A Brentwood Park estate closed this month for $26 million. Before the seller saw a dollar of that, the City of Los Angeles took $1.43 million off the top in transfer tax. Move that same transaction six blocks south into the city of Beverly Hills and the bill drops to zero. Same buyer pool, same price tag, same Westside address book. The only thing that changed is which side of an incorporated city line the deed sits on.
That line is Measure ULA, the tax Angelenos shorthand as the "mansion tax," and it has quietly become one of the more important variables in how Los Angeles luxury sellers price, time, and even choose where to list. Most of the conversation around it treats Beverly Hills exemption as a footnote. It is closer to the whole story.
What the Tax Actually Does
Los Angeles voters approved Measure ULA in November 2022 and it took effect April 1, 2023. It is a transfer tax layered on top of the standard city and county documentary transfer taxes, paid entirely by the seller at the time the deed records, with no exemption for a primary residence. Revenue funds affordable housing and renter assistance programs.
The thresholds are not fixed. They adjust every July 1 based on the chained Consumer Price Index, which is why the original $5 million and $10 million figures from 2023 have already moved twice. For transactions closing after June 30, 2026, a sale priced above $5,400,000 but below $10,900,000 owes 4 percent. At $10,900,000 or above, the rate steps up to 5.5 percent.
Here is the detail that trips people up: the tax applies to the entire sale price, not the amount above the line. That single design choice is what turns a bracket system into something closer to a cliff.
The Cliff, Not a Slope
Consider a sale that closes at $10,899,999, one dollar under the top threshold. At 4 percent, the tax bill runs approximately $436,000. Add one more dollar to the sale price, crossing into the 5.5 percent tier, and the tax is now assessed on the full $10,900,000 at the higher rate, a bill of $599,500. One dollar of extra sale price costs the seller roughly $163,500 in additional tax.
The same shape shows up at the lower threshold. Price a home at exactly $5,400,000 and the tax owed is zero. Price it at $5,410,000 and the seller owes 4 percent of the entire amount, a bill north of $216,000, for $10,000 of additional sale price. This is why experienced Westside sellers negotiate as hard to stay a few thousand dollars under a threshold as they do to add a few thousand dollars above one. The math only rewards one direction.
Where the Line Actually Runs
Measure ULA is a City of Los Angeles ordinance. It reaches every parcel inside the incorporated city limits and stops exactly at the boundary of any independent municipality, regardless of zip code, freeway exit, or how a listing agent chooses to describe the neighborhood.
| Exempt (independent cities, outside LA city limits) | Subject to the tax (inside LA city limits) |
|---|---|
| Beverly Hills, including the Flats and Trousdale Estates | Bel Air |
| Santa Monica | Holmby Hills |
| Malibu | Brentwood and Brentwood Park |
| Culver City | Pacific Palisades |
| West Hollywood | Venice |
| Pasadena | The remainder of the City of Los Angeles |
A word of caution on the Beverly Hills Post Office designation, the hillside area north of Sunset that carries the same 90210 mailing address as the city of Beverly Hills. BHPO is not the same municipal jurisdiction as the incorporated city, and multiple sources describe its exact governmental status differently. Given that a single street can sit on a city boundary, anyone pricing or evaluating a BHPO property should confirm the specific taxing jurisdiction for that parcel with the county assessor or the city's own finance office before assuming either way. The zip code tells you nothing reliable about the tax exposure.
Beverly Hills proper carries no such ambiguity. As an independent, self-governing city, it sits entirely outside Measure ULA's reach, no matter how large the sale.
Three Years of Evidence
The market response has been measurable and it points in one direction. Research from UCLA and the Cato Institute found that Measure ULA cut the likelihood of high-value property sales in Los Angeles by 38 to 50 percent, and the tax is generating around $290 million a year, well short of the city's original $600 million to $1.1 billion revenue projection. The same research found that high-end sellers frequently delay listings or hold assets longer specifically to avoid the tax hit.
Meanwhile, Beverly Hills has continued to post gains. Redfin's data through July 2026 shows Beverly Hills homes selling at a median price of $4.0 million over the trailing three months, up 18.2 percent year over year, with homes taking around 70 days to sell. None of that growth carries a transfer-tax drag that a comparable Brentwood or Pacific Palisades listing has to price around.
None of this makes Beverly Hills a better place to live than Brentwood or Bel Air. It makes it a different place to sell from, and sellers who understand the difference price accordingly.
The Vote That Could Redraw This
The picture is not settled. California voters decide the Local Taxpayer Protection Act this November, a statewide ballot measure backed by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association that would cap municipal transfer taxes and raise the voter threshold required to create new ones. Measure ULA is widely understood to be the primary target. If the measure passes, the tax that currently separates a Beverly Hills sale from a Brentwood sale could shrink dramatically or disappear within a matter of months.
Anyone timing a Westside sale over the next several months is effectively pricing against two unknowns at once: where the CPI-adjusted threshold sits on the closing date, and whether that threshold still means anything come January.
What This Means If You're Comparing Addresses
If you are weighing a purchase in Beverly Hills against a comparable property in Brentwood, Bel Air, Holmby Hills, or Pacific Palisades, the tax itself will not show up on your closing statement as a buyer. It will show up later, in how a future seller of that same property prices it, and in how much room a current seller has to negotiate given what they already know they will owe the city. A seller inside LA city limits who is $150,000 into ULA exposure has real reason to hold firm on price. A Beverly Hills seller with no such exposure is negotiating from a different position entirely.
For sellers, the practical takeaway is timing and precision. A listing priced within a few thousand dollars of either threshold deserves a second look before it goes to market, and the calendar matters as much as the comparables given the July 1 CPI reset and the pending November vote.
Does Measure ULA apply to buyers? No. It is assessed on the seller at the time the deed records, regardless of how the buyer finances the purchase.
Is BHPO taxed the same as the rest of the 90210 zip code? Not necessarily, and the zip code is not a reliable guide either way. Confirm the taxing jurisdiction for the specific parcel before pricing a listing near either threshold.
Will Measure ULA still exist in its current form after this year? That depends on the outcome of the November 2026 statewide vote on the Local Taxpayer Protection Act. Treat any figure in this piece as accurate as of publication and confirm current thresholds before closing.
If you are pricing a sale near either threshold, or comparing what a Beverly Hills address actually nets against a similar property just across the city line, Team Sorrentino can walk through the parcel-specific numbers with you. Book an appointment before you set a list price.
