The Brentwood Math That's Keeping Estates Off the Market in 2026

A homeowner in Brentwood had a listing ready to go. Then the numbers came back from the calculator, not the offer sheet. Between the city's transfer tax and a standard commission, the sale would have handed over roughly 11 percent of the proceeds before a single dollar reached the seller's account. So the seller pulled the listing and called a contractor instead. Gesh Group, the firm that took on the project, told The Real Deal the homeowner chose to put that money back into the house rather than send it out the door. As the firm's Levy put it, the family decided that "instead of giving that money away, they reinvested into their current home."

That single decision is a small window into something larger happening across Brentwood right now. Measure ULA, the City of Los Angeles transfer tax that voters approved in November 2022, has reached the point in its life cycle where it is no longer just a closing cost line item. It is starting to change which homes come to market at all, and Brentwood, sitting almost entirely inside City of Los Angeles limits, is one of the neighborhoods where that shift shows up most clearly.

The tax that resets every July

Measure ULA works differently from the property tax bill that arrives every fall. It is a one-time transfer tax, paid at closing, calculated on the full sale price rather than on any gain. And its dollar thresholds move every July 1, adjusted for inflation under the Chained Consumer Price Index, per the Los Angeles Office of Finance.

Those are the live numbers today. A Brentwood sale that closes at $5,400,000 or above owes 4 percent of the entire price to the city, not 4 percent of the amount over the line. Cross $10,900,000 and the rate steps up to 5.5 percent on the whole transaction. On a straightforward $6 million sale, that is a $240,000 check to the city. On a $12 million sale, it is $660,000.

The part that catches sellers off guard is what happens right at the boundary. Because the tax applies to the full price rather than the marginal dollar, a home that closes at $5,399,999 owes nothing under Measure ULA, while the same home closing at $5,400,001 owes roughly $216,000. Two dollars of price separate a seller who keeps that money and one who does not.

Why the line falls where it falls

Brentwood's exposure to this tax is not really about square footage or lot size. It is about a jurisdictional boundary. Measure ULA only applies inside the City of Los Angeles. Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and West Hollywood are separate incorporated cities with their own tax structures, and none of them levy this transfer tax. Brentwood, along with Bel Air, Pacific Palisades, and most of Westwood, sits inside the city line, which means most estate-scale sales there are fully in scope.

Run the same $20 million sale on both sides of that line and the gap is stark. Inside the City of Los Angeles, that sale carries the county's 0.11 percent documentary transfer tax, the city's own 0.45 percent transfer tax, and Measure ULA's 5.5 percent rate, a combined bill north of a million dollars. Across the line in Beverly Hills, the same sale owes only the county's 0.11 percent, roughly $22,000. Same price, same buyer pool, a difference measured in seven figures depending entirely on which municipality the deed falls under.

That gap is exactly why a seller's zip code alone no longer tells the full story. Two Brentwood addresses on opposite sides of a boundary can face entirely different tax outcomes on an identical sale price, and a seller who assumes ULA works like a graduated income tax bracket, paying a higher rate only on the top slice, will misjudge net proceeds by hundreds of thousands of dollars.

When renovating beats listing

The Gesh Group story is not an isolated data point. Reporting from The Real Deal in July 2026 found that high-end remodel permits across the city have climbed 46 percent since the tax took effect in April 2023, with a cluster of that activity concentrated in Sherman Oaks, Encino, Bel Air, and Brentwood. The remodels Gesh Group takes on for homeowners near the ULA threshold typically run between $1 million and $6 million, spending that keeps the property below the taxable sale line entirely because no sale has happened.

Researchers at UCLA have separately found that Measure ULA has reduced the likelihood of a property selling above $5 million by roughly 55 percent since the tax took effect, a figure that has become one of the most cited pieces of evidence in the ongoing debate over the policy. Whatever one thinks of the tax's purpose, that number describes a real behavioral shift among sellers deciding whether to list at all.

None of this means the top of the Brentwood market has gone quiet. Trophy-scale properties still come to market and still sell. Villa Serenique, a 20,000-square-foot estate on North Tigertail Road finished in collaboration with Tiffany Harris Design, and a separate roughly 10,600-square-foot Brentwood estate on North Tigertail with landscape design by Christine London both surfaced as marquee Brentwood listings earlier this year, evidence that sellers with strong enough margins or motivated enough timelines are still willing to absorb the tax. The renovate-instead-of-sell pattern shows up most in the middle of the affected range, where the math is close enough that a homeowner has a real choice.

Brokers are also reporting a related shift toward off-market sales among sellers above the threshold. An off-market sale does not remove the ULA obligation once a price crosses the line, but it gives a seller more control over timing and who sees the property, which matters when the tax bill itself is not negotiable.

What hasn't changed, at least not yet

The tax has survived its legal challenges. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association sued shortly after Measure ULA took effect, arguing the tax violated the state constitution's limits on special transfer taxes, and lost. The California Court of Appeal upheld the measure in December 2025.

The political fight has not ended there. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association has pushed a broader statewide effort to cap local transfer taxes, one that would hit Measure ULA directly, and separately, state Assemblymember Buffy Wicks introduced legislation this summer that would cap transfer taxes statewide at 1.5 percent, a fraction of ULA's current 4 to 5.5 percent range. Both efforts remained in motion as of midsummer 2026. Whichever version eventually reaches voters or becomes law, nothing about the current thresholds or rates changes before a Brentwood seller's next closing. The tax that exists today, at $5.4 million and $10.9 million, is the one that applies to any sale that closes tomorrow.

For a Brentwood homeowner sitting near either threshold, that is the only fact that matters right now. The city has raised more than a billion dollars through this tax since 2023, and it remains fully in effect. Planning a sale, or a renovation, around anything other than today's numbers is planning around a maybe.

Before you set a price

The gap between $5,399,999 and $5,400,001 is not a rounding error, and neither is the gap between a Brentwood address and a Beverly Hills address a few minutes away. Getting the net proceeds math right before a home ever reaches the market, not after an offer arrives, is the difference between a clean decision and an expensive surprise at closing.

If you are weighing a sale near either threshold, or wondering whether the renovate-and-stay math applies to your specific property, Renée Avedon can walk through the current numbers with you and help you decide what actually makes sense before you list. Let's Connect.