Agoura Hills incorporated as a city in 1982. Old Agoura predates that by decades — it is the settlement the city grew around rather than a piece of the city’s plan, and the housing stock shows it. The recorded sales in the last six years include houses built in 1940, 1946, 1952, 1955, 1973, 1976, 1979, 1981, 1983, 1986, 1987, 1990, 1997, 2004, 2007 and 2010. In a Conejo Valley market where almost every neighbourhood is a tract with four or five plans and a single year of construction, that is remarkable, and it is the single most useful thing for a buyer to understand. There is no Old Agoura plan sheet, because there was no Old Agoura builder.

What holds it together is the land. The lots are large by any standard in this part of Los Angeles County — a median of an acre, with a long tail up past three — and the city’s General Plan protects that deliberately. Goal LU-8 of the plan addresses the very-low and low-density neighbourhoods of Old Agoura by name, and policy LU-8.1 commits the city to maintaining “the integrity of Old Agoura residential neighbourhoods for their low-density large estates, rustic character, non-urban infrastructure, and keeping of horses and other farm animals.” Policy LU-8.2 requires new development to respect the topography, parcel sizes, housing scale and streetscapes; LU-8.5 limits exterior materials to those with the appearance of rural materials; LU-8.6 and LU-8.7 address landscape transitions and open areas suitable for horses.

“Non-urban infrastructure” is a phrase worth sitting with, because it is a policy commitment rather than an oversight. Some streets in Old Agoura are private, some are asphalt rather than concrete, and the absence of the kerbs, gutters and street lighting that the rest of the city has is the point rather than a deficiency. A buyer who expects suburban infrastructure will find Old Agoura lacking; a buyer who wants a horse and a dirt shoulder to ride out on will find it is the only place in the city that offers it.

The setting matters too. Old Agoura runs up Chesebro Road toward the Cheeseboro and Palo Comado Canyon entrance to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, which is the connection that makes riding out of a back gate possible. The General Plan’s policies for the Old Agoura business area encourage equestrian-supporting uses and pedestrian, equestrian and bikeway connections to the citywide and regional trail networks, and contemplate restoring Chesebro Creek as a community amenity.

There is an Old Agoura Overlay District in the Agoura Hills zoning code, at sections 9551 to 9555. Agents and blogs regularly cite it as the rule that protects horse keeping. It is not. It is a commercial design overlay, and its stated purpose is to preserve the character of Old Agoura through public improvement standards and design guidelines and, in specific areas, particular types of smaller-scale community-serving commercial uses. It applies to the Old Agoura Commercial Center area south of the Ventura Freeway, west of Chesebro Road, and it governs things like a fifty per cent maximum building coverage, a thirty-five foot and two-storey height limit, rural-character architecture in earth tones, a fifteen per cent landscaping minimum, and monument signs in wood or stone without internal illumination. It has nothing to do with the horses on the residential lots north of the freeway.

Horse keeping is governed by section 9234.1, the livestock and poultry raising standards, and it applies across the RV, RL and RS residential districts — which means it is not exclusive to Old Agoura, although Old Agoura is where the lots are large enough for it to matter. The limits that are verified in the code:

Horses, a maximum of eight adult animals per acre. All large livestock combined — horses and equines, cattle, llamas, alpacas, sheep and goats — a maximum of eighteen per acre. Llamas and alpacas a maximum of ten per acre; sheep and goats a maximum of ten per acre. Poultry, fowl and rabbits, a maximum of fifty birds and twenty-four rabbits, with pigeons capped at twelve per parcel. Swine, a maximum of two weaned hogs, penned, at least fifty feet from any street, with 4-H animals exempted. And a setback: no animals or fowl may be housed, stalled, lodged, maintained or confined in a building or structure within thirty-five feet of any street or of any structure designed for human habitation — corrals are excluded from that setback. Dairy operations, feed yards and commercial riding academies are prohibited on the same premises.

Two land-use designations support horses. Residential–Very Low Density (RV) runs 0.2 to 1 dwelling per acre, accommodates equestrian estates and agricultural uses, and carries a one-acre minimum lot size; the General Plan says plainly that horses are commonly kept in areas with this classification. Residential–Low Density (RL) runs 1 to 2 dwellings per acre, supports equestrian estates and rural street standards, and carries a 20,000 square foot minimum lot.

There is also a separate Equestrian Overlay District at sections 9590 to 9592, listed among the city’s combining overlays. Gary has not been able to retrieve its operative text — the city’s code viewer renders it through JavaScript and the plain-text mirrors time out — so its purpose, its mapped boundaries and its standards are not verified here and this guide does not describe them. Anyone whose purchase depends on the equestrian overlay applying to a specific parcel should call Agoura Hills Planning on (818) 597-7300 and get it in writing. That is the correct answer, and it is a better answer than any website can give.

Fairview Place carries the most sales of any street in the record and the widest range within one street: an 880-square-foot one-bedroom from 1946 at $1,169,000, and 5,637 and 5,765-square-foot houses at $4,100,000 and $3,450,000. That range on a single street is the clearest illustration of what Old Agoura is. Colodny Drive is the other principal address and behaves the same way, from a 2,312-square-foot house listed at $2,399,000 to a 5,476-square-foot single-storey at $3,600,000 in 2026 and a 6,489-square-foot house asking $4,699,000.

Chesebro Road is the spine and it holds the top of the market: 6300 Chesebro Road, 7,200 square feet built in 1997, sold at $6,400,000 in December 2024 — the highest Old Agoura sale in the record by a margin of $2.3 million. It also holds a 1,158-square-foot house from 1955 that sold at $1,500,000 in the same period, which tells you that on Chesebro the land and the improvements are being priced almost independently.

Foothill Drive, Lewis Road, Driver Avenue, Balkins Drive, Laura La Plante Drive, Blythedale and Toth Place fill in the rest. The lowest sale in the record, $680,000 on Balkins Drive in April 2025, and the next lowest, $1,101,000 for a 1940 house on West Driver Avenue, are both on the smaller and older end.

What a buyer should take from all of this is that in Old Agoura the comparable is not the neighbourhood and it is often not even the street. It is the parcel: how many acres, how much of it is flat and usable, whether the horse facilities exist or would have to be built, whether the street is public or private, and what the house on it is worth on its own. Gary underwrites Old Agoura property that way, and any valuation that starts from a price per square foot for the area is starting from the wrong number.

Twelve of the last forty sales carry the code “horse property improved” and another twelve carry “horse property” or “horse property unimproved.” The distinction is worth real money and it is the first thing to establish about any listing. Improved means the facilities are there — the listing features across the tract include riding stables, automatic gates, fully fenced and cross-fenced yards, misting systems, flat pads and paved and private streets. Unimproved means the zoning would allow it and the land could take it, and you would be building it.

Before removing contingencies on a property you intend to keep animals on, there are five things to settle, and none of them can be settled from a listing. Confirm the parcel’s zoning designation and acreage with the city, because the eight-horses-per-acre limit is arithmetic on the actual acreage, not the marketed one. Confirm whether the Equestrian Overlay applies to that parcel and what it requires. Check the thirty-five foot setback against where any existing barn or stall actually sits — a structure that predates the current code may be legal non-conforming, and that has consequences if it burns or is rebuilt. Establish whether existing structures were permitted; barns, tack rooms, arenas and covered stalls are frequent unpermitted additions and they surface at appraisal and at resale. And check the water and the drainage, because a flat usable acre in this landscape is often flat because it was graded, and graded pads in the Santa Monica Mountains foothills carry drainage obligations.

One further point specific to this city: commercial riding academies are prohibited on the same premises as a residence under section 9234.1, along with dairy operations and feed yards. If the plan involves boarding other people’s horses for money, that is a conversation with the city before the offer, not after.

Old Agoura is in the Las Virgenes Unified School District. Listing data for Old Agoura addresses gives Sumac Elementary, A.E. Wright Middle School and Agoura High School. A minority of listings give Lindero Canyon Middle School instead of A.E. Wright, which means the middle-school assignment is not uniform across the neighbourhood.

That is an unusual situation and it matters, because the two middle schools are genuinely different journeys from Old Agoura. Gary’s advice is to treat the school fields on any Old Agoura listing as a starting point rather than an answer, and to run the exact address through the Las Virgenes district’s own address locator before removing contingencies. Where a family is buying for a specific school, that check is worth doing before the offer rather than during escrow.

The everyday amenity in Old Agoura is the back gate. The neighbourhood runs up Chesebro Road toward the Cheeseboro and Palo Comado Canyon entrance to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, and the connection between a private parcel and that public land is the reason the horses are here: an owner can ride out rather than trailer out, which in Los Angeles County is close to unique. The city’s General Plan reinforces it, calling for equestrian and pedestrian connections from the Old Agoura business area to the citywide and regional trail networks and contemplating the restoration of Chesebro Creek as a community amenity. This guide does not name a specific trailhead distance from a specific street, because that depends on the parcel; a buyer should walk or ride the route from the gate before relying on it.

What the neighbourhood does not have is the infrastructure the rest of Agoura Hills takes for granted, and that is policy rather than neglect. Some streets are private, some are asphalt, and the absence of kerbs, gutters and street lighting is written into General Plan policy LU-8.1 as the preservation of “non-urban infrastructure.” There is no community pool, no clubhouse and no association greenbelt, because there is no governing association. The shops and restaurants of Agoura Hills and the 101 corridor are a short drive south of the freeway; up the hill, the outdoor life is the land itself.

Old Agoura sits north of the Ventura Freeway at the top of Agoura Hills, with Chesebro Road as its spine, so the 101 is at the bottom of the hill and the commercial centers of Agoura Hills along the corridor are a short drive. Inside the neighbourhood the streets are a different proposition from the rest of the city: some are private, several are asphalt without kerbs or lighting, and a buyer should establish who maintains the road in front of a given parcel — the city or the owners on it — before assuming anything about paving, plowing of storm debris or the cost of repair.

Errands run south. Groceries, pharmacies, banks and the medical offices that cluster along the 101 corridor are minutes away by car, and nothing in Old Agoura is walkable in the suburban sense; a dirt shoulder to ride a horse on and a footpath to a grocery store are not the same thing, and the neighbourhood was kept for the first. For the schools, Sumac Elementary and Agoura High serve the whole neighbourhood, but the middle-school assignment splits between A.E. Wright and Lindero Canyon by address, and the two are different journeys; run the exact address through the Las Virgenes locator before counting the drive.

The figures in this section were current when this guide was last reviewed. The sale record in the facts above and the listings below are drawn live from the MLS each time the page loads.

Forty recorded sales run from $680,000 to $6,400,000 with a median of $2,365,000. The top twelve, in order: $6,400,000 for 7,200 square feet on Chesebro Road built 1997; $4,100,000 for 5,637 square feet on Fairview Place built 2004; $3,600,000 for a 5,476-square-foot single-storey on Colodny Drive built 1986; $3,575,000 for 6,110 square feet on Chesebro built 1990; $3,500,000 for 4,185 square feet on Fairview built 1981; $3,450,000 each for 5,746 square feet on Fairview built 2007 and 5,765 square feet on Fairview built 2010; $3,207,500 for a 5,240-square-foot single-storey on Fairview built 1983; $3,111,000 for a 3,754-square-foot single-storey on Colodny built 1976; $2,799,000 for a 2,825-square-foot single-storey on Chesebro built 1987; $2,788,500 on Fairview; and $2,700,000 for a 3,064-square-foot single-storey on Colodny built 1973.

Look at how many of those are single-storey. Four of the top twelve sales in Old Agoura are one-level houses, including the third-highest sale in the record. In a market where the large-home segment is almost entirely two-storey, a substantial single-level house on a flat acre is a genuinely scarce object, and Old Agoura has more of them than anywhere else in Agoura Hills.

At the other end, the record shows $680,000 on Balkins Drive, $1,101,000 for a 1940 house on West Driver, $1,150,000 for a 1976 single-storey on Lewis Road, and $1,169,000 for an 880-square-foot 1946 cottage on Fairview Place. That last one is instructive: 880 square feet at $1,169,000 is not a price for a house, it is a price for a Fairview Place parcel with a house standing on it.

Old Agoura has no typical inspection profile, because it has no typical house. A 1940 or 1946 house in this market can bring galvanised supply piping, knob-and-tube or early cloth-sheathed wiring, an original panel, no seismic anchorage between the frame and the foundation, and asbestos in flooring, ducting or ceiling texture. A 1970s or 1980s house brings the more familiar list — original furnaces and water heaters, single-pane aluminium glazing, period panels. A 1997 to 2010 house may bring none of it. Every home here is different and only a licensed inspector on the specific property can say what is actually there.

Three items are worth adding to the scope on almost any Old Agoura property, and they do not arise in a tract. Septic: parts of Old Agoura are on septic rather than sewer, and a septic inspection is a separate trade from a home inspection. Wells and water: where a property has agricultural or irrigation water, the source, the rights and the equipment all need establishing. Outbuildings: barns, tack rooms, garages, guest quarters and arenas each need their own look and their own permit history, and a general home inspection will not cover them unless you ask.

On the fire side, Old Agoura sits against open space at the edge of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. Defensible space obligations, brush clearance requirements, vent and roof assembly, and the cost and availability of insurance are all live questions here in a way they are not in the middle of the city. Establish the insurance position early — before the appraisal, not after — because in this market it can determine whether a purchase pencils at all.

No lease is recorded in the MLS sources this guide draws on, so it does not quote a rent; a current figure should come from the leasing agents who work these streets, and it will vary as widely as the sales do, because a 1946 cottage on a Fairview Place parcel and a 7,200-square-foot estate on Chesebro Road are not the same rental product. What can be said is that horse property leases to a specific and small tenant pool, that improved facilities — stables, fencing, a flat pad — are what that tenant is paying for, and that a landlord takes on the fire, brush-clearance and outbuilding obligations of the parcel whether or not the tenant keeps animals.

Because there is no governing association there are no CC&R rental restrictions to read, which is a genuine difference from every tract community in the Conejo Valley. What replaces them is the city: section 9234.1 governs how many animals a parcel can carry and where they can be housed, and it prohibits commercial riding academies, dairy operations and feed yards on a residential premises. A landlord whose tenant intends to board other people’s horses for money has a conversation with Agoura Hills Planning before the lease, not after. The insurance position should be established before the purchase, because in this fire environment it can decide whether a rental pencils at all.

The first reason is the land. A median lot of an acre, twenty of the last forty sales on an acre or more, and a General Plan that commits the city by name to keeping it that way — large estates, rustic character, non-urban infrastructure and the keeping of horses — is a combination that exists nowhere else in Agoura Hills and almost nowhere else in the western San Fernando Valley and Conejo corridor. The second is the horses: twenty-four of the last forty sales carry a horse-property code, half of them with the facilities already built, and the neighbourhood connects to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area so that an owner rides out rather than trailers out.

The third is the absence of an association. Old Agoura Homeowners is voluntary, there are no mandatory dues and no architectural committee, and what constrains an owner is the city’s zoning and General Plan rather than a set of CC&Rs. For a buyer who wants to build a barn, keep a trailer or paint a house the colour they choose within the rural-materials policy, that freedom is worth a great deal. The fourth is the single-storey stock: sixteen of the last forty sales are one-level houses, four of the top twelve sales are single-storey, and a substantial one-level house on a flat acre is a scarce object that Old Agoura has more of than anywhere else in the city. And the fifth is the range. From $680,000 to $6,400,000 on the same streets, there is an Old Agoura purchase for a buyer who wants a parcel with a cottage on it and for a buyer who wants an estate, and the record shows both trading.

Start with fire and insurance, because in this market they can decide whether a purchase pencils at all. Old Agoura sits against open space at the edge of the National Recreation Area, and defensible space, brush clearance, vent and roof assembly and the cost and availability of cover are live questions on every parcel; establish the insurance position before the appraisal, not after. Then the systems a tract does not have: parts of the neighbourhood are on septic rather than sewer, some parcels carry wells or agricultural water, and barns, tack rooms, arenas, guest quarters and covered stalls each need their own inspection and their own permit history, because unpermitted outbuildings surface at appraisal and at resale.

Then the animals, if the animals are the point. The eight-horses-per-acre limit is arithmetic on the actual acreage, not the marketed one; the thirty-five-foot setback for any structure housing animals must be checked against where the barn actually sits; a structure that predates the current code may be legal non-conforming, with consequences if it burns or is rebuilt; and the Equestrian Overlay’s operative text is not something this guide has been able to verify, so whether it applies to a given parcel is a question for Agoura Hills Planning in writing. Then the road: private or public, and who pays. Then the schools, which split at middle-school level by address. And finally the valuation itself. There is no useful price per square foot in Old Agoura, the comparable is often not even the street, and a buyer or a lender who starts from an area average is starting from the wrong number; the absence of an association cuts the same way, because there is no architectural committee standing between an owner and a neighbour’s choices either.

Horse people first, and they know what they are looking for before they arrive: a flat usable acre or more, improved facilities or the room and the zoning to build them, a gate that opens onto the trail network, and a house that is secondary to the land. Then the estate buyer who does not keep animals but wants the acre, the privacy and the single-storey house the tract communities cannot offer, and who is prepared to take on septic, fire and a private road in exchange. The top of the record — $6,400,000 on Chesebro, $4,100,000 and $3,450,000 on Fairview, $3,600,000 on Colodny — is those two buyers.

The third buyer is the one the bottom of the record shows: a household buying a Fairview Place or Driver Avenue parcel with a 1940s cottage on it, at $1.1 to $1.2 million, for the land and the address rather than the house, sometimes to rebuild. What the neighbourhood draws less often is the buyer who wants suburban infrastructure, a governed association and a comparable-driven price, because Old Agoura was kept, deliberately, as the one part of the city that offers none of those. A seller should understand that the buyer here is underwriting the parcel — acreage, flatness, facilities, permits, road, water, insurance — and that the house is priced on top of that, not the other way round.

Nothing near it is like it, which is the comparison. The rest of Agoura Hills and the Westlake Village tracts on the Los Angeles County side of the line are planned communities with four or five plans, a single year of construction and, in most cases, a governing association; Old Agoura is a century of houses on acre lots with no plan sheet and no CC&Rs. The nearest comparisons on price are the large-home tracts of Westlake Village. Three Springs, the late-1980s tract of about 465 homes of 2,800 to 4,300 square feet in the hills south of the lake, trades at a median of around $2.15 million on lots a fraction of an Old Agoura acre, with an association at about $270 a year and no horses. First Neighborhood, 1966 to 1969, about 664 homes of 1,750 to 2,650 square feet on the east shore of the lake, trades at a median of around $1.7 million. Westlake Island, guard-gated lakefront, at $2.8 to $3.25 million on recent sales, is the other place in the area where the land is being priced as much as the house — there for the water, here for the acreage.

At the other end of the scale, Shadow Ridge in Oak Park is the entry-level attached community over the hill: 1990 condominiums of 780 to about 1,100 square feet at $315,000 to $635,000, with dues of $570 to $595, which is roughly what an Old Agoura parcel’s brush clearance and insurance can cost over a few years. A buyer choosing between Old Agoura and any of them is not choosing between comparable houses; they are choosing between a planned community and a rural one, and the price of the rural one is set by the parcel.

Neighbor figures are taken from the corresponding guides on this site and reflect the periods stated there; each guide gives its sources.

For a buyer, the order is different from a tract. Insurance first, because it can end the conversation. Then the parcel: zoning designation and true acreage from the city, whether the Equestrian Overlay applies, the road’s status and who maintains it, septic or sewer, wells and water rights, and the permit history of every outbuilding. Then the animals against the code — eight horses an acre, eighteen large animals in total, the thirty-five-foot setback, no commercial boarding — and the setback measured against where the barn actually stands. Then the house, with an inspector briefed on its actual year, because a 1946 house and a 2007 house are different inspections. Then the school, run through the Las Virgenes locator because the middle school splits by address. And only then the price, underwritten from the parcel up rather than from an area average down.

For a seller, the comparable is the parcel, and the listing should give the buyer what they will otherwise have to dig for: the acreage, how much of it is flat and usable, whether the horse facilities are improved and permitted, whether the street is private, whether the property is on septic, and the current insurance position. A single-storey house on a flat acre is a scarce object here and should be led with as such. Do not price from a square-foot figure, because the buyer will not, and do not let the “horse property” code carry more than it should — improved and unimproved are different products at different prices, and the record shows it.