a community health center.. for the low income people? Don't come here. They don't have that unless you're pregnant or have kids. I'm in a wheel chair and if someone would just fix my ankle and give me some physical therapy, I could get a job. We have the highest medical costs here, as well. I was in the hospital for 4 days, had a scopic (telescopic) surgery to remove gout crystals from my ankle, a chest x-ray for prep, and the hospital charged me $35,000. That's not including the anesthesiologist or the actual surgeon's fees. Don't move here. If you want to live in Florida, move to nothern Florida. You still get a bit of a season change and if you want to you can "visit" the nice pretty Port Saint Lucie. Don't move here. The only nice thing about this place, is the schools are nice... no wait, they force the FCAT, and teachers don't even do spelling for the 3rd graders till 2 months before school is out because before that its all about the freaking FCAT. [read more...]

I have been visiting PSL for 26 years. I retired last year and my wife and I moved here from R.I. We haven't been to PSL in the last 3 years but we figured that it was the same as before. BOY WERE WE WRONG!!! We are sorry we settled here and cannot wait to sell our home (Purchased 1-15-10). The DMV has a new law that rapes all out of state people that move here that are getting their licenses and plate tags. The city Hall stinks, you need a permit for everything...including a yard sale. And changes like fencing, water heater, house painting screening your "Florida room"...get a permit. Any structual changes will cost you $500-$700 (Plus permit costs), because you have to have an engineer draft those plans up! The low-life that has moved into PSL are a mixture of thieves rapists child molesters and just punks breaking into cars or homes or selling drugs. PSL is following in the footsteps of Miami and West Palm....TOO MUCH CRIME! So, if you want to get ripped off by the criminals or the city, stay in PSL. If you want to see what PSL is turning into...Take a ride up the road to Fort Pierce and take a left turn onto Avenue "D". I think I'm stuck here for a while. I bought a house and made some improvements right after the purchase. I will never be able to get my money back....for now anyway. To anyone thinking of living here, my advice is.... RUN FOR THE HILLS! [read more...]

Afraid taxes will go through roof with all the foreclosures here...what will happen? No one knows, we hope it won't turn into another Ft Pierce crime ridden city....??[read more...]

I live in SW Port St Lucie - Zip code 34953. I moved here in 2000 and there is a lot of things I like and don't like . Moving from CT ....I love weather( but that is anywhere in South Florida). What I don't like is our local government trying to make PSL "perfect town" with code enforcement on every corner. Now, what I like the most......I am Real Estate Agent and I get asked this question every day and I can't answer it because of ethics- questions about crime. I hope I can say something about it here. Personally I think that there is no real crime in Port St Lucie and I know some people will not agree with me but that is my opinion. [read more...]

We visited PSL last May. It's a beautiful area. Hope to retire there in the new year.[read more...]

I have lived in Port Saint Lucie since I was 5 yrs old. I agree that there is alot to do as far as the older folks (50)are concerned. There are plenty of golf courses and shopping but yet you cannot find anything that children between 8-18 can have fun doing all the time. Now there are many things for the kids to do in West Palm Beach (1 hr south) or in Orlando (1 1/2 hr NW) but the drive for them all the time is unrealistic. This only allows the children to mingle with the kids from their school and get involved with some of the things that you want your children to stay away from. No activity for the children causes them to find activity or excitement on their own, and the excitement I grew up with is not what I want for my little boy. Because of my growth in Port Saint Lucie I feel trapped like I can go nowhere because my wifes family, as well as mine, live here also. I am now 27 years old and hope something will blossom soon for the kids. We do have a bowling alley, movies, and pool halls but all of those things are filled with riff-raff and drugs. Come on Port Saint Lucie! Fight to do something for the children except building another park with swings.[read more...]

I am a high school teacher in NYC. My husband is a bus driver. We purchased a home in PSL 3 years ago. When I found out the teacher's salaries in PSL, I was totally turned off by what I heard. The same is true for any job down there. We have two children and are afraid that our children's future down in PSL in uncertain. My husband and i will do fine with our pensions as retirees, but we do not want to limit our children's posibilities when they graduate from college. There's no future for children in PSL in terms of having a successful career. We are stuck with a house we don't use and unable to sell. Property taxes and home insurance are killing us. I hope the people in charge of running local government in PSL wake up and smell the coffee. People are leaving PSL in very large numbers and soon it will be a ghost town.[read more...]

I could not agree with you more. My wife and I lived there for 3 years, 1 waiting for our house to be built, during the boom, and 2 living in the house. Fortunately we bought before the biggest part of the boom, in 2005, and sold before the bust,in 2006. For some unknown reason is it hyped with nothing but lies and falsehoods. The traffic is disgusting, the people are rude or crude or both, the wages are not something I would pay a trained monkey, and it's basically a take it or leave it atmosphere; if you don't like it, tough it out or leave. Unfortunately, the economic situation we are currently experiencing, does not allow anyone to leave. As a perfect example, we paid 200k for our house, including all amenities etc. Less than 2 years later, we sold it for 300k. The couple that bought it had it for sale for the past year with no offers, and decreased the price from 300k to 225k. All that capital lost in 2 years. At the time we were there, we paid over 5k for property taxes, had no city water or sewage, had no trash pick up, unless we paid, had no school age children, and low paying jobs. The smell from the burning orange peels? the noise from I95 traffic, the hurricanes, the bugs that never end, and nearly every other inconvenience known to man kind, all coalesce in P.S.L. Having lived in New England and California, we finally settled in Tennessee and improved our financial situation, our quality of life, and our sanity, to levels that only an ex Floridian could imagine. Good luck to you, Hope eventually all works out.[read more...]

My family and I have lived here since 2004 and we are desperately looking to leave this area as it is a true hole to live in. I have never lived in a place quite like this city and I have lived in 5 states and several cities within those 5 states, that I felt more disconnected than Port Saint Lucie. No jobs paying more than $8.50 hrly unless you have a PH.D in marine science or the medical field. Absolutely nothing to do here except golf, going to the beach and shop at over-priced stores. The people in this city are very clannish and scared to socialize, extremely expensive to live here not to mention the 3 major hurricanes that tore through here the last couple years and now, Tropical storm Fay just dumped 14.0 inches of rain here causing major damage. There are no sidewalks to walk or ride a bike on any of the overpriced housing communities and crime is off the hook. The educational system is so terrible, ("D" & "F" rated schools) that 4 out of 10 families homeschool their children, (as I chose to do because of the total breakdown of communication between parents and schools and bullying.) Port St Lucie has alot of Gated(rich)communities because of the high crime,(burglary and B & E). Port Saint Lucie has the largest population per sq. mile of sex offenders and predators due to it's lax laws than anywhere else in the entire state of Florida! Last but not least, St. Lucie County has the highest concentration of AIDS and HIV than Broward and Dade county combined! (that means 1 in 20 people is infected with HIV in this area) and that is reported by St. Lucie County Health Dept. The absolute only reason I am still living here is I purchased a house and now owe double the amount than the current market value but, we are seriously considering just walking away because the cost of quality living, taxes and insurance is to much of a burden to bear for what we gain in return. With that said...greatly consider my advice and move inland or north Fl if you have to move to FL.[read more...]

I love FL. But now is not the best time to live here... especially in psl. I saw someone walking around with a t-shirt that said "unemployed F.I.T. graduate" with a phone number. There are no jobs, everyone is being foreclosed on because of losing everything due to the drop in the real estate market. Houses are now over-priced and often vandalized by the disgruntled previous owners. However, for the most part, the weather is nice and its nesr the beach. A Beautiful sunny beach is never a downfall.[read more...]

Port Saint Lucie is a quiet "city" of about 150,000 residents. If you like outdoors activities, this is a great place to be. The beaches are close (you need to travel to Jensen Beach or Fort Pierce for bridge access) and there are many parks and green areas. Golf courses are also plentiful. It's a bit slow and laid back but casual living is pretty relaxing![read more...]

We reside in Port St. Lucie and have since 2002. It is under going alot of building so all is new here and a terrific place to reaside. Only 15 min. from the ocean and shopping galore and best of all GOOD MEDICAL.[read more...]