The Eagle Ford Shale is building wealth in South Texas and locals are stepping up as buyers for highly valued real estate. Port Aransas has seen real estate demand grow by four-fold. Buyers are coming from Ingelside, Cuero, Beeville and Corpus. That's a shift from the major metro areas in the past.

"Primarily, before this a lot of our market had come from Dallas, San Antonio, Austin and Houston," developer Jeff Lamkin said. "Now, the local market here has become a really big segment of our renter and buyer profile."

The Cinnamon Shore development has 300 homes that range in price from $300,000 to $2 million. The development bills itself as the only "beach-front community designed in the new urbanism style".