Looking for a Los Angeles multifamily broker? Michael Sterman, Senior Managing Director Investments at Marcus & Millichap and founder of the Sterman Multifamily Group, has closed $1.36B across 243 Los Angeles apartment building transactions over 14 years — 5,557 units, in 79 LA submarkets. Not a generalist who also does apartments. This is the only thing the group does.
The Track Record, In Numbers
$1.36BClosed LA multifamily volume
243LA transactions closed
5,557Units sold
$78.0MClosed in the 12 months to October 2026
79LA submarkets covered
14Years specializing in LA multifamily
Fourteen years, one asset class, one metro. Every figure above is computed directly from
our own closed-transaction archive — each of the 243 deals has its own page on this
site with the address, unit count, price and date, so you can check the claim rather than
take it.
What Is My Los Angeles Apartment Building Worth?
Value turns on vintage, rent-control status, your in-place rents versus market, and which
buyer pool actually fits your building — not a citywide average. Michael underwrites your
specific building the way a real buyer will, then tells you what it should bring and how to
get there. No obligation, and no number you cannot verify.
Here is the number most citywide pages will not give you: across our own closed book, median price per unit runs from $616,667 in Santa Monica down to $135,849 in Panorama City. That is a 4.5x spread inside one city. Any "average LA price per unit" blends those together and will misprice your building in one direction or the other, every time. The table below is our real transaction data, submarket by submarket, published for every market where we have closed at least four buildings.
How Los Angeles prices against the rest of the record
The ten Los Angeles submarkets this desk has closed the most buildings in, on our own transactions rather than a published index. Top to bottom the median per door runs close to four times — which is why a citywide per-unit figure is close to useless for pricing a specific building.
Frequently Asked Questions About Selling Multifamily in Los Angeles
Who is the best multifamily broker in Los Angeles?
There is no single right answer for every building, and any broker who tells you otherwise is selling. The right LA multifamily broker for your building is the one who has closed comparable buildings in your submarket recently and can show you the transactions. Michael Sterman has closed $1.36B across 243 Los Angeles apartment building sales over 14 years, in 79 submarkets — 22 of those apartment buildings, $78.0M, in the twelve months to October 2026. Apply the same five tests to him that you would to anyone else — they are laid out in full in "How to Choose the Best Multifamily Broker in Los Angeles."
What is my Los Angeles apartment building worth per unit?
There is no useful citywide number, and that is the most important thing to know before you price anything. Across our own closed book, median price per unit ranges from $616,667 in Santa Monica to $135,849 in Panorama City — a 4.5x spread between two buildings that are both, technically, "Los Angeles multifamily." Vintage, rent-control status, and the gap between your in-place and market rents move it further. A citywide average will misprice your building in one direction or the other every time.
Does the 2026 LA City RSO rewrite affect my building?
If your building is pre-1978 and inside LA City limits, yes. The rewritten formula took effect July 1, 2026: 90% of CPI with a 1% floor and a 4% ceiling, replacing 100% of CPI with a 3% floor and 8% ceiling, and the utility and dependent-occupant bumps are gone. LAHD published 3% for the current RSO year — the same number as the prior year — so the near-term bite is smaller than many owners feared. The structural change is the ceiling, which matters over a hold period rather than in any single year. Post-1995 buildings are exempt under Costa-Hawkins, and cities like Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena and Santa Monica run their own separate ordinances.
Do I owe Measure ULA when I sell?
Only on sales inside LA City limits above the current threshold. Those thresholds adjust every July 1 for inflation and currently sit at $5,400,000 (4%) and $10,900,000 (5.5%). It is a transfer tax on the gross sale price, not on your gain, so it applies even on a sale at a loss — and a 1031 exchange does not exempt it. Sales in Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena, Culver City, Santa Monica, West Hollywood and LA County unincorporated are not subject to it at all.
Who should sell my rent-controlled apartment building in Los Angeles?
Someone who prices it on legal in-place income and can tell you, before you list, exactly which of your units are the problem. Rent-controlled stock is where LA deals die late: a buyer's lender re-underwrites the rent roll, finds the in-place rents are further under market than the pro forma assumed, and repricing follows in escrow. Pre-1978 LA City buildings are the core of my practice: the two submarkets I have closed in most, Hollywood and Koreatown, are dense pre-1978 stock where the RSO governs nearly every building I have sold. Ask any broker you interview to walk your rent roll unit by unit and name the exposure before they quote you a price. The ones who cannot are pricing your building on a spreadsheet.
What does a Los Angeles multifamily broker actually do for a seller?
Price the building against the buyer pool that will actually bid on it, prepare the rent roll and disclosures so diligence does not reprice the deal halfway through escrow, run a real marketing process rather than a listing, and manage the transaction to close. For LA specifically, that also means underwriting rent-control exposure correctly up front — the single most common reason an LA apartment building deal falls apart late.
Common Questions From LA Apartment Building Sellers
Real answers to what owners actually ask before they list.
Each of these was previously reachable only through the questions index, which is why Google
kept surfacing the index instead of the answer.
Michael Sterman has spent 14 years specializing exclusively in Los Angeles multifamily,
closing 243 transactions worth $1.36B. He knows how LA buildings are valued, who
buys them, and what it takes to get a clean deal closed here. CA DRE License #01911703.
What Owners Say About Working With Michael
★★★★★
“I highly recommend Michael Sterman and his group. I just closed escrow on a 36 unit MF which Michael obtained the buyer. Michael handled the sale and escrow process extremely professionally. I have been a MF real estate broker myself for 45 years; I know who is a pro and who is not.”
Robert Corry
Verified Google review
★★★★★
“In Los Angeles multifamily, there's a huge gap between agents who talk about deals and agents who actually understand how they work. Michael Sterman is firmly in the second camp. What sets them apart isn't just market knowledge—it's judgment. They understand rent control realities, tenant issues, expense creep, cap-ex tradeoffs, and how underwriting changes block by block in LA. They're responsive, direct, and strategic—no fluff, no wasted time. If you're serious about buying or selling multifamily in Los Angeles, you want someone like Sterman on your side.”
Michael Maltzman
Verified Google review
★★★★★
“I've worked with Michael Sterman on multiple transactions and couldn't recommend him more highly. He has sold three properties to me and has also sold a property for me. He's professional, responsive, and gets deals done efficiently. A true pro.”
Each of these is a real submarket page with its own market read, buyer pool, rent-control
profile and closed transactions — not a landing page with the name swapped out.