In March, The Real Deal reported that Kevin Williamson, who created "Scream" and "Dawson's Creek," had sold his estate at 9520 Hidden Valley Road for $17.1 million. That was about $1,425 per square foot, and the outlet called it the priciest sale of the year so far in the Beverly Hills Post Office. The home sits in guard-gated Hidden Valley Estates, carries a 90210 ZIP code and a Beverly Hills mailing address, and lies inside the City of Los Angeles. The outlet noted that this puts the sale in the top 5.5 percent tier of Measure ULA.
At that price, the ULA tier works out to about $940,500. Los Angeles's ordinary transfer tax adds roughly $77,000 on top. A sale of the same size inside the incorporated City of Beverly Hills owes neither city levy and pays only the county documentary transfer tax. In 90210, a home's postal identity and its tax identity can belong to two different cities. Near the ULA thresholds, that gap changes how homes get priced, which means a comp from one side of the line can mislead a buyer or seller on the other.
One ZIP Code, Two Tax Codes
Measure ULA applies to every document that conveys real property within the City of Los Angeles. The trigger is the property's location. The address on the mail doesn't matter. The tax is charged on top of the city's base real property transfer tax of 0.45 percent, which every Los Angeles conveyance pays.
The Los Angeles Office of Finance lists the schedule now in effect. For transactions closing after June 30, 2026, sales above $5,400,000 and below $10,900,000 owe 4 percent. Sales of $10,900,000 or more owe 5.5 percent. Those thresholds rose from $5.3 million and $10.6 million a year earlier. The city adjusts them each year using the Chained Consumer Price Index.
Beverly Hills is a separate city. The Los Angeles County Recorder charges the general county documentary transfer tax of $0.55 per $500 of value across the county's cities. Only five cities have special added rates: Culver City, Los Angeles, Pomona, Redondo Beach and Santa Monica. Beverly Hills is not one of them.
Where One Dollar Moves the Bill by Six Figures
ULA is a notch. A gradual tax would charge only the portion of the price above the threshold. ULA charges its rate on the entire price once the threshold is crossed. Here is how that plays out on a Los Angeles-side sale under the current schedule, counting only the city's base tax and ULA:
| Sale price, City of LA | Base tax at 0.45% | ULA | Combined city tax |
|---|---|---|---|
| $5,400,000 | $24,300 | $0 | $24,300 |
| $5,400,001 | $24,302.25 | $216,000 | about $240,302 |
| $10,899,999 | $49,050 | about $436,000 | about $485,050 |
| $10,900,000 | $49,050 | $599,500 | $648,550 |
The more useful figure is the price needed to break even. A seller who closes at exactly $5.4 million keeps about $5,375,700 after city transfer taxes. To keep that same amount once the 4 percent tier applies, the sale would need to reach about $5.63 million. Every price between $5.4 million and about $5.63 million leaves the party paying the tax with less than a sale at $5.4 million would. The second threshold has the same kind of gap, from $10.9 million to about $11.07 million.
Those two ranges barely exist on the Beverly Hills side of the line. For a buyer comparing a Trousdale-style listing with a canyon estate a mile away, a "Beverly Hills" listing at $5.5 million can mean two very different transactions.
What a Notch Does to a Market
Economists expect sales to bunch up just below a notch like this. The data shows exactly that. A July 2026 report from Beacon Economics and Pepperdine's School of Public Policy found that in fiscal year 2023, which ended three months after ULA took effect in April 2023, sale prices in the City of Los Angeles looked much like those in the rest of the county, with no clear clustering near the future thresholds. In fiscal year 2024, Los Angeles sales piled up just below the threshold, especially near the original $5 million cutoff. Fewer sales closed above it. The rest of the county showed no such pattern. The pattern showed up in single-family homes and in commercial and multifamily sales alike.
The same report estimates that, after ULA took effect, monthly high-value sales in Los Angeles ran 41 percent below what its model predicted. Its estimate for sales below the threshold showed no statistically significant change. Measured another way, the authors estimate about 1,000 fewer high-value sales than expected from January 2024 through March 2026. An earlier UCLA Lewis Center study by Michael Manville and Mott Smith estimated a 49 to 55 percent drop in sales above the threshold during the measure's first 20 months. It found the largest drops in sales other than single-family homes.
The limits of these studies matter for anyone reading a 90210 comp. The Pepperdine authors say their data can't show whether a "missing" sale was repriced below the line, delayed, moved to another city or never happened. They also can't follow a transaction from one city to another. The report was supported by the Greater Los Angeles Association of Realtors, and its fiscal year 2025–26 figures were extrapolated from nine months of data. A March 2026 study by BAE Urban Economics argues that for development projects, rents, capitalization rates and borrowing costs mattered more than ULA alone.
What the evidence does show is that sale prices on the city side of the line behave differently near the thresholds than prices across the rest of the county. Inside 90210, that rest-of-county pattern starts at the Beverly Hills city limit.
Reading a Comp Across the City Line
A comp from incorporated Beverly Hills that closed at $5.5 million came out of a market with no notch. A Los Angeles-side home at the same price sits in the gap where the seller's math is at its worst. On the Los Angeles side, a cluster of sales just under $5.4 million may show the threshold at work as much as the value of the homes. A sale at $11 million inside the city carries roughly $650,000 in city transfer taxes. The same price in Beverly Hills carries only the county documentary transfer tax.
The thresholds also move every July. A home that would have sat just under $5.3 million last fiscal year now has $100,000 more room before the 4 percent tier applies. The Real Deal's March article quoted the older $5.3 million and $10.6 million figures. That was correct then and has since been replaced for closings after June 30.
What Changed This Year and What Didn't
Every major 2026 attempt to change ULA either stalled or was limited to a narrow set of properties.
- Statewide repeal. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association initiative to cancel ULA and similar transfer taxes was withdrawn in June. The Real Deal reported that the negotiated substitute leaves existing transfer taxes in place.
- Council amendments. Councilmember Nithya Raman's January motion to reform ULA was postponed and sent to committee, according to the Los Angeles Times. LAist reported that a later proposal to exempt new apartments was shelved by a 14–0 vote on July 1.
- Proposition TE. On the November 3 city ballot, Proposition TE would give a one-time exemption or refund only for residential property damaged or destroyed in the Palisades Fire and sold by whoever owned it on January 7, 2025. The City Clerk's voter pamphlet sets out the terms.
For a 90210 sale closing this fall or winter on a property outside Proposition TE's terms, the schedule in the table above is the one that applies.
Confirming Which City a Parcel Sits In
Two public tools show which city a parcel belongs to, whatever its mailing address says.
- Search the address or assessor parcel number in ZIMAS, the property information system from Los Angeles City Planning.
- Open the Los Angeles County Assessor's parcel map and turn on the "Cities" layer alongside "Assessor Parcels" and "ZIP Codes."
- Use the jurisdiction you find when reading comps. Compare Los Angeles-side sales with Los Angeles-side sales, and Beverly Hills sales with Beverly Hills sales.
Quick Answers
Does a 90210 ZIP code mean a home is in the City of Beverly Hills?
No. The Beverly Hills Post Office area shares the 90210 ZIP code with Beverly Hills but is part of the City of Los Angeles, as The Real Deal noted in its report on the Hidden Valley sale.
Does ULA apply only to the amount above the threshold?
No. Once a Los Angeles sale crosses a threshold, the rate applies to the whole price. That is why the tax jumps at $5.4 million and again at $10.9 million.
Will the thresholds change again?
The city adjusts them every year using the Chained Consumer Price Index. The current figures apply to transactions closing after June 30, 2026.
This post is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Before acting on a specific transaction, please confirm how these rules apply to you with a qualified attorney or tax professional.
The Sher Group checks which city every comp sits in when pricing a 90210 home. We also flag any sale that could land between $5.4 million and about $5.63 million, or just above $10.9 million. If you are buying in Hidden Valley or selling in the flats, schedule a confidential consultation.