Home Prices Still Climbing
Cradled in a valley of privilege, the tiny Oak Park community gained most from Ventura County’s sharp run-up in home prices last year. Down the Conejo Grade, central Camarillo benefited least.
An analysis of home sales in 2001 shows that 15,000-resident Oak Park continued to lure Los Angeles’ disenchanted to such a degree that the value of a typical home jumped $51,000 in a single year.
Fifteen miles away, the older suburban tract houses that are the heart of old Camarillo showed a less enduring allure. There, the price of houses and condos remained flat for the last 12 months.
From the farm worker flats of Piru to the white palaces of funky Box Canyon, the homeowners who make up two-thirds of Ventura County households prospered through equity gains averaging $19,000 in 2001, while the overall economy struggled with a national recession.
A study of 16,426 house and condominium sales broken down by ZIP Codes shows that Oak Park’s stunning one-year gain was followed by price spikes of at least $31,000 in Newbury Park, Ojai, Moorpark and eastern Ventura.
Oak Park lawyer Diana Fields, 42, was a beneficiary: After arriving from West Hollywood four years ago, she sold the new hillside house she had bought in 1998 for a tidy $200,000 profit and purchased a bigger house in Oak Park’s last subdivision for about $700,000 in August.
“My Lamaze teacher told us there was this great little community in Ventura County that nobody knows about with great schools and clean air,” said Fields, as a nanny escorted Fields’ two young children around the block in a pink electric Barbie car.
“We wanted to get out of the city,” Fields added. “And it was the best thing we ever did. The people around here are very open. There are about 40 kids on every street. And the parents are so involved in the schools.”
The new figures reemphasize the powerful draw of Oak Park’s nationally honored schools and its proximity to Los Angeles for professionals who want to work in the city but live in a small town that is safe, clean and friendly.
Just a short hike from a national recreation area, Oak Park abuts Agoura Hills in Los Angeles County. It has been built mostly in the last 15 years, first on the valley floor, then in the surrounding hills.
Relocation specialists--armed with maps showing commuting times, earthquake faults and air pollution levels--often recommend Oak Park and nearby Thousand Oaks to white-collar newcomers who work in Los Angeles. Not that the message hasn’t gotten out by word of mouth.
Auto industry consultant Dean Benjamin, 43, of Marina del Rey was shopping the community last week, stopping at the model homes in the luxury development, Chambord, where houses sell from mid-$600,000 to $885,000. When the subdivision opened two years ago, home prices were about $200,000 less.
“My wife and I are like a lot of people we know,” Benjamin said. “We want to get a little bit out of the city, but still be close to everything. Plus the beaches are still close by and I can get to Santa Monica without taking the freeways.”
Real estate agent Bruce Kurnik, 42, and wife Elizabeth left the San Fernando Valley to buy in Oak Park’s Regency Hills estates 2 1/2 years ago because of the schools and the community’s family orientation.
In Encino, the three Kurnik children had to make appointments with friends for play days, since they all went to private schools and were shuttled around town after classes let out.
“When we moved out here, [daughter] Maddi said, ‘Do kids really do this?,’” Elizabeth Kurnik said. The 5-year-old was struck by the number of kids riding scooters down sidewalks and playing in the street. “On the cul de sac up the hill, there are over 50 kids.”
As a real estate professional, Kurnik measures his family’s move in financial terms, as well. “The equity appreciation has been much better out here,” he said. “And the community is better hands down.”
The Kurniks bought their 3,600-square-foot house for $619,000 in 1999, and the one next door is for sale for $819,000.
The stream of buyers Kurnik sees in his office are mostly families from the San Fernando Valley, he said. “I grew up in Tarzana,” Elizabeth Kurnik said. “I would never go back.”
Overall, Ventura County home sales were the highest since 1988, and the county’s 7.2% sales increase from 2000 was the second largest in Southern California. The $19,000 bump in median sales price was also high.
But the county’s hot real estate market was hottest in the white-collar commuter cities of the east county.
Indeed, the county’s second greatest gain in prices occurred in Newbury Park, where the upscale Dos Vientos project fueled a $38,000 increase and an 11% hike in sales.
Thousand Oaks led the county with 3,264 dwelling sales, while a second east county city, more affordable Simi Valley, had 3,153 sales. That compares with 2,730 in Oxnard, the county’s largest city, and 1,934 in growth-constricted Ventura, which had far fewer new houses to sell.
The west county market was generally strong, too. In Oxnard, workers from pricey Santa Barbara began buying more homes in Oxnard and Ventura in 2001.
And the Santa Clara Valley farm towns of Fillmore and Santa Paula finally experienced a sales boom, as a housing shortage sent workers from the coastal plain inland seeking a house they could afford.
Fillmore’s sales jump of 45% led the county, and the price of a typical home jumped more than $22,000. Santa Paula had 24% more sales, and home prices were up $19,000. A house could still be bought in either city for about $200,000.
Left out of this relative good fortune was Camarillo’s aging core.
There, three-bedroom, two-bath houses in neighborhoods built in the 1960s and 1970s still typically sold for $290,000. But they gained nothing in value last year, if the median price of the 770 houses that sold in 2001 is an accurate gauge.
“We have a lot of older inventory in that area, and people want new,” said Elaine Pettersen, owner of Hacienda Realty in Camarillo. “Neighborhoods go through these cycles: They’re new and fabulous, then they begin a period of decline. But when we run out of new homes, there will be a renaissance period, and they will come back.”
Part of the problem for central Camarillo is that new homes of every type are available in the popular Mission Oaks and Santa Rosa Valley area on the city’s east end.
“The schools are good, and young families are attracted to homes there,” Pettersen said.
Before Diana Clark moved from Torrance to central Camarillo last summer, she twice tried to buy in Mission Oaks, too, but lost both bids. She finally settled for a $370,000, four-bedroom house built in 1978.
“We didn’t get the house we wanted, but we put money into it, and it all worked out for the best,” said Clark, snuggling her 4-year-old daughter, MaKenna, as they played on a blanket at Charter Oaks Park.
“I fell in love with Camarillo,” she said. “I pushed it. The schools are good. And it looks like a place I could stay forever.”
Nor has real estate in central Camarillo been a bad investment when considered over the last few years.
Cara Voligny paid $245,500 when she bought in 1998, and sold for $355,000 last week after dropping her price from $385,000.
“We thought we’d get more,” she said. “But with Sept. 11 and the holidays, it was real slow at first.”
Voligny and her husband, Douglas, a defense industry engineer, have bought a house on half an acre up the hill in Camarillo Heights for $580,000. And they’re counting on a continuing real estate boom.
“With the university going in, we feel this is going to be a real growth spurt and we should get in right now before the big push.”
It’s that kind of belief that has made housing the best investment in the nation for the last year.
Some experts, however, say they fear housing prices have soared too high and a fall may be around the corner. They have already seen some softening in the market.
“It’s not a seller’s market out there anymore,” Pettersen said. “The sellers don’t get it yet. They’re still thinking it’s the same as a year ago. But the buyers understand. They’re really taking their time. And they’re coming in with low-ball offers.”
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Homes Sales by City
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Ventura County House Sales
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