Selling a house in Encino: the ULA cliff, the 9A, and the order to do it in

What does it actually cost to sell a house in Encino?

More than it costs in Simi Valley or Calabasas, and the reason is jurisdictional. Encino is inside the City of Los Angeles, so you pay the county documentary transfer tax and the city's, you need a Residential Property Report before escrow can close, and above a certain price you're in Measure ULA territory.

Here's the line-item picture. I'm not going to invent dollar figures for the items that float with price and vendor — I'll tell you how each one is calculated instead, and you can get real quotes from escrow before you list.

One technical note on the two transfer taxes: both are computed on each $500 of value or fraction thereof, rounded up. The per-$1,000 shorthand everyone uses gets you within a few dollars, which is close enough for planning and not close enough for your settlement statement.

So on a $1,600,000 sale north of Ventura, the two transfer taxes together run roughly $8,960. That's the part people forget when they're doing napkin math on what they'll walk away with.

Why does the Measure ULA threshold matter so much in Encino?

Because Encino sits right on top of it, and ULA is a cliff, not a ramp.

Measure ULA took effect April 1, 2023. The original figures were 4% of the sale price on transfers of $5,000,000 or more, and 5.5% on transfers of $10,000,000 or more. Those were the April 1, 2023 numbers. The thresholds are adjusted upward each fiscal year, so the current-year figures are higher — the LA Office of Finance publishes them, and that's the only place I'd trust for the number on the day you sign.

Two things about how it works that catch people:

• It's on the whole price, not the amount over the threshold. Cross by a dollar and the percentage applies from the first dollar.
• It's on gross consideration, not gain. It doesn't care what you paid in 1994, whether you have a mortgage, or whether you're losing money. If the price clears, the tax is owed.
• It's in addition to the $5.60 per $1,000 you already owe, not instead of it.

Here's what the cliff looks like. I'm using the original $5,000,000 threshold for illustration only — your actual threshold depends on the fiscal year your sale closes in.

Read the last two rows again. Fifty thousand dollars more in price produces $200,280 more in tax and leaves you $150,280 worse off. There is a band just under the threshold where a higher number on the contract is a worse outcome for you, and in Encino — where plenty of Amestoy Estates and Royal Oaks houses land in exactly that range — it's a live question, not a hypothetical.

If my opinion of value for your house lands within about 10% of the current threshold, I model both sides before we pick a list price. That's my own rule of thumb, not a market statistic, but I've never regretted running it. There's more detail in the Measure ULA guide.

What's the 9A report and when do I order it?

The Residential Property Report — everybody calls it the 9A — is a City of LA document from LADBS that states the property's zoning, legal use, the number of units and bedrooms the city has a record of, and any open code enforcement or permit issues. You can't close a sale of residential property in the city without it. Escrow will ask for it.

Order it early. Not because the report takes forever, but because of what it sometimes says.

Encino has a lot of houses that grew over fifty years. The enclosed patio in 1978. The garage conversion. The pool house that became a guest suite. The 9A is where the city's record and your house's reality meet, and if they don't match, you want to know in week one, not during a buyer's contingency period. An unpermitted addition isn't fatal to a sale — it's a disclosure item and a negotiation item. It becomes expensive when it surfaces late and the buyer gets to treat it as a surprise.

While you're dealing with LADBS, the other LA City point-of-sale items to have squared away:

• Water conservation retrofit. The city requires compliant low-flow fixtures, and sellers sign a certificate of compliance.
• Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. State requirement, verified at sale.
• Seismic gas shutoff valve. LA City requires one on certain transfers. Confirm your property's status with LADBS rather than guessing.
• Fire hazard severity zone. If the house sits in a state-designated High or Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone and was built before January 1, 2010, state law attaches a defensible space obligation to the sale — either documentation that the property complies, or a written agreement that the buyer will obtain compliance within a year. The Office of the State Fire Marshal re-issued the Local Responsibility Area maps in 2025, so the zone you remember from a decade ago may not be the zone you're in today. Check the current map before you assume either way.

What's different about selling south of Ventura Boulevard?

Ventura Boulevard is the dividing line people say out loud, and for once the shorthand is doing real work.

North of Ventura — Encino Village, Amestoy Estates, the grid between Balboa and White Oak — you're mostly looking at flat lots, city sewer, conventional construction, and a buyer pool that overlaps heavily with Tarzana and Sherman Oaks.

South of Ventura, climbing toward the Encino Reservoir and Mulholland, three things change:

Slope limits what a buyer can build. The Baseline Hillside Ordinance ties maximum residential floor area to the average slope of the lot. Steeper lot, less allowable square footage. That matters because a meaningful share of hillside buyers in Encino are pricing in an addition or a rebuild, and if the slope math says they can't get there, the offer reflects it. Knowing your lot's number before you list means you're not learning it from a buyer's architect in the middle of escrow.

Mulholland design review. Properties in the Mulholland Scenic Parkway Specific Plan corridor go through an additional design review process for exterior work. It is slow when you need it to be fast. A buyer planning changes needs to know this is part of the deal, and it's better coming from your disclosure package than from their consultant.

Access, septic and geology. Private roads, shared driveways, easements that were handshake arrangements in 1961, and in some pockets septic rather than sewer. Pull the title report early and read the exceptions. If there's a recorded road maintenance agreement, find it. If there isn't one and there should be, that's a conversation to have before a buyer's lender has one with you.

Do I owe capital gains tax on a house I bought in 1992?

Maybe, and the number is probably bigger than you think, because the federal exclusion hasn't moved in decades.

If you owned and lived in the house as your main home for at least two of the last five years, you can generally exclude up to $250,000 of gain if you file single, $500,000 if married filing jointly. On an Encino house bought in the early nineties, the gain can clear that by a wide margin. California taxes the remainder as ordinary income; there's no separate state capital gains rate.

Two things worth raising with your CPA before you list:

1. Capital improvements add to your basis. The pool, the re-roof, the kitchen in 2004, the room addition. Receipts, permits, canceled checks — anything. Go find them. Routine repairs don't count, but real improvements do, and nobody is going to reconstruct thirty years of that for you.
2. If a spouse has died, the date of death matters. Under IRC §1014(b)(6), community property can receive a basis adjustment on both halves when one spouse dies. Whether that applies to how you actually held title is a question for your CPA or an estate attorney, and it's a question to ask now rather than in April.

I'm a REALTOR®, not a CPA and not an attorney. I can tell you how the rule is structured and what documents to collect. The number on your return is theirs to compute. If the house came to you through a trust or an estate, the inherited home guide covers the different set of issues that opens up.

Can I take my Encino property tax base with me?

If you're 55 or older, severely disabled, or a wildfire or disaster victim — yes, under Proposition 19, up to three times in your lifetime, anywhere in California.

The mechanics: you move your existing assessed value to the replacement home. If the replacement costs more than what you sold for, the difference gets added to your transferred base. So a long-held Encino house with a low Prop 13 assessment can fund a move to Thousand Oaks or Moorpark without resetting your taxes to the new purchase price.

The part that costs people money is the sequence and the two-year clock. Read the Prop 19 guide and, specifically, why the order of your sale and purchase matters if you're over 55. Getting it backwards doesn't always break the claim, but it changes the math, and the time to understand that is before you write an offer on anything.

Expect a supplemental tax bill on the new place regardless. The Assessor reassesses on change of ownership and the Treasurer and Tax Collector bills the difference separately from your regular installments. It arrives months after closing, it isn't in your impound account, and it surprises people every single time.

What's the right sequence?

1. Get a real opinion of value, and get it in writing. Not a portal estimate. Encino's price bands diverge sharply across Ventura Boulevard and even between the flats and the first rise. Start with a home value request and we'll go from there.
2. If the number is near the ULA threshold, model both sides before anything else. List price strategy in that band drives every other decision. Decide it first.
3. Order the 9A and pull preliminary title. Week one. Both of them. You want the permit history and the recorded exceptions in hand before a buyer does.
4. Collect your basis records and talk to your CPA. Improvement receipts, closing statements from the original purchase, refinance paperwork if it documents work. One conversation now beats a scramble later.
5. If Prop 19 applies, map the sale and the purchase against the two-year window. Including which one you want to close first.
6. Handle the point-of-sale compliance items. Water conservation certificate, alarms, gas shutoff valve, defensible space documentation if the zone and build date trigger it.
7. Then prep, photograph, and go to market. In that order — the disclosure package should be ready the day the sign goes up.

How long does it take?

I won't hand you an average, because an average across Encino's price range would be meaningless for your specific house. What I'll tell you is what drives it.

Escrow length in this market is mostly a financing question. Most Encino sales exceed the FHFA conforming loan limit for Los Angeles County, which means a jumbo loan — and jumbo underwriting and appraisal generally take longer than conforming. Hillside properties with slope, access or permit complications take longer still, because the appraiser and the lender both have more to look at. Cash shortens everything and shows up more often at the top of the range.

The variable you control is prep. A seller who ordered the 9A in week one and has their disclosure package assembled is weeks ahead of one who starts when the offer comes in. Offer to keys walks through what happens after you're in contract.

When you're ready to see what your block is actually doing right now, reach out and I'll pull it. More on how I work with sellers is on the sellers page.