Ventura County - Ideal Neighbourhoods?

[Darren Horrocks]

Hi,

I'm looking to get an understanding of some of the locations in LA County and Ventura county. Are there any areas that you would recommend staying away from, and why?

I am interested in the following, and plan to drive the locations to get a feel for the neighbourhoods in the weekends to come.

- Simi Valley

- MoorPark

- Calabasas

- Camarillo

- Oxnard

- Ventura

What are your thoughts? Any areas within each of those to absolutely avoid?

Thanks!

Darren

[Nick G.]

@Darren Horrocks To add on to some of the great points that @Jeremy Marrs has already said-

I live in Moorpark too! Just bought my place here last March at $425,000, it's now worth around $510,000. Moorpark is not alone in experiencing that kind of appreciation, the surrounding areas you mentioned are also going through it to varying degrees. I'm an investor by night and an agent by day (which helps me learn the trends of this area,) so I'm fortunate to have been able to learn a lot about these areas, so maybe I can help share both a bit of info mixed in with some personal opinions.

First off, anything that's in Conejo-Moorpark-Simi area is not going to meet any BP rules of thumb for cash flow or flipping, unless you get some insane off-market deal. So prepare yourself for unexciting numbers when you run BP calculations. Ventura-Oxnard-Camarillo are slightly better, but not by much, mostly because they're simply less expensive.

This entire area, particularly Moorpark and the Conejo Valley, are prized for their long term buy-and-hold quality. The homes here that were sold for $40,000 when they were built 40 years ago now sell for $600,000 - $800,000. One of the BP mantras is to never buy for appreciation, but in this area, that's one of the biggest reasons you buy, in addition to the fact that our values don't swing very low and they don't swing very often. The area is very secure relative to the rest of the state and country. This is owed to a number of reasons, but it mostly boils down to a 50-year endless demand to live in the area due to brilliant schools, virtually-nonexistent crime, great weather, and very high quality of life.

The description I just gave you applies mostly to the more-expensive Conejo Valley area which comprises of Newbury Park, Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village, Agoura Hills and Oak Park. You did not mention these areas, but it's important to know them, because many people who live in the surrounding areas of Simi, Moorpark, Camarillo, and Oxnard would like to eventually be in the Conejo Valley for the above reasons. The schools and crime rates in Simi, Oxnard, and Ventura in particular are nowhere near as excellent as the Conejo Valley. Moorpark is a great compromise between quality of life and pricing, which is why I chose to live here.

Flipping can be done in any of the above areas due to the ever-present escalation of home values the state and country is experiencing, but you really need to be buying REO's or off-market deals to do so, and those deals are rare as it is.

Buy-and-hold can be done in any of the above areas as well, but certain areas may be better for you depending on what you want. If you want cash flow, Oxnard and Simi aren't great compared to other more distant areas, but they're generally the best areas of the ones you've mentioned for that - Ventura is okay too. You'll probably be buying an older home in a B or C neighborhood, those tend to perform the best. They still benefit from the long-term security I mentioned earlier, slightly less-so, but at the tradeoff of lower prices. 

Vacancy in this area is almost zero at the moment, and rents in the area are through the roof. Homes are in extremely high demand and very low supply, which is fueling the circle of high prices and high rents. "Seasons" as it pertains to market activity haven't existed in ten years, but we expect (and hope) they return when the market corrects eventually (widely though to be in the next few years.) 

What are you looking to do out here? Without knowing that, it's tough to point you in a particular direction. Bottom line though, if you buy here to flip, make sure you buy smart and know the area (or someone who does) because the values and desirability out here, while tall interconnected, are extremely different and nuanced. If you buy here to hold, make sure you hold onto it for a long time - it will eventually pay off in spades, and in a very low-risk manner, but the cash flow won't look very sexy on paper for a while.

Hopefully something in here is helpful to you, sorry for the wall of text. :)