WS6_MAC

iTrader: (6)

I have a job opportunity in Calabasas CA, for anyone who lives in the area pls chime in.

Looking for info on the overall living there.
The job would pay around 100k is that enough to live comfortably?
Are you happy with the area, would you move if you had a choice? Why?
Looking to buy a house around 500-600k is this reasonable?
How is the crime in Calabasas / surrounding area’s?
Is the floods / earthquakes risk as high as the rest of the world thinks it is?

Thanks in advance for all your replies.

tripblackls1

iTrader: (11)

100k is pretty damn good but not enough to live in calabasas
although you could probably live in westlake which is about 15-20 min from calabasas and its still a great area and although you would probably have a hard time finding a house for 500k i dont think its impossible, you differently could get a very nice condo (2 car garage and the works)
or go farther towards oxnard/ventura and it gets cheaper but more of a commute
and most of these places are nice, but if you go towards the san Fernando valley its going to get bad very quick! stay away far away lol

my vote is for westlake , very nice place, not too far from calabasas and there is tons of very nice canyons right there, and its only 15min from the beach

smgco

I lived in calabasas for about12 years.Got remarried and moved about tweenty five milesnorth easttosun valley.
originall when my ex wife and I moved there it was a very nice small city in the west valley. Since then ithas been way over built and filled up with very materialistic ego based people. One of thebestthings I've ever done is moveaway from calabasas.
My daughter still lives there and I dred going there. Traffic, attitude etc.

SIK02SS

iTrader: (11)

This. It's a great (nice) town. Crime isn't high, and along with Westlake, Thousand Oaks is the next town North and just as nice. These are places where you can leave your car running, top down, phone on the center console and go into the store for 10 min and come back with everything where you left it. Camarillo would be an additional 10-15 min North of TO and would be significantly cheaper to live. Looking at a ~20 minute drive to Calabasas with no traffic and upwards of 40min with (average would be 30, 40 is with accidents). As mentioned, the attitude their is high and mighty; same goes for Westlake and TO, but the later 2 imo are more laid back. Hell, when I lived in TO I helped Heather Locklear carry a bunch of stuff to her car one day because everyone who worked at the store was star struck (i was just a shopper).

Nacho SS

iTrader: (4)

This is a good post. Calabasas or "Calabadass" as its residents like to call it is a nice town. It's a little wacky in its own right, but the area isn't bad. I too would recommend TO/Westlake (where I live). You can't beat the weather and the good looking women. It's still big money country as far as the town goes. 100k might be comfortable to live on if you are single, but there aren't too many *decent* homes on the market in that price range posted in the OP.

WS6_MAC

iTrader: (6)

Thanks for your comments guy's what about the floods / earthquakes risk?

ZexGX

iTrader: (28)

Sadly there are three big drawbacks to living here in California:
1) Strictest emissions laws in the US.
2) Housing prices.
3) Overcrowding/cutbacks in schools. If you move to a nice enough area like Westlake, TO, or Calabasas, this may not be an issue at all.

Overall that general area is considered a fairly low-crime, higher-income area especially when compared to the likes of the LA basin, and the San Fernando Valley. Wikipedia is actually quite easy to use to analyze cities via demographics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calabasas,_California
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westlak...ge,_California
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_Oaks,_California
and a sweet panorama of Westlake Village (left) and Agoura Hills (right) with the 101 freeway running through the frame
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...fornia_USA.jpg

ZexGX

iTrader: (28)

Unless there was a world-ending tsunami I don't think you would have to worry about flooding as long as you choose a house with proper drainage around it, preferrably not in a flood basin area of the city. Earthquakes are always a risk that we live with, and so are the snow storms and sub-zero temperatures you deal with annually in Canada. We have been expecting "the big one" to hit for a while now and supposedly we are overdue for a large earthquake. Since moving here from Hawaii in 1995 the worst earthquake I've felt was enough to rattle things around on my shelves and scare the crap out of the earthquake newbies in the room. Now, if it's not strong enough to shake something completely off a shelf I just shrug and calmly walk out of the building for the next 30 minutes or so if it seems to be gaining in intensity. On average I'd say I can feel 2 earthquakes per year, most being super mild ones. Sometimes afterwards you can find new cracks in the concrete/stucco/drywall in your house. We do have increased building safety codes here for earthquake-proofing or earthquake-resistance due to the 1994 Northridge earthquake, so any of the newer homes should be built with that in mind, and any of the older homes still left standing will probably be around for quite a while especially if they've been maintained.

fast01z28

iTrader: (6)

California has the most advanced technology as far as earthquake safety goes. If the rest of the world used our guidelines for roads and buildings there would be MANY less deaths in the large earthquakes.

If you move here you will feel some quakes. Most wont do any/much damage other than the random trophy that falls off the shelf. There are a few precautions that we tend to take here though, but nothing major. It beats the hell out of snow storms, hurricanes, tornados and flooding.

The flooding that you are thinking of is pretty much limited to the beach cities, namely Malibu. Its less flooding and more land slides that they worry about though. Fires are also a hazard, but you can avoid all of that by choosing your neighborhood wisely.

All in all, I say move here. You wont regret it. With $100k/year you can live in the above mentioned thousand Oaks, Westlake area, or even Woodland Hills. Look around, you can find a decent house in Woodland Hills for $6-700k which is just above your budget but well worth it. those houses were going for about $1mil a few years ago and will go back up.

WS6_MAC

iTrader: (6)

Some good advice here, I will pursue this further as snow for 6mths of the year is starting to get on my nerves.

SIK02SS

iTrader: (11)

earthquakes aren't much concern really...well, unless we get hit HARD floods, just use common sense where you're looking to buy/rent. There are some canyons in the area with housing in some of the basins, drainage sucks because of all the leaves/dirt etc that clog drains (like any neighborhood), and if you are at one of the basins you're going to get all the water. Fire is some what of a concern if you're not looking to live in town but rather in the more pricey hills homes where you don't have a community around you. The dense areas are less prone to fire damage then the outskirts areas due to the hills getting very dry starting around this time.



Damn you, I want to move back to Camarillo/TO area

WS697RamAir

Thats pretty crazy that u were asking about earthquakes and tsunami/floods yesterday, considering what happened in Japan last night...

ZexGX

iTrader: (28)

Funny coincidence. Good thing we really don't really need to worry about tsunamis from earthquakes originating in the western part of the rim of fire. Just tsunamis from meteorites or comets, whatever floats your boat.