Differences in Camarillo and Thousand Oaks

[alanadoodle]

Rentals are very competitive. If you find one you want, don't hesitate because there will be multiple people going for the same place.

[Huskymaniac]

Originally Posted by anoncontributor

Also, Camarillo has unbelievably crazy amounts of crime...and really gnarly types of crime. At any given time, there are crazies roaming around the parks and seemingly safe neighborhoods. Camarillo only has 60,000 people! I've lived in large cities where I felt much safer than I did in Camarillo. There are lots of break ins and violent crime. Again, really out of line with the size of the city. I don't know what accounts for it. It's not uncommon for people to steal things out of your yard in the middle of the day.

This is very contrary to the data provided on this site. The crime index for Camarillo is quite low.

[DKM]

Originally Posted by Huskymaniac

This is very contrary to the data provided on this site. The crime index for Camarillo is quite low.

Crime is perceived higher in many places thanks to social media and the internet in general.

[boroc7]

Originally Posted by wac_432

Rents are fairy stable. My coworker just bought a townhouse for under 500K. Single family detached home prices are through the roof. The problem is that many "cheap" townhomes come with a hefty monthly HOA fee.

Thank you, I hadn't seen any townhomes in that price range, but will need to look more closely. Condos, yes--with 500+ HOA fees. Ouch.

Any neighborhoods I should specifically look at, with schools being the highest priority?

[boroc7]

Originally Posted by alanadoodle

Rentals are very competitive. If you find one you want, don't hesitate because there will be multiple people going for the same place.

Thanks for the information. So it's not just homes for sale, but also rentals that are in super high demand, more than usual?

[wac_432]

Originally Posted by boroc7

Thank you, I hadn't seen any townhomes in that price range, but will need to look more closely. Condos, yes--with 500+ HOA fees. Ouch.

Any neighborhoods I should specifically look at, with schools being the highest priority?

Oak Park. The best performing schools are there due to a high % of Asian students (about 30-40%), mostly Chinese-American and Indian-American.

Here's an example listing:
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5...16496891_zpid/

$525K townhouse districted to Oak Hills Elementary (Proficiency: 85% English 75% Math). Any places with proficiencies in the 70's/80's are very high performing schools. There's a better school a half-mile away, but I don't see anything under $800K in that district. You might be able to do an intra-district transfer, but be prepared to fight tooth-and-nail for a spot (like get some guangxi with the PTA/principle/teachers) since all the Asian parents are doing the same thing. To be honest, though, it's probably not worth it for a few % on assessment test scores. All those schools are good.

Also, the Oak Park Community center gardens and park are really nice. It's a very pleasant little enclave if you like secluded suburbia.

Lots of scrubland around and lots of trees + winding roads in the neighborhoods make it vulnerable to fire, so keep your insurance payments current and your go-bag packed. The area is very rich, so the firefighters will do their best and employ full resources (air attack, ground teams), but sometimes there's nothing you can do if one sparks off in the wrong place in bad conditions.

[DKM]

Originally Posted by boroc7

Thanks for the information. So it's not just homes for sale, but also rentals that are in super high demand, more than usual?

Rental homes in my area popped their rental rates 10 to 15% just in the past year alone.

[perguntas]

When did Thousand Oaks become so much nicer than west Ventura County (Ventura, Camarillo, Oxnard)?

I grew up in Ventura County and I don't remember there being such a drastic difference between the mall in Ventura and the mall in Thousand Oaks. Now ANYWHERE you go in west Ventura County you see (smell) at least one rolling meth lab in every parking lot, they are full of RVs and vans... but you don't see that over the grade in Thousand Oaks, it's amazing.

Is anyone else noticing meth labs all over Ventura County? All I can find is:

Head of drug unit: 'We're a meth county'
https://www.thecamarilloacorn.com/ar...a-meth-county/


Driving down Thousand Oaks Blvd for the first time in a while and Thousand Oaks Westlake is like a night and day different to Ventura/Oxnard. It's almost like Ventura has become Oxnard... it wasn't like this in the 1990's.

Even Camarillo with its college and outlet malls seems to have rolling meth labs and RVs parked everywhere.

I guess I don't get out enough but this drastic difference snuck up on me. I think I read somewhere that Thousand Oaks/Conejo Valley's wealth really boomed over the last 20 years.

[wac_432]

I don’t think this is anything new. TO has always been safer and cleaner. Some of it is due to weather. Winter lows are in the 30's/40's and summer highs can exceed 110, unlike the beach areas.

It's also a well-known fact that TO sends all their meth heads, transients, and trouble-makers to the jail on Victoria in Ventura. To get rid of a vagrant, TO cops just need an excuse to arrest them and dump them in Ventura's triangle of death. They’re not coming back up the hill because that would require the ability to buy a bus ticket, which is beyond most zombies. You can’t fare dodge easily on a long-range bus, unlike the trains out of Montalvo. But TO doesn’t have a rail stop, so the Zekes fan out to Oxnard, Camarillo, Simi, and the SFV/LA.

Downtown Ventura has gotten a lot nicer since they relocated the courts out to the Triangle of Death and made the old city hall just office space for city functions. The hobo jungle still feeds in vagrants, but the red shirt patrol chases them off Main St. so they keep to the avenue.

It’s actually been a low-zombie spring due to the bad weather. Now that things are warming up, drying out, and tourist money is back in town, they’re coming back out of the woodwork.