Buying or selling in Ventura

In the 90 days ending September 22, 2026, 194 houses, condos and townhomes sold in Ventura, and the median sale price was $899,500, according to Redfin. Half sold for more and half for less.

The spread is wide. A condo inland, a beach cottage in Pierpont, a hillside house and a home on the water in the Keys 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 54% of Ventura's homes are detached houses, about 11% are attached single-family homes such as townhomes, about 5% are mobile homes, and about 30% are in buildings of two or more units.

The median home was built in 1973. About 19% of homes date from the 1960s, about 19% from the 1970s, and about 13% each from the 1950s and the 1980s. About 8% were built before 1940, and about 16% in 2000 or later.

With a home from the 1950s through the 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, about seven in ten parcels in the city are taxed at 1.0761% of assessed value, and nearly all the rest at about 1.0814%. That is the 1% base plus Ventura Unified School District bonds and a community college bond.

The small difference is a Casitas Municipal Water District bond. The city says the Casitas district covers the Westside and Midtown, generally west of Mills Road. On a home assessed at one million dollars it adds about $53 a year for 2026-27.

At the lower rate, a home assessed at one million dollars owes about $10,761 a year for 2026-27, before fixed charges. 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 none. No community facilities district on the county's 2025-26 list is levied by the City of Ventura.

What the newer tracts have instead are city maintenance assessment districts, a fixed yearly charge on the tax bill. There were 23 on the 2025-26 list, covering about 2,600 parcels, mostly in East Ventura. Dividing each levy by its parcels, the charge averaged from roughly $65 a year in the lowest district to roughly $2,170 in the highest, and most fell between roughly $250 and $950. The city's own district report shows that the charge inside a district can vary by the type of lot, and that the rate applied can sit below the maximum the city may charge: for 2021-22 one district was charged $252.53 a lot against a maximum of $512.25.

Most parcels in the city also pay a street lighting assessment, which averaged about $33 for 2025-26. At Del Sol, the new-home community, Shea Homes tells buyers to expect special assessments and maintenance district fees of roughly $1,200 to $1,600 a year, as of October 2026.

A title report will show whether a particular home also carries its own financing lien, such as an energy-upgrade loan. Send me the address and I will check the tax bill before you write an offer.

One thing is particular to Ventura: a sewer lateral inspection when a house sells. Since February 2014 the city has required an inspection of the private sewer lateral before the close of escrow. A licensed plumber runs a camera through the line, the report and the video go to the city's building division, and the results are disclosed to the buyer. The city's 2014 guidance says an inspection or a permitted repair from the past 10 years also counts.

The city's 2014 fact sheet says the sale of a single unit in a condominium or other common interest development does not trigger the inspection; the association has the shared line inspected every 10 years instead. Ask the association for its last report.

If the line needs repair, the work does not have to be finished before closing. The buyer and seller agree on who pays, and the city says repairs should generally be made within six months of the sale. The owner is responsible for the whole lateral, out to the connection at the city's main. If you are selling a house, have the lateral inspected before you list, so a repair does not surprise you in escrow.

The Building Records Disclosure Report, which the city used to require at a sale, has been optional since March 1, 2026. The transfer tax is the same $1.10 per $1,000 as the rest of the county.

The hills are, and so are the streets at their foot. The city's map also puts a High zone along the Santa Clara River bottom, by Olivas Park Drive and the North Bank area. The city adopted its fire hazard map on July 1, 2025, and says it puts more than 4,600 acres in High or Very High zones. The city's wildfire plan says about 20% of homes are in one of those zones.

By the city's map, roughly two thirds of the Westside's land and close to half of Downtown's is Very High. The hillside streets of Midtown and the Ondulando, Clearpoint and Skyline neighborhoods are largely High or Very High too. The Pierpont lanes, the Keys, nearly all of Montalvo and most of East Ventura are not zoned. The city has a lookup map for any address.

The Thomas Fire started on December 4, 2017 and burned 281,893 acres in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, destroying 1,063 structures. Inside the city it destroyed 524 homes and damaged about 168. As of November 2025 the city counted 404 rebuilt and approved for occupancy.

The county fire department's seller inspection does not cover the City of Ventura, which has its own fire department, and I found no city form or process for a sale. State law, Civil Code 1102.19, still requires the seller of a home in a High or Very High zone to give the buyer documentation that the property meets defensible space rules. If you are selling, you or your agent should call Ventura Fire Prevention at 805-339-4347 and ask what the city accepts. Get a homeowners insurance quote during your contingency period, before you are committed to the purchase.

Only parts of it. About 7% of the city's land is in a FEMA special flood hazard area: the Ventura River bottom, the land along the Santa Clara River around Olivas Park Drive and the North Bank area, and the beach itself. Most of Pierpont and the Keys is mapped outside it.

The Westside depends on the Ventura River levee. FEMA maps about 430 acres behind it, including about a quarter of the Westside and the fairgrounds end of Downtown, as reduced flood risk due to the levee. The county says FEMA found in 2008 that the levee did not fully meet federal certification rules, and it has a project to rehabilitate it.

Tsunami is a separate map. About 7% of the city's land is in the state's tsunami hazard area: nearly all of Pierpont, the Keys and the harbor, the Ventura River mouth, and the lowest part of Downtown by the fairgrounds and the beach. Nothing inland is in it.

Flood insurance is required for a home in a high-risk flood area when the mortgage comes from a government-backed lender. An area behind a levee can be remapped, so ask your lender for a flood determination on the address and price an optional policy.

About 14% of the city's land is in the California Coastal Zone: all of Pierpont, the Keys and the harbor, the Ventura River mouth, more than half of Downtown, and the part of Midtown nearest the beach. The city issues most coastal development permits there; the Coastal Commission keeps the permits for work in the water, such as the Keys channels.

The city defines development broadly: new construction, demolition, and alterations or reconstruction of existing structures all count, so a remodel may need a coastal permit that the same job inland would not. An administrative permit goes to a public hearing with notice to neighbors, and in the appealable area there is a further 10-day appeal period for the Coastal Commission before a building permit can be issued.

The city is rewriting its Local Coastal Program to plan for sea level rise. As of March 2026 the city expected a public draft in fall 2026, city adoption in 2027 and the update complete in 2028. If you plan to remodel a beach home, talk to city planning before you buy.

Only with a city permit, and permits are capped by area. The limits are 100 permits in Pierpont, 100 Downtown, 40 in the Avenue area on the Westside, 35 in the harbor and Keys area, 35 in Midtown and 45 on the east side, 355 in all. In Pierpont there is also a limit on each lane of about one home in ten, and as of September 2026 nine lanes had no permits left.

The city's page says an owner can hold at most two permits, and only one in Pierpont. The Coastal Commission's report on the ordinance says new permits are limited to one per owner, with two as the limit for owners who already held more. If you already hold a permit, ask the city before you count on a second. A home with an accessory dwelling unit cannot get one, there is a two-night minimum stay, and the permit and inspection cost $2,100 as of July 2026. To renew, an owner must have paid at least $1,000 in lodging tax for the year, at the city's 10% rate.

The city will not pre-qualify a home for a buyer: only the verified owner can apply, and once an area is full new applicants go on a waiting list. So do not count on rental income until you hold the permit. Renting a room in the home you live in, which the city calls a homestay, is now allowed and is not capped.

An association can ban short-term rentals whatever the city allows, so read its rules too.

The Keys were built from 1964 to 1969 on man-made channels that connect to Ventura Harbor. There are 781 lots, and about 300 of them are on the water with private boat docks. The three main channels are generally 160 feet across, with a 45-foot dock easement along each side and a 70-foot public waterway down the middle.

The city says it is responsible for keeping the waterways navigable, and the two city reports I read, from 2021 and 2025, charge Keys dredging costs to the city's general fund. The city did once form an assessment district to pay for removing silt from the Keys, which survived a court challenge in 1997. I found no such charge on the county's lists for 2014-15, 2018-19 or 2025-26. Ask for the actual tax bill on any home you are considering.

The neighborhood is in the Coastal Zone and in the state's tsunami hazard area, and most of it is mapped outside FEMA's special flood hazard area. If you are buying on the water, have the dock and the bank wall inspected along with the house.

Not without a public vote. The city's SOAR ordinance, first passed in 1995, and its hillside voter participation measure, approved by voters in November 2001, require a vote of city residents before urban uses can expand onto the farmland and hillsides next to the city. Both were renewed in November 2016 and run to 2050.

On an existing hillside lot, two city rules shape what you can build. The Hillside Management Program does not permit grading on slopes steeper than 30%, with limited exceptions, and the hillside height ordinance sets a maximum height on certain lots from a survey of the lot. In 2023 a council member wrote that one burned lot would have been limited to a home four feet tall under the hillside rules.

The Thomas Fire rebuild rules that relaxed those limits expired on December 31, 2025. If you are buying a vacant or burned hillside lot, talk to city planning about what can be built before you remove your contingencies.

The city also has five designated historic districts, among them the Simpson Tract on the Westside and the Selwyn Shaw and Mitchell Block districts near Downtown. In the Coastal Zone, the city's permit guide says planning staff first review any demolition or alteration that could affect a potential historic resource. Ask planning how that works for a home in one of the districts.

Yes. About 5% of the city's homes are mobile homes, and 12 privately owned parks are under the city's Mobile Home Rent Stabilization Ordinance, including Ventura Marina by the harbor, Lemon Wood Estates and Country Estates.

The city publishes the maximum rent for each space. The automatic yearly increase follows the consumer price index and cannot exceed 5% of the base rent, and when a home is sold the new owner starts at the rent the seller was paying. Parks whose construction began after June 1, 1981 are exempt. State law used to exempt leases longer than 12 months from city rent control, and that exemption ended on January 1, 2025, so ask the city how an older long lease on the space is treated.

A seller or agent of a mobile home in one of those parks must give the buyer a written city disclosure within three business days of accepting the offer. In a park you own the home and rent the land, so read the lease and the park rules, and compare the current rent with the maximum on the city's list.

Nearly every address in the city is in the Ventura Unified School District, which runs transitional kindergarten through 12th grade. Its high schools are Buena, Ventura, Foothill Technology, Pacific and El Camino, and its middle schools, for grades 6 to 8, are Anacapa, Balboa, Cabrillo and DATA.

The district lists 14 elementary schools through 5th grade and four schools that run through 8th: ATLAS, Lemon Grove, Sunset and Homestead, an independent study school. Its school locator shows which school a given address is assigned to.

Ventura College, a two-year community college, is on Telegraph Road and has been in the city since 1925.

Ventura is on US-101. From California Street downtown it is about 67 freeway miles to downtown Los Angeles, about 27 to Santa Barbara, about 8 to Oxnard and about 15 to Camarillo. Highway 126 starts here and reaches Santa Paula in about 16 miles, and Highway 33 heads north about 12 miles to the edge of Ojai.

There are two train stations. Metrolink's Ventura County Line starts at the East Ventura station, at 6175 Ventura Boulevard in Montalvo, and runs to Los Angeles Union Station on weekdays. Parking there is free for Metrolink riders.

The downtown platform, at Harbor Boulevard and Figueroa Street by the fairgrounds, is a stop on Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner. Metrolink Ventura County Line tickets are honored on the Surfliner between Ventura and Los Angeles. The Coast Starlight does not stop in Ventura.

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. I help veterans and active-duty buyers with VA purchases, and my Veterans page explains how.

Yes. As of October 2026, Shea Homes is selling three neighborhoods at Del Sol in East Ventura, near Wells Road. Fresco has detached homes of about 2,900 to 3,500 square feet, and Shea lists it as down to its final homes. Novato has detached homes of about 2,000 to 2,900 square feet, and Primero has townhomes of about 1,650 to 1,900 square feet.

At the north end of Ventura Avenue, a 117-home project called Vello Retreat is proposed at School Canyon Road. It needs annexation into the city and was still in environmental review in October 2026, so it is not approved.

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.

The city itself, through Ventura Water, provides water and sewer. It relies entirely on local sources: Lake Casitas, the Ventura River, three groundwater basins and recycled water. Its 2026 review found projected supply well above demand and no water shortage.

The city's Net Zero water fee on new and enlarged buildings is no longer collected. The City Council voted in July 2024 to remove it and stopped collecting it that day.

Trash, recycling and yard waste are picked up weekly by E.J. Harrison and Sons under an exclusive city franchise. Electricity is delivered by Southern California Edison, with Clean Power Alliance as the default power supplier unless you opt out.

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.

In Ventura, if you are selling a house, order the sewer lateral inspection before you list. The city's fact sheet says the sale of a single condominium or other common interest unit does not trigger it. In a fire zone, have the brush cleared. 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. I have 22 years in real estate, the last 17 in Ventura County.

I have closed 48 homes in Ventura: 17 for sellers and 31 for buyers. You work with me directly, from pricing strategy to closing day.