Updated August 17, 2026
Measure ULA is not a bracket. It is a cliff, and that single structural fact creates a band of prices above each threshold that no rational seller should ever accept. A sale at $5,399,000 owes no ULA. A sale at $5,400,000 owes 4.0% of the entire price — $216,000. One thousand dollars more in price costs two hundred and fifteen thousand dollars in net proceeds.
If your building's honest value sits anywhere near either threshold, the pricing decision is not a rounding exercise. It is the single most consequential decision in the sale, and it has to be made before the offering package is written rather than after offers arrive.
Measure ULA is an additional City of Los Angeles documentary transfer tax on top of the existing city and county transfer taxes. Current thresholds:
Two features matter more than the rates.
It applies to gross consideration, from the first dollar. Not to the amount above the threshold. The whole price.
It is indifferent to your economics. Basis, loan balance, depreciation, whether you made money or lost it — none of it enters the calculation. Sellers who bought at the top of the last cycle and are selling for less still pay it.
The thresholds adjust annually with Chained CPI. They opened at $5,000,000 and $10,000,000 in April 2023 and have moved since. Confirm the figures in force on your closing date rather than relying on any published article, including this one.
Because the tax attaches to the whole price, there is a band above each threshold where a higher price produces less money.
At the lower threshold: a sale at $5,399,000 nets $5,399,000 before other costs. A sale at $5,400,000 nets $5,184,000 after ULA. To beat $5,399,000 net, you need a gross price above roughly $5,624,000 — about 4.2% higher.
Every price between $5,400,000 and roughly $5,624,000 leaves the seller worse off than stopping just short.
At the upper threshold: a sale at $10,899,999 nets that figure. At $10,900,000 the tax is $599,500, netting $10,300,500. To beat the lower number you need roughly $11,534,000 — about 5.8% higher.
So the dead zones are approximately:
| Threshold | Price band to avoid | Width |
|---|---|---|
| $5.4M | $5,400,000 – ~$5,624,000 | ~$224,000 |
| $10.9M | $10,900,000 – ~$11,534,000 | ~$634,000 |
A building whose realistic value lands inside either band should be priced deliberately below it or marketed to clear it decisively. What it should never do is drift into the middle.
If the honest value is comfortably below the threshold — say $4.9M against a $5.4M line — price it normally and make sure the process does not accidentally push it into the dead zone. This is a real risk on a competitive building: a bidding process that carries the price from $5.3M to $5.5M has made the seller poorer, and a broker who does not flag that is not paying attention.
If the honest value sits inside the dead zone, the choice is to price just under and accept the ceiling, or to run a process aimed at clearing the far side. Which is right depends entirely on how much genuine competition the building will attract. On an asset with deep buyer interest and a real upside story, clearing it is achievable. On a thinner asset it is a gamble that ends with a price in the middle.
If the honest value is well above the threshold, ULA is simply a cost of the transaction. Model it, put it in the net sheet, and move on.
Sellers regularly arrive with structures they have read about, and it is worth being direct about them.
A 1031 exchange does not avoid ULA. The exchange defers income tax on the gain. ULA taxes the conveyance, and the conveyance still happens.
Selling at a loss does not avoid it. There is no gain test in the calculation.
Splitting a sale is not a free lever. Structuring around the thresholds — separating parcels, transferring entity interests, staging transactions — runs into rules designed to catch exactly that, including how legal-entity ownership changes are treated for transfer tax purposes. Some structures are legitimate on the right facts. All of them require a transactional attorney and a CPA who work in Los Angeles, engaged before a listing rather than after an offer.
Shifting it to the buyer does not help much. Custom puts the transfer tax on the seller. It is negotiable, but a buyer asked to absorb 4% simply reduces their price by roughly the same amount.
The jurisdiction. ULA is a City of Los Angeles tax. Buildings in Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena, Inglewood and unincorporated county are outside it. Several of those cities have transfer taxes of their own, so confirm the local schedule — but the LA City rates do not attach.
This is worth knowing precisely because owners assume "Los Angeles" means the city. Check the parcel, not the mailing address.
The timing, at the margin. The thresholds rise annually with inflation. A building sitting a hair above a threshold this year may sit below it next year. That has to be weighed against everything else moving in the market, and it is rarely decisive on its own — but on a building $50,000 into a dead zone, it is worth raising.
Deciding not to improve the price. This is the counterintuitive one. On a building priced near a threshold, spending money to raise the value — finishing a soft-story retrofit, completing capital work — can cost more in transfer tax than the improvement adds. It is one of the very few situations in real estate where making a building better makes the seller poorer, and it is entirely a function of where the price lands.
Before anything is written, I want the realistic value range and where the thresholds sit relative to it.
If the range straddles a threshold, that is the first conversation, not a footnote. We model three prices — just under, in the dead zone, and above it — on a full net sheet including ULA, county and city base transfer taxes, the 3⅓% California withholding, commission and loan payoff. Sellers who see those three numbers side by side generally make the decision in about four minutes.
Then the marketing strategy follows the pricing decision. If we are staying under, the process is built to attract strong offers at a defined ceiling. If we are clearing it, the process has to be genuinely competitive, because a half-hearted attempt lands in the dead zone.
The failure mode I want to avoid is the common one: a building marketed without regard to the thresholds, an enthusiastic bidding process, and a seller who nets less than a lower offer would have produced.
Is Measure ULA still in effect?
Yes. It survived its principal legal challenge — a December 2025 California Court of Appeal decision affirmed against the challengers. Plan on it applying.
Do the thresholds really move every year?
They adjust with Chained CPI. Always confirm the figures in force on your closing date; a threshold that shifted after your listing launched can change the arithmetic.
Does ULA apply to a foreclosure or a distressed sale?
Certain transfers have exemptions written into the measure, including some involving qualifying affordable housing organizations and government entities, and lender-related transfers have their own treatment. There is no general hardship exemption. Any specific claim needs counsel against the current rules.
What if my building is worth exactly $5.4 million?
Then you have the clearest version of this decision. Price just under and take the certain net, or run a competitive process aimed at clearing $5.62M. Do not list at $5.4M.
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