Taxing Tomorrow: Measure ULA’s Impact on Multifamily Housing Production and Potential Reforms
Shane Phillips | Jason Ward
Measure ULA is a ballot initiative that increases real estate transfer taxes on sales of high-value properties in the City of Los Angeles. Revenues are dedicated to subsidized housing development and preservation, rent assistance, and similar efforts. Permitting for new multifamily housing has fallen sharply since Measure ULA went into effect in April 2023. Many blame the tax for this decline, but it could be caused by other changes to the housing market and macroeconomic conditions over the past two years. In this report we establish a robust causal linkage between Measure ULA and housing development, providing empirical evidence that the transfer tax is reducing multifamily production in Los Angeles. We find that Measure ULA is reducing multifamily housing production in Los Angeles by at least 1,910 units per year — an 18% decline, relative to the 2020–2022 average, among projects with 20 or more units.
