Port Hueneme Prices Soaring
Once a Navy town known for its rough bars and low living, Port Hueneme has recovered so nicely these days that it is among the leaders in Ventura County’s sharp run-up in real estate prices during the last three years.
While the value of houses and condos has increased 50% countywide in 36 months, the price of the typical home in Port Hueneme’s once-sluggish real estate market has surged by 60%, or nearly $100,000, including a hike of more than $50,000 last year alone.
An analysis of home sales from 2000 through 2003 shows that prices in many Ventura County communities soared by $140,000 or more -- including a peak of about $184,000 in one Thousand Oaks neighborhood. From the farmworker flats of Piru to the hilltop palaces of Bell Canyon, homeowners who make up about two-thirds of Ventura County households have prospered in a housing market that keeps getting hotter.
John Karevoll, an analyst for DataQuick Information Systems, said last year’s run-up in prices was by far the largest in Ventura County history. Even in 1988, when prices increased 20% in one year, the actual dollar boost was only $38,000.
By comparison, equity gains were $19,000 in 2001 and $47,000 in 2002, before soaring to an average of $64,000 in 2003, according to DataQuick.
The median price of a house or condo -- where half sell for more and half for less -- averaged $389,000 last year. And by December, the median price had climbed to $414,000, with no end in sight.
“I’m afraid Ventura County prices will just keep rising,” said Bill Watkins, executive director of the Economic Forecast Project at UC Santa Barbara. “And what we’re seeing now is that middle-class buyers are being forced to look for homes in communities that they did not previously consider -- in Oxnard, Santa Paula and Port Hueneme,” he said. “I hear we have three new people in our English department [at UC Santa Barbara], and they all bought their homes in Santa Paula.”
In recent years, no city has had a greater percentage price increase than Port Hueneme, a reinvigorated 22,000-resident community of retirees, farmworkers and military workers on the eastern flank of the Navy Seabee base.
“Port Hueneme had a bad name for years; it used to be a slum,” said Erven Johnson, 70, a retired fuel boss at the Point Mugu Navy base. “It had sailor towns and hookers and bars.”
So Johnson was surprised that the 1,725-square-foot, three-bedroom home he is selling for his sister-in-law in Port Hueneme’s Surfside Village is now valued at about $570,000. Built in 1980, it originally sold for $125,000. Two similar houses nearby are also priced in the $560,000 to $575,000 range.
“I know this neighborhood, so I figured it would be $400,000,” said Johnson, who sold his own Port Hueneme condo at a loss for $180,000 in 1997, before prices started to skyrocket. “But this was definitely a surprise.”
Just down Village Road, another modest single-story house that sold for $240,000 four years ago just sold for $460,000 after a three-month escrow. And a sales agent said the house was already worth much more.
“One in the neighborhood has gone up another $100,000,” said agent Bertha Moraga. “It’s nice; five minutes walking distance from the beach. And we’re talking to a lot of [potential buyers] from Santa Barbara, where they can’t buy anything for that.”
Countywide, a study of 51,347 house and condominium sales broken down by ZIP Codes shows a peak three-year equity gain of $183,500 in the Westlake and Lake Sherwood areas of Thousand Oaks, a 46% increase that pushed the price of a typical home to $580,000.
That was followed by price spikes throughout the county:
* $169,500 for Newbury Park, where the new Dos Vientos subdivision pushed housing prices to a median of $510,000 last year.
* $157,000 for red-tiled Bell Canyon and its funky neighbor, Box Canyon, in the Simi Hills overlooking the San Fernando Valley. There, the typical house sold for $965,000 last year.
* $149,000 for the sun-splashed beach area of southwestern Oxnard, a 59.6% increase that upped home prices to about $400,000.
* $146,500 for the older neighborhoods of east Ventura, where prices rose nearly 57% to a median of $405,000.
* $140,000 for the eclectic village of Oak View, once a bargain for people who couldn’t afford homes in Ventura or Ojai, but where a small house typically sold last year for $375,000.
“Actually, these increases are everywhere,” said Oxnard real estate broker Vickie Gosnell. “The majority of our buyers are coming from Santa Barbara and from the beach areas to the south. They can’t afford where they are anymore, so they’re coming to our county, which has been a sleeper area for a long time.”
One recent Oxnard buyer, a homeowner in Manhattan Beach, was pleased to pay $680,000 for a house with an unobstructed mountain view in the 15-year-old River Ridge subdivision.
What the buyer found in that older subdivision, compared with a new one nearby, were wide streets and big lots. Those are luxuries that new developments don’t have, because the county’s anti-sprawl laws generally have made land too valuable for big-lot subdivisions, Gosnell said.
“The real problem is there just aren’t enough houses for the large number of buyers,” she said. “And prices will keep going up as long as interest rates stay down, and we have two-income buyers, and we’re still surrounded by higher-priced areas.”
Mark Schniepp, director of the California Economic Forecast in Santa Barbara, predicts 2004 will be another good year for Ventura County home-sellers -- but not for three-quarters of all potential buyers, who are already priced out of the market.
“We’re projecting a 9.3% increase in price, so that’s $40,000 more,” Schniepp said. Of course, he said the same thing last year, and the actual increase was about twice as much.
“We’re on a vigilant bubble watch, because prices continue to run away,” Schniepp said. “We were in a bubble that burst in the late 1980s, when people were buying homes they didn’t need as speculators. That’s something we need to watch for.”
In the meantime, homeowners such as retired Navy employee Richard Roberts of Port Hueneme have the enviable choice of either staying in a pleasant little town or cashing in their equity.
Roberts, 80, and his artist wife, Eve, are trying to sell the three-bedroom home they bought for $165,000 about 20 years ago so they can move to Santa Fe, N.M. Their asking price for the 1,700-square-foot home is $575,000.
“When our neighbors sold for $475,000 a year ago, our teeth just about fell out,” Roberts said. “But our [agent] is telling us he has every confidence we can get this price.”
If so, Roberts said, they will buy a house twice as large in Santa Fe.
“And we’ll have maybe $50,000 left over,” he said.
*
(Begin Text of Infobox)
County home sales by city
A breakdown of the number of homes sold from 2000 through 2003. Prices in many Ventura County communities soared by $140,000.
*--* City 2000 2001 2002 2003 Thousand Oaks 3,167 3,264 3,628 3,513
Simi Valley 3,177 3,153 3,079 2,936
Oxnard 2,601 2,730 3,045 3,223
Ventura 1,939 1,934 2,200 1,837
Camarillo 1,634 1,586 1,770 1,744
Moorpark 752 792 1,002 810
Port Hueneme 514 556 529 611
Ojai 297 355 388 374
Santa Paula 295 366 365 370
Fillmore 226 327 252 288
Countywide 15,318 16,426 17,775 17,377
*--*
*
Source: DataQuick Information Systems
Los Angeles Times
Note: Sales reflect closed escrows on houses and condominiums within city limits, and in some cases, adjacent unincorporated areas.
*
Rising prices
*
Median prices for dwellings in Ventura County in 2003 compared with previous years. The figures include new and resale homes and condominiums.
*
*--* City ZIP Code 2000 2001 2002 2003 3-year increase Camaril 93010 $290,000 $290,000 $337,500 $405,000 $115,000 lo 93012 270,000 289,000 365,000 410,000 140,000
Fillmore 93015 207,500 230,000 257,000 290,000 82,500
Moorpark 93021 277,000 312,000 355,000 412,000 135,000
Oak Park 91377 324,000 375,000 410,000 434,225 110,225
Oak View 93022 235,000 261,000 335,000 375,000 140,000
Ojai 93023 290,000 324,500 360,000 420,000 130,000
Oxnard 93030 228,000 240,000 293,000 355,700 127,700 93033 179,000 189,000 217,500 275,000 96,000 93035 250,000 271,000 315,000 399,000 149,000
Port 93041 165,000 181,000 210,000 264,000 99,000 Hueneme
Santa 93060 166,000 185,000 220,000 259,000 93,000 Paula
Simi 93063 252,000 266,000 296,000 360,000 108,000 Valley 93065 254,000 265,000 313,000 369,000 115,000
Thousan 91320 340,000 378,000 415,000 509,500 169,500 d Oaks 91360 284,000 298,000 345,000 425,000 141,000 91361 396,500 423,500 480,000 580,000 183,500 91362 382,000 385,000 437,500 524,500 142,500
Ventura 93001 225,000 240,250 300,000 345,000 120,000 93003 233,250 260,000 319,000 350,000 116,750 93004 258,500 289,000 340,000 405,000 146,500
Countyw 259,000 278,000 325,000 389,000 130,000 ide
*--*
*
Source: DataQuick Information Systems
Los Angeles Times
Note: Countywide totals include sales with unknown Zip Codes. Median prices include unincorporated areas not shown.
