Housing May Be Fillmore’s Biggest Cash Crop

Devastated by an earthquake a decade ago and a lag in Southern California’s real estate run-up, the farm town of Fillmore has rebounded so successfully that it led Ventura County’s home price surge in 2004.

While the value of houses and condos increased 27% countywide last year, prices in Fillmore soared 42% as white-collar workers who once shied away from the blue-collar community saw it as their last chance to purchase a home, analysts said.

Buyers also began to appreciate the small-town charms of a community so nicely reconstructed, it seems frozen in the 1920s -- its quaint main street so pleasant that movie crews have used it to recapture an era lost to tract homes and shopping malls.

In just 12 months, the median price of a Fillmore dwelling increased from $290,000 to $412,500 and had not peaked by year’s end, despite a plateauing of prices in more expensive parts of the county this year, according to DataQuick Information Systems, a real estate research firm in La Jolla.

“Since the [1994 Northridge] earthquake, we’ve improved this area a lot,” said former Mayor Evaristo Barajas, a real estate broker. “Now it’s very appealing to a lot of people who before wouldn’t have looked twice at Fillmore. It’s becoming a very nice town.”

Young parents Bjorn Sieben, an ergonomics expert, and his wife, Lisa, a dog trainer, are among those who chose a Fillmore home after scouring the coastal housing market and waiting years for it to cool, only to see their chances to buy nearly slip away.

“The housing prices are insane,” said Bjorn Sieben, 30, as he weeded flower beds at a new 2,600-square-foot house that the couple bought in October for $620,000.

“Everybody said to wait it out, the prices are bound to go down,” he said. “But we finally said, no thanks, we’ve done that already. It didn’t work.”

The Siebens were attracted to Fillmore’s small-town charm and its location -- halfway between Ventura and Santa Clarita in the bucolic Santa Clara River Valley, and just a half-hour commute to Sieben’s work in Thousand Oaks. They got the big house and nice yard they wanted, he said. But it’s hard to feel lucky, he said, when you’re carrying a $600,000 mortgage.

“It’s not something we ever thought we’d have to do.”

For every couple like the Siebens, however, there’s another like their neighbors, Angie and Terry Morris, schoolteachers who bought in Fillmore three years ago.

Their 2,000-square-foot home, purchased for $232,000, is now valued at about $500,000.

“We were renting in Ventura, but we couldn’t afford to buy there,” Angie Morris said. “Even here, we stretched ourselves budgetwise, but we knew it was then or never on teacher salaries.”

Fillmore’s remarkable equity growth in 2004 reflects what has occurred in the Ventura County housing market the last four years -- nearly a doubling of prices.

An analysis of home sales from 2000 through 2004 shows that prices in many Ventura County communities soared by $250,000 or more -- including a peak increase of $373,500 in one section of Thousand Oaks.

From the farmworker flats of Piru to the hilltop palaces of Bell Canyon, the homeowners who make up about two-thirds of Ventura County households have prospered in a market that slowed a bit in the latter half of 2004 but seems to be picking up again.

John Karevoll, an analyst for DataQuick, said last year’s run-up 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 averaged $19,000 in 2001 and $47,000 in 2002, before soaring an average of $64,000 in 2003 and $105,000 in 2004, according to DataQuick.

The median price -- the figure at which half sold for more and half for less -- of houses and condos averaged $494,000 last year. And in December, it had climbed to $522,000.

But 2005 looks like a year for moderation, Karevoll said, partly because prices have climbed so high, but also because economic markets are becoming skittish about the huge U.S. budget deficit.

Unless the next federal budget handles the shortfall effectively, the dollar will continue to decline in international markets and home lenders will raise mortgage rates, he said.

“At the end of 2005, we’re not going to see another $100,000 in appreciation,” he said. “We may see 10% to 12% best case, or it may be flat.”

But he’s not betting on the likelihood of no increase, given recent Ventura County history.

Countywide, a study of 66,369 house and condominium sales by ZIP Codes shows a peak four-year equity gain of $373,500 in the Westlake and Lake Sherwood areas of Thousand Oaks, a 94% increase that pushed the median price of a home to $770,000.

That was followed by huge price increases throughout the county: more than 100% in Ventura and nearly all of the county’s less expensive communities, including Oak View, Oxnard, Port Hueneme and Santa Paula.

In dollar amounts, top four-year gains were:

* $284,000 in the sun-splashed beach area of southwestern Oxnard, up $135,000 last year alone to a median of $534,000.

* $271,250 in the eclectic village of Oak View, once a bargain for people who couldn’t afford a home in Ventura or Ojai but now a favored destination for buyers from pricey Santa Barbara.

* $261,500 in Ojai, where even a tiny, aging bungalow now costs half a million dollars.

* $260,500 for the older neighborhoods of east Ventura, where the median price of a home or condo was $519,000.

* $260,000 for Newbury Park, where the new Dos Vientos subdivision pushed prices to a median of $600,000 last year.

* $260,000 in west Camarillo, where new housing tracts raised the median price to $530,000 last year.

The highest housing prices were a median of nearly $1.2 million for Bell and Box canyons, in the Simi Hills overlooking the San Fernando Valley, and about $1 million in the Somis area near Camarillo.

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Home sales by ZIP Code

The following are median prices by ZIP Code in Ventura County and the amount of increase over the last four years.

*--* City ZIP 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Camarillo 93010 $290,000 $290,000 $337,500 $405,000 $530,750

93012 270,000 289,000 365,000 410,000 530,000

Fillmore 93015 207,500 230,000 257,000 290,000 412,500

Moorpark 93021 277,000 312,000 355,000 412,000 500,000

Oak Park 91377 324,000 375,000 410,000 434,225 540,000

Oak View 93022 235,000 261,000 335,000 375,000 506,250

Ojai 93023 290,000 324,500 360,000 420,000 551,500

Oxnard 93030 228,000 240,000 293,000 355,700 474,000

93033 179,000 189,000 217,500 275,000 390,000

93035 250,000 271,000 315,000 399,000 534,000

Port Hueneme 93041 165,000 181,000 210,000 264,000 355,000

Santa Paula 93060 166,000 185,000 220,000 259,000 359,000

Simi Valley 93063 252,000 266,000 296,000 360,000 470,000

93065 254,000 265,000 313,000 369,000 475,000

Thousand Oaks 91320 340,000 378,000 415,000 509,500 600,000

91360 284,000 298,000 345,000 425,000 533,250

91361 396,500 423,500 480,000 580,000 770,000

91362 382,000 385,000 437,500 524,500 605,000

Ventura 93001 225,000 240,250 300,000 345,000 469,000

93003 233,250 260,000 319,000 350,000 475,000 93004 258,500 289,000 340,000 405,000 519,000 Countywide 259,000 278,000 325,000 389,000 494,000

*--*

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*--* City ZIP 4-year increase Camarillo 93010 $240,750

93012 260,000

Fillmore 93015 205,000

Moorpark 93021 223,000

Oak Park 91377 216,000

Oak View 93022 271,250

Ojai 93023 261,500

Oxnard 93030 246,000

93033 211,000

93035 284,000

Port Hueneme 93041 190,000

Santa Paula 93060 193,000

Simi Valley 93063 218,000

93065 221,000

Thousand Oaks 91320 260,000

91360 249,250

91361 373,500

91362 223,000

Ventura 93001 244,000

93003 241,750

93004 260,500

Countywide 235,000

*--*

Source: DataQuick Information Systems

Los Angeles Times

Note: Countywide totals include sales with unknown ZIP Codes. Median prices include unincorporated areas not shown.