June 23, 2026
What you need to know:
- The announcement of legislation to reduce the ULA transfer tax from 5.5% to 1.5% is harmful to Los Angeles and will only serve to make the housing crisis worse.
- This action could mean a loss of $300 million per year in revenue for homelessness prevention programs and affordable housing construction in Los Angeles.
- Fighting the Taxpayer Deception Act at the ballot would be more effective than needless capitulation to real estate lobbyists.
Pull quote:
”Cutting the ULA transfer tax so drastically would prove disastrous in the fight to end LA’s housing crisis,” said Joe Donlin, executive director of the United to House LA Coalition. “The real estate industry is extorting away $300 million per year in funding to build affordable housing and prevent homelessness that Los Angeles needs and voted for, along with funds needed up and down the state.”
Full statement:
Today, legislation was introduced that would slash the ULA transfer tax from 5.5% to 1.5% on all but single-family homes, resulting in an estimated loss of half the program resources, or more than $300 million per year in revenue that would have been spent keeping people housed and combatting homelessness.
Extrapolating from calculations made by the Los Angeles Housing Department, this translates to 500 fewer new affordable housing units, 2100 fewer affordable homes preserved from falling out of covenant, 1350 fewer low-income renter households receiving rental assistance, 1700 fewer low-income senior or disabled households receiving income support, and 3000 fewer low-income households receiving full-scope legal representation. The loss of affordable housing units would mean that thousands fewer union jobs are created.
This is meant to preempt the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Coalition and its allies from placing a measure on the November ballot that would invalidate ULA along with a number of other vital revenue generating programs across California.
Anti-tax zealots and real estate lobbyists run this playbook every election cycle. It’s time to rein in a real estate lobby that sees bullying as an appropriate response to democracy, and rejects the solutions that Los Angeles voters have demanded to the ongoing housing crisis.
The real estate lobby has repeatedly claimed that ULA is hurting the construction of affordable housing in Los Angeles, going so far as commission flawed studies to advance this false argument. These claims have been widely adopted in reporting on the measure, according to a new report, and further study has proven that ULA is not stopping projects from penciling out or hampering multi-family construction. There is no coherent policy justification for the real estate lobby’s demands, which are simple bullying and extortion.