Signs Point to Another Flight From L.A. : Migration: Interest in the Ventura County real estate market has increased after the riots. An exodus by fearful Angelenos similar to the one after the Watts unrest is considered likely by some agents.

In a wave reminiscent of the white flight to the suburbs following the 1965 rioting in Watts, some Los Angeles residents already have begun looking for houses in Ventura County.

People intent on escaping urban violence crowded open houses last week and barraged salespeople with questions about moving to Ventura County, real estate officials said.

And on Sunday, although some real estate agents reported a Mother’s Day lull, others said they spent the day helping house hunters from Los Angeles.

“People just want to get out of the area,” said Pat Fredericks, president-elect of the Conejo Valley Assn. of Realtors in Thousand Oaks.

“They’re disconcerted about all of the violence that erupted and the length of time with which it continued,” Fredericks said. “They’re greatly in fear of not only their own safety and their family’s safety but the safety of the investment they made in the American dream.”

Fredericks said her Thousand Oaks real estate office had received several calls from Los Angeles, including one from a man who pleaded: “I can’t take this any more. Get me out. We don’t care how much of a loss we have to take.”

Don L. Carlton Realtors, one of the larger real estate firms in Ventura County, reported a 75% increase in visitors to its offices and open houses the weekend after the riots as hundreds of people fleeing the city checked into Ventura County hotels and walked around town.

On Sunday, the Young Co. of Oxnard reported a steady flow of Los Angeles residents house-shopping at its offices, including a van full of Korean-Americans checking out beach property, agent Joe Young said.

The riots have created “a really emotional situation,” said Sandy Bennett, who works in Carlton’s Seaward Avenue office in Ventura. Customers reported that “they didn’t know if they wanted to continue living in that area, that they weren’t sure it would never erupt again,” Bennett said. “Probably out of (any) seven people who came through, four of the seven were from Los Angeles and two were serious.”

Bennett said unconfirmed television reports of shooting inside the Sherman Oaks Galleria during the riots persuaded a Sherman Oaks family to begin house-shopping in Ventura County.

“They were absolutely terrified,” she said.

Don Carlton predicted the 1992 riots would trigger an exodus similar to that by many white business owners and residents from predominantly black South-Central Los Angeles after the 1965 riots in Watts.

“I think any time you have an occurrence of this magnitude down in Los Angeles, it makes people start evaluating: ‘Is it necessary to live there? Is this what I really want my family exposed to, or is it time for us to think about the move?’ ” Carlton said.

“I think this is going to be kind of the trigger that might help them make the decision, push them over the edge,” he said.

In addition to an increase in Los Angeles residents looking for homes in Ventura County, there could also be a new wave of business refugees from the Korean-American community, some real estate brokers said.

Korean-American real estate saleswoman Soon Andersson said she was fielding four to five calls a day last week from Koreatown residents and merchants.

“Most of them say they want to get out of L.A.,” said Andersson of R.R. Gable Inc.

The family of one merchant whose store was burned out in the riots has already made an offer to buy a Camarillo market because disaster aid to rebuild in Los Angeles will take too long, she said.

“Their business is burned down,” Andersson said. “They cannot wait to rebuild that business for some time, so he has to have a new business in order to survive.”

Carlton salesman Andy McCaslin said one of his colleagues is helping find a new home here for “an L.A. policeman who was interested in moving. He would like to raise his children out of that environment.”

Ventura County’s real estate market may benefit from the aftermath of the Los Angeles riots even though the Rodney King beating verdicts brought negative publicity to the county, McCaslin said.

“Even though this is considered a racist county across the nation--and that’s ludicrous--Ventura County’s a pretty nice place to live,” McCaslin said. “I don’t think it’s fair to label our county on the basis of one incident like that, be it right or wrong.”

Some real estate brokers said the riots may push some older Los Angeles residents to give serious consideration to Ventura County--especially since the Board of Supervisors ratified Proposition 90. That measure allows homeowners 55 or older to buy new homes that will be taxed based on the value of their old homes.

“Most of them have a house to sell down there first, but we’re seeing the preliminary seeds of interest, I think,” said Bobbi Courselle, chairwoman of the Ventura Assn. of Realtors’ multiple-listings service committee.

But some Los Angeles residents may find it difficult to sell their homes. Los Angeles real estate executives worried last week that the riots will further depress already slumping property values.

That could ripple throughout Southern California, pushing housing prices up in outlying suburban areas such as Ventura County.

Some homeowners may not wait to sell their current homes, said Joe Young, president of the Oxnard Board of Realtors. And there are those who don’t have to worry about selling. “We had a lot of rental calls from L.A. people that want to move out,” he said.

“There were a lot of people who were on the fence” about leaving the city before the riots, Young said.

“This might be the thing that makes them say, ‘L.A. is a rat race and it’s time to move out.’ ”

STAY OR GO? Some Angelenos are already packing, but others are committed to staying. E1