Buying or selling in Thousand Oaks

In the 90 days ending September 22, 2026, 334 houses, condos and townhomes sold in Thousand Oaks, and the median sale price was $1,055,000, according to Redfin. Half sold for more and half for less.

The spread is wide. A condo, a 1960s tract house and a newer home in North Ranch or Dos Vientos sell at very different prices, so the median is a starting point, not a price for any one home. Tell me the neighborhood and the kind of home you want and I will send you what has actually sold there.

About 66% of Thousand Oaks's homes are detached houses, about 11% are attached single-family homes such as townhomes, and about 2% are mobile homes. The rest are in buildings with two or more units, such as condos and apartments.

The median home was built in 1978. About 33% of homes date from the 1970s, about 19% from the 1960s and about 19% from the 1980s, and about 13% were built in 2000 or later.

With a home from the 1960s or 1970s, the inspection matters. Roofs, plumbing and electrical panels may be original, and it is better to know that before you remove your contingencies.

For 2026-27 it is 1.0487% of assessed value. The county's rate book lists 537 tax rate areas in the city, and every parcel with a street address that I checked is in one that carries that rate. It is the base 1% plus voter-approved bonds for the Conejo Valley Unified School District and the community college district, and a small Metropolitan Water District levy.

On a home assessed at one million dollars, that is $10,487 a year for 2026-27, before fixed charges. No city in Ventura County has a lower rate this year.

The same rate applies on the county land next door, including Lynn Ranch, Casa Conejo and Lake Sherwood. After you buy, the assessed value can rise no more than 2% a year until the home sells again or you add new construction.

I found no Mello-Roos tax on homes in Thousand Oaks. The City lists two Mello-Roos districts, and both pay for parking at shopping centers: one at the Janss Marketplace and one at The Promenade. The county's 2025-26 list of special charges shows them on six parcels in all. The only other entries of that kind in the city are voluntary energy-loan programs, which the list shows on about 100 properties.

What homes do pay is a City lighting and landscape assessment. Lighting is $20.92 for 2026-27 for a house on a public street with street lights, about $5 on a private street, and nothing where there are no local street lights. Landscape charges apply to about 40% of properties, in 39 zones, and for 2026-27 they run from about $59 to about $624 for a typical house: for example $245.02 in the North Ranch zone, $213.70 in Westlake south of the 101, $134.68 in the Lang Ranch zone along Westlake Boulevard (other parts of Lang Ranch are in other zones, one of them $433.26) and $310.34 on the public streets of Dos Vientos.

The Conejo Recreation and Park District adds $46.72 for a house for 2026-27, or $23.36 in Dos Vientos and Rancho Conejo, which pay half the district-wide rate because they have their own park district landscape assessments. The City's sewer charge also comes on the property tax bill: $514.56 for a house on the 2026-27 bills I checked. In Westlake and part of North Ranch the sewer agency is the Triunfo district instead, and its fee on the bill was $1,514.76.

Send me the address and I will check the tax bill before you write an offer, including the landscape zone and any energy-loan charge on it.

More of it than most buyers expect. On the state's fire hazard maps, which took effect here on July 1, 2025, about 44% of the city's parcels are in a Very High zone and about 11% are in a High zone. All of North Ranch and Sunset Hills is Very High, and so is nearly all of Dos Vientos and Wildwood. Conejo Oaks is outside the zones, and so is about half of the Thousand Oaks Boulevard corridor.

The Woolsey Fire started on November 8, 2018 and burned 96,949 acres in Ventura and Los Angeles counties, destroying 1,643 structures. CAL FIRE's damage inspections show about 25 houses destroyed inside Thousand Oaks, most of them in North Ranch. The Hill Fire started the same day and burned 4,381 acres. By the same records it destroyed two homes along Old Conejo Road in Newbury Park, a mobile home in the Vallecito park and a house on its own lot nearby, and a commercial building.

If you sell a home in a High or Very High zone, a Ventura County Fire Department rule in effect since January 1, 2026 has you give the buyer documentation that the property meets defensible space rules. The inspection is free. If you are buying, get a homeowners insurance quote during your contingency period, before you are committed to the purchase.

For most addresses, no. About 320 of the city's roughly 41,000 addressed parcels, under 1%, are in a FEMA special flood hazard area. About two thirds of those are in Newbury Park along the South Branch Arroyo Conejo, south of the 101 between Old Conejo Road and Borchard Road, which the City's General Plan calls the main area of the city subject to flooding.

Most of the rest are in the middle of the city along the Arroyo Conejo, on streets such as Flittner Circle, Irving Drive, Rosario Drive and Brossard Drive.

Flood insurance is required for a home in a high-risk flood area when the mortgage comes from a government-backed lender. Outside those areas it is optional. Send me the address and I will check the flood zone before you write an offer.

Several pockets of county land sit inside or against the city limits. The largest are Lynn Ranch, Casa Conejo in Newbury Park, the Ventu Park hills and Rolling Oaks, which the City's General Plan calls county islands, and the County's own area plan also maps the smaller Kelly Estates neighborhood south of Newbury Park. Lake Sherwood and Hidden Valley, on the south side, are outside the city too.

It matters when you own there. The county's general plan and zoning apply, not the City's. Lynn Ranch, for example, is under county estate zoning with minimum lots of 20,000 square feet to one acre in most of it, and Rolling Oaks is zoned for three-acre lots.

Some things do not change. The tax rate is the same 1.0487% for 2026-27 in the county islands and Lake Sherwood (most of Hidden Valley is 1.0402%, because it is outside the Metropolitan Water District levy), the school district is Conejo Valley Unified, and the Ventura County Fire Department covers both sides of the line.

Newbury Park and the Ventura County side of Westlake Village are the opposite case. They have their own names on the mail, but they are inside the City of Thousand Oaks.

Oak trees are protected. The City covers every species of oak over two inches in diameter, and the ground around it: the protected zone runs five feet past the edge of the canopy, or 15 feet from the trunk, whichever is greater. You need a City permit for work in that zone and to remove a healthy oak, and you have to apply before removing a dead one.

Larger sycamores, black walnuts, bay laurels and toyons are protected as landmark trees, but the City says that rule does not apply to single-family properties of less than two acres.

The General Plan sets a 35-foot height limit in its residential designations up to 20 homes an acre and 50 feet in the densest one. The zoning code in force is tighter for houses: 25 feet in the single-family zones, or up to 35 feet only where the house has two side yards of at least 15 feet. The City is rewriting its zoning code to match the new General Plan, so ask which limit applies to your lot. Mixed-use sites can go to 75 feet only where a specific plan or height overlay allows it. The plan also prohibits new development on the major ridgelines in the City's ridgeline study, and the zoning code has a hillside planned development zone and a protected ridgeline overlay.

If you plan an addition, a pool or a second story on a lot with oaks or a slope, call City planning at 805-449-2323 before you buy.

Measure E is a rule Thousand Oaks voters passed on November 5, 1996. With a few exemptions, any change to the General Plan that raises the number of homes allowed, or adds commercial land, has to be approved by the voters. The State housing department puts the citywide cap it created at 81,124 homes.

By its own terms Measure E ends on November 5, 2026. When I checked on October 1, 2026, the City's election page listed only City Council seats for the November 3, 2026 election, so ask the City what, if anything, replaces it.

A separate voter measure, Measure W, runs through December 31, 2050. It keeps the voters' say over changes to the city's urban boundary and to existing parks, golf courses and open space. About 15,000 acres of protected open space lie in and around the city, most of it owned or managed by the Conejo Open Space Conservation Agency, which the City and the park district formed in 1977.

One district covers the whole city: the Conejo Valley Unified School District, which runs from transitional kindergarten through 12th grade. It lists 17 elementary schools, one school that runs through 8th grade, four middle schools for grades 6 to 8, and three comprehensive high schools: Thousand Oaks High, Newbury Park High and Westlake High. Conejo Valley High is its continuation school.

Because it is a single district, the school district does not change your tax rate from one neighborhood to the next. Attendance areas still depend on the address, so check it with the district's Find My Assigned School tool before you write an offer.

California Lutheran University, a private university founded in 1959, is on the north side of the city.

Two freeways cross the city. The 101 runs east to Los Angeles and west to Camarillo and Ventura, and the 23 runs north to Moorpark and Simi Valley. From the interchange where they meet, it is about 40 freeway miles to downtown Los Angeles, about 24 to the 405, about 55 to Santa Barbara and about 11 to Camarillo.

There is no train station in Thousand Oaks. The nearest Metrolink stations are in Moorpark, Camarillo and Simi Valley, roughly 10, 12 and 15 road miles from the Civic Arts Plaza. Metrolink's Ventura County Line runs to Los Angeles Union Station on weekdays.

Thousand Oaks Transit runs six local bus routes, with free transfers to the county's intercity buses. The City has park-and-ride lots at its Transportation Center on Rancho Road, at Janss Road and the 23, and at Borchard Road and the 101.

It depends on the address. Three water companies serve Thousand Oaks. California American Water serves the west side, including most of Newbury Park, Dos Vientos, Wildwood and Lynn Ranch. The City's own system serves the middle and north, including Conejo Oaks, Sunset Hills and Lang Ranch. California Water Service serves North Ranch and Westlake. By my count from the state's water system map, that is roughly 43%, 40% and 17% of the city's parcels. The water is imported and delivered to them by the Calleguas Municipal Water District.

Sewer is the City's for about nine homes in ten, treated at its Hill Canyon plant. Westlake south of the 101 and part of North Ranch are on the Triunfo system. The sewer charge comes on the property tax bill for most homes, and the pipe from the house to the main belongs to the owner, not the City.

Trash and recycling pickup is by Athens Services under a City franchise. Electricity is delivered by Southern California Edison, with Clean Power Alliance as the default power supplier unless you opt out, and gas comes from Southern California Gas.

The City allows accessory dwelling units on residential lots and keeps a gallery of pre-approved plans. It says a unit under 750 square feet is not subject to impact fees such as park and school fees, and that building an ADU raises your property tax by the value of the unit.

You can rent an ADU, but only for longer than 30 days at a time. The ADU and the house can go to different tenants. A property with a junior ADU, the kind built inside the house and no larger than 500 square feet, has to be owner-occupied only if the junior unit shares a bathroom with the house, under the code as amended in April 2026. The City's ADU page had not caught up when I checked, so confirm with City planning. An ADU cannot be sold apart from the rest of the property.

If you are counting on any shorter rental, such as a vacation rental, ask City planning what is allowed at that address before you buy, and read the homeowners association rules, which can be stricter than the City's.

The City's map lists nine mobile home parks with about 1,060 spaces. Five are marked as senior parks: Vallecito, Ventu Park Villa and Ventu Estates in Newbury Park, and Ranch and Thunderbird Oaks in Thousand Oaks. Thunderbird Oaks describes itself as a 55 and older community with 161 homesites.

Thousand Oaks has a Mobile Home Rent Stabilization Ordinance that regulates the rent for the pad a home sits on. Yearly increases are tied to the Consumer Price Index, and when a home in a park is sold the park may raise the space rent by 10% for the new owner. Some spaces are exempt, including those on long-term leases, so ask the park for the current rent and lease before you write an offer. Under a measure adopted in 2008, changing a park's land use takes a public vote unless the tenants receive the payments that measure sets.

Buying in a park is different from buying a house: you own the home and rent the space, so read the park's lease and rules before you remove your contingencies.

Mostly apartments and small infill sites, not large new tracts. On October 1, 2026 the City's development map showed these under construction: a 420-unit mixed-use project on Fairview Road, 218 multifamily homes with a 120-room hotel on Newbury Road in Newbury Park, and two small groups of houses in Newbury Park, 18 on Susan Drive and a 10-lot subdivision on Rivendell Circle.

Approved but not yet under construction: 328 apartments in a mixed-use project on East Thousand Oaks Boulevard, a 165-unit building about 75 feet tall in the Civic Arts Plaza plan area, and 78 townhomes on Glenwood Place. The City's own downtown project at the Civic Arts Plaza would add a hotel and 240 homes.

One local builder, HYDAM Homes, lists a nine-home community off Hillcrest Drive called Toyon Signature Homes, and its site showed three finished homes left when I checked in October 2026. At a new-home community the sales agent works for the builder. You can bring your own agent, but most builders expect that agent to be registered on your first visit, so call me before you tour.

Yes. For 2026 the conforming loan limit and the FHA loan limit for a single-family home in Ventura County are both $1,035,000. A loan above that amount is a jumbo loan, which has its own rules.

VA loans work differently. With your full entitlement, VA sets no loan limit: the amount depends on what your lender approves and what the home appraises for.

Naval Base Ventura County's Port Hueneme site is roughly 23 road miles from the Civic Arts Plaza. I help veterans and active-duty buyers with VA purchases, and my Veterans page explains how.

Less than it used to. Thousand Oaks required a City report of building records at every home sale until June 2, 2023, when the City ended the requirement. Permit records are now free to look up on the City's TO/24 portal.

What remains comes from the county and the state. In a High or Very High fire hazard zone, which covers about 55% of the city's parcels, the seller gives the buyer defensible space documentation from the Ventura County Fire Department, and for a home built before 2010, a home-hardening disclosure. The department recommends asking for the inspection at least two weeks before escrow closes.

The transfer tax is $1.10 per $1,000 of the sale price. Thousand Oaks has its own transfer tax on the books, but state law credits it against the county's, so the total stays at $1.10 per $1,000. On a one million dollar sale that is $1,100.

It depends on price and condition more than on the city. Across Ventura County, my own 49 listings since 2022 sold in a median of 11 days on the market, at a median of 100% of the asking price.

Before you list, I walk the home, show you what has actually sold nearby, and tell you what is worth fixing and what is not.

I'm Jason Walters, and my office is in Camarillo, on Village Commons Boulevard. Camarillo is the next city west on the 101. I have 22 years in real estate, the last 17 in Ventura County.

You work with me directly, from pricing strategy to closing day.