Browse all Los Angeles real estate — or explore the full Los Angeles luxury real estate market.
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Westlake Village is a master-planned lake community on the western edge of Los Angeles County, built around a private 125-acre lake and governed as its own incorporated city. It is small and deliberate: roughly 5.4 square miles, about 8,378 residents according to the City of Westlake Village, and around 20 neighborhoods that each operate an active homeowners association. The street pattern, the greenbelts, the lake, and the commercial corridor along the 101 were all drawn on a master plan before the first house was framed.
For buyers, that planning produces a specific value proposition. You get a low-density, heavily landscaped residential environment with a real recreational asset at its center, corporate employment and retail inside the city limits, and an address that reads as Los Angeles County while functioning like a Conejo Valley suburb. The trade-off is that supply is finite, and the lakefront inventory in particular is a closed set. That is the core dynamic here: fixed supply against steady demand from move-up buyers leaving the Westside and the Valley.
Browse the current Westlake Village listings below, or contact The Knight Group directly if you want the neighborhood-by-neighborhood read before you start touring.
The land was ranch land first. According to the City of Westlake Village, the 12,000-acre Albertson Ranch was purchased by the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company in 1963 for $32 million. The company partnered with Prudential Insurance and commissioned a master plan for what the planners called a “city in the country,” with the architecture and planning firm A. C. Martin and Associates preparing the framework. Development of the lakeside community began in 1966.
The land itself has a longer record. The city’s history notes Chumash settlement roughly 3,000 years ago, cattle ranching under the Russell brothers from 1881, ownership by William Randolph Hearst in 1925, and acquisition by Fred Albertson in 1943.
The original 12,000 acres did not stay together. Per the City, the Ventura County portion of 8,544 acres was annexed to Thousand Oaks in 1968 and 1972, while the Los Angeles County portion of 3,456 acres eventually incorporated on its own. That vote came on December 11, 1981, making Westlake Village the 82nd city in Los Angeles County. That history explains a lot of what confuses buyers today, starting with the county line running straight through the community.
Because “Westlake Village” is a place name that is larger than the city. Addresses reading Westlake Village exist on both sides of the Los Angeles and Ventura county line, and the Ventura County side sits inside the City of Thousand Oaks. Two houses a few hundred yards apart can sit in different cities, different counties, different school districts, and different tax rolls while sharing a mailing address and, in some cases, the same lake.
This is not a technicality. It changes which municipal code governs a remodel, which county assessor handles the tax bill, which agencies respond, and which school attendance area applies. It also breaks comp analysis: a pull that treats “Westlake Village” as one market mixes two municipalities and produces a number you should not rely on.
One clarification worth making because buyers ask: Measure ULA, the transfer tax on high-value property sales, applies to sales within the City of Los Angeles. Westlake Village is a separately incorporated city, so ULA does not reach transactions here. That is a meaningful difference for sellers comparing a Westlake Village exit against a sale in Encino, Brentwood, or Bel Air.
Prices are high and the data is noisy. Redfin reported a median sale price of approximately $1.85 million for Westlake Village as of May 2026, up 35.9 percent year over year, with a median of about $699 per square foot, up 7.3 percent, and homes selling in roughly 39 days. Redfin’s rolling three-month median over that same window came in lower, around $1.41 million, up 14.4 percent year over year.
Take both numbers as directional rather than precise. A city of about 8,378 people does not generate enough monthly transactions to keep a monthly median stable, and a handful of lakefront or estate closings can move the citywide figure by hundreds of thousands of dollars. The useful read is the direction and the spread: values are appreciating, the market is competitive, and the gap between the monthly and three-month medians tells you the high end is transacting.
So price and offer at the neighborhood level, not the city level. Lakefront, non-lakefront single family, and attached townhomes here behave like three separate markets that happen to share a ZIP code. We build comps within the specific tract and, for waterfront, within the specific shoreline segment.
The city describes about 20 individual neighborhoods with active homeowners associations. They sort roughly into lake-adjacent enclaves, hillside and canyon tracts, and attached-housing communities. Here is how the main ones read to a buyer.
Westlake Island is the most exclusive address in the community: a man-made island inside Westlake Lake, reached by bridge and controlled by 24-hour guard-gated access. Homes here carry private docks. The island spans the county line, which makes address-level verification mandatory before you write an offer. This is the smallest and most tightly held inventory pool in the city, and listings are infrequent.
Southshore sits directly on the south shore of the lake and is built around lakeside and waterfront homes, many with dock rights. Northshore occupies the opposite shoreline and likewise offers lake access and private docks. Shoreline orientation matters more than buyers expect: it drives afternoon light, wind exposure on the water, and view corridors across the lake.
Lakeshore is a mixed community on the north and east side of the lake containing both single-family homes and townhomes. That mix makes it one of the more accessible entry points to lake-adjacent living, though the range of product types means the comp set inside a single neighborhood can be wide.
Three Springs lies south of the lake and consists of large executive-style single-family homes, most built in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Lots are generous by Westlake Village standards, sidewalks are wide, and the neighborhood is anchored by Three Springs Park, a three-acre park with a playground and basketball court. Buyers who want square footage and a newer build year than the original 1960s and 1970s tracts land here.
North Ranch is the estate district, built around North Ranch Country Club and its 27-hole course. Homes run larger and newer than the central Westlake tracts, set against oak-covered hills and open space. Note the geography carefully: North Ranch extends across the Ventura County side, so the city of record and school district vary by address.
Hidden Canyon is an attached-housing community of townhomes and functions as one of the lower-cost entry points in a market with very few of them. If your budget does not reach detached inventory but you want the schools, the setting, and the location, this is where the search usually starts.
For a complete view across every tract, price band, and product type in the community, start with the full inventory of Westlake Village homes for sale and narrow from there.
The lake is private property, not a public amenity, and that fact governs everything about waterfront ownership here. Westlake Lake covers roughly 125 acres with about 8 miles of shoreline, and it is managed by the Westlake Lake Management Association, a nonprofit governed by a board of 33 volunteer representatives elected by approximately 1,300 homeowners plus the surrounding commercial development.
Access is restricted to WLMA members, residents and property owners within the Westlake community, Westlake Yacht Club members, and their authorized guests. Fishing requires a current WLMA fishing badge, which property owners and residents may apply for and may also request for supervised guests. There is no public boat launch and no public shoreline access.
Boating rules are specific and worth reading before you buy a boat. No vessel exceeding eighteen feet in overall length or eight feet six inches in maximum beam may be on the lake, and power boats must be electrically propelled, with narrow exceptions for WLMA operations, WLMA-licensed boat services, and Westlake Yacht Club chase boats supervising regattas and sailing activity. Sailing and electric cruising are the norm. Gas-powered recreation is not.
WLMA rules and covenants also govern dock placement and slip allocation. If you are buying for the dock, confirm in writing what dock rights transfer, what condition the dock is in, who maintains it, and its current permitting status. Do that during your contingency period, not after.
School attendance follows the same county-line split that governs everything else here. The Los Angeles County side of Westlake Village falls within Las Virgenes Unified School District, which also serves Agoura Hills, Calabasas, and Hidden Hills, and generally feeds Agoura High School. The Ventura County side falls within Conejo Valley Unified School District alongside Thousand Oaks and Newbury Park, and generally feeds Westlake High School.
The important caveat: the district boundary follows the county line in some places and departs from it in others. Do not assume the district from the mailing address or from a neighbor’s experience. Verify the property with the district’s school locator before you remove contingencies, and if the school assignment drives the purchase, put that verification early in your timeline.
It depends entirely on where you are going. Westlake Village sits about 38 miles west of downtown Los Angeles and roughly 9 miles inland from the Pacific, at an average elevation near 900 feet, per the City. The 101 Ventura Freeway runs through the community and is the primary artery, with Kanan Road providing the direct route south through the mountains to Malibu.
Census data puts the mean travel time to work for Westlake Village residents at about 23.1 minutes, but read that number correctly. It reflects a resident base with substantial local and Conejo Valley employment, including the corporate presence inside the city itself. The City counts approximately 850 commercial and light industrial businesses within its limits. Dole Food Company is headquartered here on Oak Crest Drive, and Dole Packaged Foods maintains its North American headquarters on Townsgate Road in a LEED Gold certified building. The Four Seasons Hotel Westlake Village sits just off the 101 at Lindero Canyon, serving that corporate corridor.
If your work is on the Westside, in Century City, or downtown, that average does not describe your trip. Drive it yourself at your actual departure time before you commit. Transit is limited compared with central Los Angeles: the city is served by LA Metro Bus Line 161, and there is no rail station within the community.
This is the risk factor that deserves the most attention in this market. Cal Fire released recommended Fire Hazard Severity Zone maps for Southern California on March 24, 2025, the first comprehensive revision of Local Responsibility Area mapping since 2007. Westlake Village was among the communities that saw an increase in territory mapped at the Very High severity level. Across Los Angeles County, the red-mapped area grew about 30 percent to a total of 817,210 acres under that recommendation.
Two consequences follow. First, homes that were not previously mapped may now sit inside a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone, which triggers disclosure obligations and can affect defensible space requirements and construction standards for certain work. Second, insurance. Carriers price wildfire exposure using their own address-level brush scoring, which does not always match the state zone designation. A property can sit outside a mapped zone and still price poorly, or sit inside one and still find admitted-market coverage.
Get an insurance quote early, before your inspection contingency expires, on the specific address rather than the neighborhood. If admitted carriers decline, the California FAIR Plan exists as a backstop for eligible owners who cannot find coverage elsewhere, typically paired with a supplemental policy for the perils it does not cover. Budget the quoted premium in your carrying costs, not a market average.
Nearly every property in Westlake Village sits under a homeowners association. The City counts about 20 neighborhoods with active associations, and lake-adjacent owners typically carry WLMA obligations in addition to their tract association. Several communities are gated, including Westlake Island, North Ranch, and Hidden Canyon among others.
California common-interest developments operate under the Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act, which sets the framework for how associations govern, how they must disclose, and what documents a seller has to deliver. Your review package should include the CC&Rs, current rules, budget, reserve study, meeting minutes, and any pending litigation or special assessment disclosure. For waterfront, add the WLMA governing documents and dock records.
Read the architectural review provisions specifically. In a master-planned community with strong visual continuity, exterior changes, landscaping, hardscape, solar placement, and dock modifications are commonly subject to committee approval. If your plan depends on an exterior alteration, confirm the approval path before closing.
The recreation profile is outdoor and low-key rather than urban. The lake supports sailing, electric boating, and permitted fishing for members and residents, with the Westlake Yacht Club running organized sailing activity. North Ranch Country Club, established in 1979, offers a 27-hole layout designed by Ted Robinson, divided into three nines known as The Oaks, The Valley, and The Lakes.
Open space is immediately accessible. The Wishbone Trail above Westlake Village Community Park is one of the most used trails in the area and is managed by the Conejo Open Space Conservation Agency. Berniece Bennett Park in the First Neighborhood anchors that tract’s greenbelt system with playgrounds and a community pool, and the city also maintains a dog park.
For retail and dining, The Promenade at Westlake carries specialty shops, a Cinepolis theater, a Barnes & Noble, and sit-down restaurants. Kanan Road puts Malibu and the coast within a scenic drive, and the Conejo Valley’s larger retail base is minutes west on the 101.
Both, depending on the address. The incorporated City of Westlake Village comprises the 3,456 acres on the Los Angeles County side. The Ventura County portion of the original ranch, 8,544 acres, was annexed to Thousand Oaks in 1968 and 1972, and addresses there still read Westlake Village. Verify at the parcel level.
No. The lake is privately managed by the Westlake Lake Management Association and access is limited to WLMA members, residents and property owners in the Westlake community, Westlake Yacht Club members, and their authorized guests. Fishing requires a current WLMA badge.
Only an electric one. WLMA rules require power boats to be electrically propelled, with limited exceptions for association operations, licensed boat services, and yacht club chase boats. Boats are also capped at eighteen feet in length and eight feet six inches of beam.
Las Virgenes Unified serves the Los Angeles County side and generally feeds Agoura High School. Conejo Valley Unified serves the Ventura County side and generally feeds Westlake High School. The boundary does not track the county line everywhere, so confirm the specific address with the district before you rely on it.
No. Measure ULA applies to property transfers within the City of Los Angeles. Westlake Village is a separate incorporated city and is outside that jurisdiction. Standard county documentary transfer taxes still apply, and you should confirm current rates with escrow at the time of sale.
It can be, and the situation changed recently. Cal Fire’s March 2025 recommended maps expanded Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone coverage in Westlake Village and across Los Angeles County. Carriers also apply their own address-level brush scores. Quote the specific property early rather than assuming the neighborhood outcome.
Attached housing. Townhome communities such as Hidden Canyon, and the townhome inventory within Lakeshore, sit below the detached single-family tiers and are the most common entry point for first-time buyers in this market. Inventory is limited, so timing matters more than in the detached segment.
We will not quote a unit count we cannot verify, but the scale is small: 5.4 square miles, roughly 8,378 residents, about 20 neighborhoods, and approximately 1,300 homeowners represented in the lake association alone. Treat this as a low-inventory market in every segment.
We work this market at the tract and shoreline level, not the city level. That means comps built inside the specific neighborhood and product type, a written read on which county, city, and school district actually govern the address, and a documents review that includes the tract association and, for waterfront, the WLMA governing documents and dock records.
On the buy side, we front-load the items that kill deals late: insurance quotes on the actual address, school verification through the district locator, HOA document review with the architectural provisions read closely, and dock rights confirmed in writing where they are part of the value. On the sell side, we position against the correct comparison set, which in a market this thin often means arguing the comp selection rather than accepting it.
Tell us what the property has to do for you: schools, water access, square footage, or a commute you can live with. We will tell you which neighborhoods can deliver it and which cannot, and what the trade-off costs in each case. Browse the listings below, or reach out and we will build the shortlist with you.
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