I need info about Goleta, Summerland,Isle Vista, Carpenteria and surrounding areas (Oxnard: low income)

[kimyart]

Single mom researching for a new home. Can't live in a party neighborhood full of college kids yipping it up or the bario. Need a nice house with a garage in a safe neighborhood. Haven't won the lottery yet and I'm too tired to rob a bank, which lets out Montecito. Everything I've read on this site tells me about SB and Ventura and Santa Maria. What about the little towns right next to Santa Barbara. What are they like? Where can I find more real info about them?

[Winston Smith]

What kind of information are you looking for beyond price and demographics?

A house with a garage in the areas you've mentioned start at 1/2 million and can go as high as several mill. The median house cost in west Ventura County is around $600,000; south-coast Santa Barbara County, around $1.2 million. North SB County is affordable, but sans-jobs.

All of the areas you mentioned are racially mixed. You might find pockets of segregated neighborhoods, but in general the entire coast from Goleta to Oxnard is mostly integrated, Caucasian, Latin, Asian and minority African-American. Because of the area's limited housing choices and cost, most people learn to accept circumstances that may not meet their 100-percent ideal. The popular claim is that the area's positives far outweigh the negative tradeoffs. "Learn to live with what you can't rise above," as a once-popular song goes.

But to address your questions directly regarding college kids, barrios and other cities, hope following overview helps:

Isla Vista -- mainly college kids and working class Caucasians and Latins.
Old Town Goleta -- working class, older homes, Caucasian/Latin.
Santa Barbara West Side and Lower East Side -- dense, working class, Caucasian/Latin, small older homes, $800,000, some with no off-street parking.
Summerland -- small, beautiful, expensive.
Carpinteria -- pop 14,000, mostly Caucasian and minority Latin.
Ojai to Ventura -- check out Oak View, Meiners Oaks, Mira Monte, Casitas Springs.
Ventura -- west end most affordable, dense with a history of gangs/drugs; the city is trying to clean it up; lower Montalvo, working-class & low income.
Oxnard -- for your wishes avoid Colonia, Saviers and Southwind; if it's within your range to afford, look to beach and harbor communities, west- and mid-town neighborhoods, or north side. Oxnard is big with some very good, very bad and in-between.
Port Hueneme -- 50/50 Caucasian/Latin, beautiful beach, livable downtown, affordable, adjacent to Ormond Beach Wetlands Area.
Camarillo -- center of town near 101, working-class Caucasian/Latin.

It sounds like a 3-4 day trip to the area might help you. Drive around and see for yourself. Have you considered Santa Paula or Fillmore?

[kimyart]

thanks so much ,that was exactly what I was looking for. I can't afford to buy a house, I am a renter and when I said bario, I didn't mean I don't like Mexicans, I meant I don't like guys peeing in my bushes and shopping carts in my driveway and a crack house down the street (I lived in La for 5 yrs). Thats a bario ! Living in Orange County, I am pretty used to high rent , but manage to always find a good house that I can rent out a room as a studio. I need a garage for my work. I am wondering if rentals like this are available in the small towns just outside SB and what kind of neighborhoods they are in.

[Winston Smith]

Originally Posted by kimyart

thanks so much ,that was exactly what I was looking for. I can't afford to buy a house, I am a renter ... I don't like guys peeing in my bushes and shopping carts in my driveway and a crack house down the street.... Thats a bario! ... I need a garage for my work. I am wondering if rentals like this are available in the small towns just outside SB and what kind of neighborhoods they are in.

Glad the info helped. To narrow the scope to the Santa Barbara south coast, a single-story 2 or 3 BR house in Goleta or Carpinteria in a conventional neighborhood could run you around $3,000 or more a month. If you can get permission to sub-let, I'd focus on Goleta where your proximity to UCSB opens the door to renting a room to a university student. There's a tremendous need for student housing all over SB, but Goleta is particularly sought out because it's fairly close to UCSB. Set the rules and you should be ok. I know people who have done this successfully. Incidentally, you won't be bothered with partying students in Goleta as it's not a party town. The students go to Isla Vista and downtown Santa Barbara to party.

Another idea is to look for a long-term temporary renter other than a student. Santa Barbara attracts people from all over the world for varying reasons and varying lengths of stay who are looking for a room to rent for a while. Finding a place close to the main bus lines (Hollister Ave., Goleta) will broaden your pool of renters to someone international. You could get around $1,000/mo. Advertise on craigslist http://santabarbara.craigslist.org/. It's very important to get permission to sub-let, however, as many landlords in SB are wise to this and don't like it.

You could rent a smaller house (2+1 max, 1,000 sq ft or smaller) for around $2,000 to $2,500 in Santa Barbara on the West Side (San Andreas St) or Lower East Side (Milpas St). These neighborhoods are dense and mixed, but you'd be very close to all services in Santa Barbara, including the beach and State Street. You wouldn't even need to use your car most of the time, which could save you thousands of dollars a year. Santa Barbara is very conducive to driving less.