The Mind of a Home Buyer

So, we’re moving to Southern California, and we have some obvious questions we want answered:

  • What neighborhoods should we be looking in?
  • What neighborhoods can we afford?

Here’s what we do know:

  • I’m going to work at location 30700 Russell Ranch Rd, Westlake Village, CA.
  • We can afford a home in the $500 to $600K range.
  • I’m willing to commute a fair distance (up to 40 minutes) if the home was a great deal, but I’d really rather be within bicycling distance to work.
  • The employees of Move that I talked with recommended Thousand Oaks (10 minutes), Santa Barbara (45 minutes) and Santa Monica (45 minutes).
  • If we can’t afford something in our price range that is acceptable, I’d consider renting a place, especially if it was close to the beach.

Anna and I spent some time on the internet playing around. We tried what I thought would be the most promising options: Realtor.com, Trulia and Zillow. I know that none of these sites is geared toward finding appropriate neighborhoods, but I thought I might be able to “trick” them into helping us out:

  • Realtor.com. I began by doing a search of [3 bedroom homes in Westlake Village, CA]… Surprise, surprise, the only home listed under $600K are mobile homes (and yes, there is a mobile home listed for $599K). I didn’t really expect to find a home in Westlake Village, but I was hoping that I might be able to do a large-area search using this tool, so that I might be able to get an idea where a concentration of appropriate homes are located, but there was no (obvious) way to widen my search using the available tools. Next I turned to their beta map search. This was more helpful in that it gave me homes nearby Westlake village, but it was not entirely clear to me how it determined it should widen my search. And scrolling around the map doesn’t refresh it with new properties as one would hope. Because we don’t even know the cities/zip codes we want to look in, I couldn’t keep Anna interested in searching around the beta site and we moved on after a few minutes.
  • Zillow was a bit better because I could zoom in and see a price next to each City’s name. Presumably, this is the average price for the City, but I’m not 100% sure of this. However, smaller cities (and/or huge neighborhoods in the case of Los Angeles) don’t show up. Until I zoomed into each individual property, there was not an easy way to tell if I could afford the area. Overall, we gave up on Zillow after a few minutes as I couldn’t “trick” it into telling me about appropriate neighborhoods.
  • Trulia was definitely the best of the three… I could give it a very detail search entry [3+ beds, $550K to 600K, Westlake Village], and then scroll around the map to see what neighborhoods might work for us. It also had the bonus of showing us “average home prices” depending on where you center the map. (i.e. if I’m over Thousand Oaks, I see the average 1, 2, 3 and 4+ bedroom price!).

Here is what I learned from Trulia from my search:

  • There’s no chance we’re going to buy a home along the coast of Santa Monica or Malibu (I didn’t really expect that this would be an option, but now it is confirmed).
  • If we want to buy a place within biking distance, we may be able to afford something in Thousand Oaks. My brief foray into Realtor.com hinted that a place in Thousand Oaks would likely be a townhome.
  • There are a lot more options either north (Simi Valley) or west (Camerillo, Oxnard, or Ventura), but the dream of owning in Santa Barbara is definitely out of the picture.
  • It looks like there might be something available for us in “the valley”, but both Anna and I want to go in the other direction if possible.

We’re thinking of making a trip to LA relatively soon to check out neighborhoods and tour some homes. Is it enough for us to check out the Ventura and the Simi Valley/Thousand Oaks area, or should we add a few different neighborhoods/cities to our radar?

Of course, the home search process definitely makes me wonder if the LA market has topped off and if it might make a whole lot more sense for us to rent (could we be near the beach?). If I do decide to look further into renting, I’ll definitely post an review of my online search.

Interesting side note: Despite my proclaimed confidence in “context” tools like blogging, I haven’t yet turned to blog posts and/or forums for any answers about neighborhoods (nor have I felt compelled to click on any ads).

42 thoughts on “The Mind of a Home Buyer

  1. Dustin, while seemingly obvious, this post should be required reading for any real estate search developer. You have confirmed and clarified some of my gut instincts.

    I have the same problem with Zillow – there’s very little information until you zoom WAY in, which doesn’t help you get context for an area. Maybe it’ll be more helpful when you start looking at specific houses?

  2. What would be really cool and sadly beyond the state of the art for most web tools (although entirely possible using desktop applications) and beyond state of the art for most Real Estate business models, would be the consumer getting an MLS data set for a new city and using a product like Microsoft Mappoint.

    Mappoint is like a street atlas type program like MS streets, Delorme (or roughly equivalent to Google Maps or Virtual earth) except with one big difference. You can plot your data or color territories based on your data. Give it your data, and it could color each census tract, zip code, city, etc (depending on map zoom level) based the average price of a 3 bedroom house.

    I imagine web based tools will eventually be able to do this, and eventually the real estate industry will set their data free, so consumers can do things like this easily. Today, ERSI is too expensive for consumer use, Microsoft’s mapping group is too distracted by Google to really make Mappoint great, and the industry is too busy fighting over the data to develop tools to help consumers help themselves.

    Interesting side note – I also noticed you didn’t mention Google once.

  3. What would be really cool and sadly beyond the state of the art for most web tools (although entirely possible using desktop applications) and beyond state of the art for most Real Estate business models, would be the consumer getting an MLS data set for a new city and using a product like Microsoft Mappoint.

    Mappoint is like a street atlas type program like MS streets, Delorme (or roughly equivalent to Google Maps or Virtual earth) except with one big difference. You can plot your data or color territories based on your data. Give it your data, and it could color each census tract, zip code, city, etc (depending on map zoom level) based the average price of a 3 bedroom house.

    I imagine web based tools will eventually be able to do this, and eventually the real estate industry will set their data free, so consumers can do things like this easily. Today, ERSI is too expensive for consumer use, Microsoft’s mapping group is too distracted by Google to really make Mappoint great, and the industry is too busy fighting over the data to develop tools to help consumers help themselves.

    Interesting side note – I also noticed you didn’t mention Google once.

  4. Robbie,

    Good call about Google… Interestingly, I’ve spent more time on Google Earth recently than the time I’ve spent on the three other programs (Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia) combined.

    Just about every time someone asks me where we’re moving, I open up Google Earth because there is no better tool to get a real feel for the geography of an area.

  5. Robbie,

    Good call about Google… Interestingly, I’ve spent more time on Google Earth recently than the time I’ve spent on the three other programs (Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia) combined.

    Just about every time someone asks me where we’re moving, I open up Google Earth because there is no better tool to get a real feel for the geography of an area.

  6. Dustin,

    Great post with interesting results. I’ve done a little “field research” myself in the past couple weeks, but it’s always a different story when you’re searching for real.

    It might also be interesting to run a parallel search to find and correspond with a local agent down there to compare the results.

    I’m looking forward to following along as you chronicle your journey

  7. Dustin,

    Great post with interesting results. I’ve done a little “field research” myself in the past couple weeks, but it’s always a different story when you’re searching for real.

    It might also be interesting to run a parallel search to find and correspond with a local agent down there to compare the results.

    I’m looking forward to following along as you chronicle your journey

  8. Here’s a cool tool to try out. Go to http://www.realestateonthemarket.com then hit the “search your community” button. When it comes to L.A., you can get hugely different results by zip code, like Beverly Hills 90210 vs. 90211 and 90212.

    If you put in “Thousand Oaks”, it will give you the four different Zip Codes of Thousand Oaks and then it will give you crime stats and other info per zip code. Some very useful info there.

    L.A. is not one mls for sure. “South Bay” is one and “Westside” is another and I’m pretty sure Encino through Tazana and Westlake Village is at least a third, or maybe even two different ones.

    Google West Lake Village Real Estate and use the mls search on one of those sites for Ventura. Then Google Tarzana or Encino and do an mls search on one of those for that part of L.A., they may be two different mls systems.

    Townhome in an area with low crime statistics is better than single family in an area with high crime statistincs. The red line on the chart is the national average, but you really want to compare one area to the next area.

  9. Dustin,

    I have to say… Having lived right there in the thick of things in Hollywood… the location of your new job could put you into some serious traffic congestion.

    I STRONGLY recommend that you drive the possible commutes from prospect neighborhoods during rush hour. My girl used to be able to get out to work from Hollywood to thousand oaks in 25 Min’s at 10 am after rush hour… but it took her over 2 hours to get back in the afternoon.

    My point to all of this is that you should try your very best to reside near your work…. Because this area is one of the worst traffic nightmares on earth…

    In fact.. whenever I am stuck in traffic in Atlanta I try to imagine myself in LA and everything seems sooo much better. 🙂

    Good luck my friend!

  10. Hi Dustin,

    This is Chloe from Zillow.

    You might find Zillow’s Advanced Search helpful in exploring your price range. It may not serve all of your needs, but I’m finding it useful as I’m new to Seattle and have similar questions about where to live.

    You can find the Advanced Search link on Zillow’s home page, within the blue search box. It’s also located on the Maps & Search page — just to the right of the search box — as well as on any home details page.

    Once you click on this link, it opens up a menu of choices you can use to refine your search, including number of bedrooms, square footage, Zestimate value, and home type.

    The price you are seeing on our maps next to each city name (or Zip if you zoom in further) is the median Zestimate (or Zindex).

  11. Hi Dustin,

    This is Chloe from Zillow.

    You might find Zillow’s Advanced Search helpful in exploring your price range. It may not serve all of your needs, but I’m finding it useful as I’m new to Seattle and have similar questions about where to live.

    You can find the Advanced Search link on Zillow’s home page, within the blue search box. It’s also located on the Maps & Search page — just to the right of the search box — as well as on any home details page.

    Once you click on this link, it opens up a menu of choices you can use to refine your search, including number of bedrooms, square footage, Zestimate value, and home type.

    The price you are seeing on our maps next to each city name (or Zip if you zoom in further) is the median Zestimate (or Zindex).

  12. From a former SoCal resident – you’re never less than 40 minutes from work in SoCal unless you live across the street or under your desk. The traffic really is that bad.

    Simi Valley is very safe and pretty and the residents tend to love it.

  13. From a former SoCal resident – you’re never less than 40 minutes from work in SoCal unless you live across the street or under your desk. The traffic really is that bad.

    Simi Valley is very safe and pretty and the residents tend to love it.

  14. Hey Dustin – I read about this site the other day from Realtor.com. The site was just awarded a US Patent for its search engine. It may not show a lot of info on exact homes, but it will help with narrowing down the neighborhoods. The Downside? Some of their advanced features you have to pay for. Let me know what you think of the service. – http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/

  15. Realtor.com does allow you to add “nearby areas” to your search (off a semi-obscured link on their “more search options” page), which might get you some of the search-expansion you’re looking for.

    Of course, you’ll be able to tell them about all of your issues with their site when you get there, eh?

  16. Dustin-
    I was intrigued with this problem. It’s one our buyers struggle with every day, but as you witnessed doesn’t have an elegant solution. I went to http://www.windermere.com to see how their/our “property point” solution would work. It doesn’t work well in my area because of integration issues with our local MLS, but I though I’d try it for Thousand Oaks. I was pleasantly surprised. My high expectations are rarely met when it comes to technology solutions like this. The key to the “property point” is creating a box by clicking and dragging. Some technophobes can’t get past this, but I think you’ll figure it out. I’d be curious about your feedback. I thought it was easy to use and fairly usefull info. I’d be curious how a search through the new RE-Max site works too.

  17. Hi Dustin,

    I lived my whole life of 47 years in So Cal and just moved to Port Orchard, WA last summer. I grew up in the “Malibu mountains” and we almost moved to Westlake Village when it was first being built but we didn’t have the $129,000! I lived in “The Valley” as you say for 15 years, have family who have lived in Thousand Oaks, friends in Simi Valley (plus I went to school as CSUN), and a friend who lived 20 years or so in Ventura. I can do some research for you too. I am a research librarian in my other, past life before moving here. (Have you thought of calling a Westlake Vill or Thousand Oaks public library reference desk? 🙂 I would be glad to talk with you and share my insights of a So Cal native. Email me “off blog” and we can get in touch if that would be helpful.

  18. Hi again Dustin,

    Would you consider a condo? Maybe something like this?… Very close to Westlake Village.

    5800 Kanan RD #169 , AGOURA HILLS 91301. California MLS#05-071715
    $365,000
    3 Bedrooms
    2.00 Baths

  19. Hi again Dustin,

    Would you consider a condo? Maybe something like this?… Very close to Westlake Village.

    5800 Kanan RD #169 , AGOURA HILLS 91301. California MLS#05-071715
    $365,000
    3 Bedrooms
    2.00 Baths

  20. Welcome to Southern California!

    You should definitely check out Camarillo and Thousand Oaks, both great places for family and close enough to LA for fun weekend trips. Ventura or Oxnard notsomuch, yes, it’s by the ocean, but it’s got problems – lots of crystal meth, gangs, etc. You might consider checking out Ojai or Carpinteria, still beautiful and family-friendly but you might find something in your price range.

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  22. As someone who grew up in the area, I’d like to agree with some of the other peoples comments that staying close to work is good for your sanity in Southern California. I’d really consider ranking the neighborhoods based on distance to work more than anything else, and definitely to stay north/west of LA. Westlake Village, Thousand Oaks, Moorpark and Camarillo would be where I’d look first, unless you have to be by the beach, then you might consider Port Hueneme, but it would be a long commute.

  23. Hey Dustin,

    No problem!

    There is not instructions on the page so if you want to zoom in on an area just drag a box with your mouse. You can get down to the street block level.

  24. Hey Dustin,

    No problem!

    There is not instructions on the page so if you want to zoom in on an area just drag a box with your mouse. You can get down to the street block level.

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