Ventura County's real estate market has been heating up in recent months with more homes selling and more homes on the market so far in 2024 than last year.
The median price of all single-family existing homes sold in Ventura County in April was $940,000, up 2.4% from the month before and 6.2% higher than in April 2023, according to data released last week by the California Association of Realtors. The median is the point at which half of the sales are for less and half for more.
Ventura County has three cities where the median sale price last month was above $1 million: Moorpark, Thousand Oaks and Ojai. The unincorporated areas of Newbury Park also had a median of just over $1 million.
The latest numbers held some moderately good news for Ventura County's affordability. The county's year-to-year price increase of 6.2% was well below the statewide increase of 11.4%, and Ventura County had the second-smallest median price increase in the seven-county Southern California region, above only Riverside County at 5.7%.
Still, Ventura County's median price of $940,000 was the third highest in the region, below only San Diego and Orange counties.
"People have discovered how beautiful Ventura County is, and what a short trip away it is from L.A., and we've been seeing a lot of movement from L.A. County to Ventura County," said Cami Pinsak, a real estate agent based in Ventura and the president of the Ventura County Coastal Association of Realtors.
For about the past two years, the real estate market has been characterized by rising prices and relatively few homes available to buy. Once interest rates started rising in 2022, mortgages became more expensive, which made people reluctant to buy and sell homes.
Though mortgage interest rates are still quite high by recent historical standards, they're down from where they were six months ago, and the real estate market has begun to adapt. In Ventura County, there were 311 sales of existing single-family homes in April, 10.7% more than in April 2023. There were also 439 homes on the market, 44% more than a year earlier.
Even with more homes available, the ones on the market are still selling. Homes that sold in April in Ventura County spent a median of 27 days on the market, and the average sale was for the same as the home's asking price.
"People are buying again," Pinsak said. "They're getting a little more comfortable with these interest rates."
Tony Biasotti is an investigative and watchdog reporter for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at tbiasotti@vcstar.com. This story was made possible by a grant from the Ventura County Community Foundation's Fund to Support Local Journalism.
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