Selling a Culver City Home You've Owned for More Than 20 Years

If you have owned your Culver City home for more than twenty years, whether that is since the 1990s or all the way back to the 1970s, and you are starting to think about selling, the hardest part is not the sale. It is the money that comes out before you ever see a check: city and county transfer taxes, a property tax bill that can reset when you buy again, and capital gains on decades of appreciation. This guide walks through all three, plus how to get a long-held house ready for today's buyers without spending money on a renovation you will not earn back.

I grew up in Beverlywood, and I have spent years helping longtime owners across Culver City and the Westside sell and move on to what comes next. Almost every one of those sellers has been surprised by at least one of the things below. None of it is a reason not to sell. It is a reason to know the numbers before you list, not after.

Because when you bought, the numbers were smaller and the rules were simpler. A house you paid a few hundred thousand dollars for in 1991 may be worth well over a million now. That gap is your equity, and it is real. But several different taxes and rules attach to that gap when you sell, and they were not on your radar the first time around.

The three that catch longtime Culver City owners off guard, in order of how often they surprise people:

1. Capital gains tax
2. City and county transfer taxes
3. What happens to your property taxes when you buy your next home

Let's take them one at a time.

This is the one that surprises people most, and it is usually the biggest number.

When you sell your primary home, the IRS lets you exclude a portion of your gain from taxes: $250,000 if you file single, $500,000 if you are married filing jointly, as long as you meet the ownership and use tests. Your "gain" is roughly the sale price minus what you originally paid, minus the cost of major improvements you made over the years, minus selling costs.

Here is the problem for longtime Culver City owners. If you bought decades ago and your home has appreciated the way Culver City homes have, your gain can run well past that exclusion. Culver City has drawn major employers into the area over the last decade, including Amazon, Apple, HBO, and Sony, and prices have moved accordingly. A seller who has been in the same house for thirty or forty years can be looking at a taxable gain in the hundreds of thousands of dollars after the exclusion, sometimes more.

What I tell every longtime owner: talk to a CPA before you list, not during escrow. Bring them your original purchase documents and records of any major work you did on the house, since improvements raise your cost basis and lower your taxable gain. A good CPA can tell you the number in an afternoon. Knowing it early changes how you think about pricing, timing, and what you do with the proceeds. Finding out late, when you have already committed to a move, is where people get hurt.

I am not a tax professional and this is not tax advice. It is the conversation I make sure every client has with someone who is.

Culver City is its own city. It sits inside Los Angeles County, but it is not part of the City of Los Angeles, and that distinction costs money when you sell.

Every sale in the county pays the Los Angeles County documentary transfer tax of $1.10 per $1,000 of sale price, about 0.11%. That part is the same everywhere.

The difference is the city tax on top of it, and Culver City and the City of Los Angeles handle it very differently.

Culver City has a marginal transfer tax that voters passed as Measure RE, effective April 2021. Marginal means each portion of the price is taxed at its own rate, not the whole price at the top rate:

• 0.45% on the portion up to $1,499,999
• 1.5% on the portion from $1,500,000 to $2,999,999
• 3.0% on the portion from $3,000,000 to $9,999,999
• 4.0% on the portion above $10,000,000

City of Los Angeles charges a flat base transfer tax of 0.45% on the full price, plus the Measure ULA tax only on high-value sales. As of the thresholds in effect after June 30, 2026 (they are adjusted every year), ULA adds 4% on sales over $5,400,000 and 5.5% on sales of $10,900,000 or more. Below $5,400,000 there is no ULA, so a City of LA seller under that threshold pays about 0.56% total, county plus city base.

Here is what that means in real numbers for a longtime Culver City owner, city and county tax combined:

Figures are calculated from the published Culver City and Los Angeles rate schedules. Confirm the current schedules before relying on a specific number.

Below roughly $1.5M, a Culver City sale and a City of LA sale cost about the same. Above it, the gap opens fast, and a lot of Culver City homes now sell in the range where it matters.

Who pays the city transfer tax is negotiable and varies with the market, but in Culver City the seller customarily covers it. Build it into your net-proceeds estimate from day one.

Under Proposition 13, your property taxes have been based on what you paid for the house decades ago, not what it is worth now. That is why your tax bill has stayed low while your neighbors who bought recently pay several times more.

When you sell and buy again, that protection does not automatically come with you. What happens next depends mostly on your age:

• If you are under 55: your property tax basis resets to the purchase price of your new home. Sell a house you bought for $300,000, buy a replacement for $1.4M, and your property taxes are now based on $1.4M. For many longtime owners that is a large monthly jump, and it needs to be in your budget before you start shopping. (If you are buying as well as selling, here is what it actually takes to buy in Los Angeles.)
• If you are 55 or older: under Proposition 19, you can carry your current (low) property tax basis to a replacement primary residence anywhere in California. You can do this up to three times. You have two years from the sale to buy or build the replacement. If the new home costs more than the one you sold, the difference is added to your transferred value, so your taxes go up somewhat but not all the way to the new purchase price. This can be worth thousands of dollars a year for as long as you own the next home.

If the longtime home is being inherited, Prop 19 changed the rules there too. A child who inherits a parent's house now keeps the parent's low tax basis only if they move in as their own primary residence within one year, and even then, if the home's value is more than about $1 million above the parent's assessed value, part of that excess is added back. An inherited home that becomes a rental or a second home is reassessed to full market value. This is one reason many families now sell an inherited home rather than hold it. (More on that here: Selling a Home You Inherited in Los Angeles: Where to Start.)

Prop 19 also has separate provisions for severely disabled homeowners and for owners whose homes were destroyed in a wildfire or natural disaster. Those are outside the scope of this piece.

I go deeper on this in my post on Prop 19 and your property taxes. None of this is tax advice. It is a conversation to have with a CPA or the county assessor before you sell, because the timing and the sequence matter.

Usually, no. This is where I see longtime owners spend money they do not get back.

Here is the thinking. If your home has not been updated in decades, a full renovation before selling means you are choosing finishes, layouts, and fixtures for a buyer you have not met. Today's buyers want to customize. Many would rather buy a home priced as a blank slate and make it theirs than pay a premium for someone else's recent choices. A renovation also takes months, and the market can move against you while you are in it.

What actually moves a long-held home:

• Paint. A fresh, neutral coat throughout does more per dollar than anything else.
• A deep clean. Not a normal cleaning. The kind that makes the house smell and feel cared for.
• Landscaping cleanup. Trim, weed, mulch, fix the irrigation. First impression starts at the curb.
• Staging. An empty or dated house is hard for buyers to picture living in. Staging fixes that.

Then be honest about the condition. If the home needs a new roof, updated electrical, or has other significant deferred maintenance, disclose it and price accordingly. I also recommend a pre-listing inspection, so buyers know going in what needs attention now and what can wait. A buyer who understands the condition before they write an offer is far less likely to renegotiate or walk after their own inspection. Surprises during escrow cost you money and time. Information up front does not.

I had a listing in Blair Hills, an inherited family home. My clients decided to renovate it before putting it on the market. The remodel took months, and the finished house was genuinely beautiful.

Then the buyer's inspection revealed significant foundation issues. My sellers ended up crediting the buyer $180,000 to close the deal.

When we added it all up, the money spent on the renovation, the months lost, and the way the market shifted while the work was underway, they likely would have netted something similar if they had done the simple version: pull up the carpet, paint, stage, and sell the home as a blank slate with the condition disclosed and the price set accordingly. They would have gotten there faster and with far less stress.

That is not an argument against ever improving a home before a sale. It is an argument for running the math both ways, with a real budget and a real timeline, before you commit. A renovation has to clear a high bar to be worth it, and a lot of them do not.

• Assuming the sale price is the number you walk away with. Transfer taxes, capital gains, any mortgage payoff, and selling costs all come out first. Get a net-proceeds estimate before you list.
• Renovating for the next owner. See above.
• Waiting to talk to a CPA until you are in escrow. By then your options are gone.
• Pricing off a number in your head from years ago, in either direction. Your reference point is decades old. The market's is today.
• Waiting for the perfect market. Longtime owners often want to time it exactly right. The bigger factors are usually your own timeline, your tax situation, and the condition of the home, not shaving a few weeks off a market cycle. (If timing is your main question, see Should I Sell My House in Los Angeles Now or Wait?)

If you have owned your Culver City home for decades and you are starting to think about a move, the useful first step is not listing. It is getting three numbers: your likely net proceeds after transfer taxes and costs, a CPA's read on your capital gains, and an honest assessment of what the home actually needs. Once you have those, the decision usually makes itself. A good agent can get you the first and third in a week, with no obligation to do anything after.

If you would like to talk it through, get in touch.

Do I pay both a Los Angeles and a Culver City transfer tax?

You pay the Los Angeles County documentary transfer tax of 0.11% on any sale in the county, plus Culver City's own marginal city transfer tax, because your home is inside Culver City. You do not also pay the City of Los Angeles transfer tax. The two cities are separate.

I am 62. Can I keep my low property taxes if I move?

Yes, under Proposition 19, if your replacement primary residence is anywhere in California. You can do it up to three times, you have two years from the sale to buy or build, and if the new home costs more than the one you sold, the difference is added to your transferred value. Confirm the specifics with a tax advisor or the county assessor before you sell.

Do I have to fix everything a pre-listing inspection finds?

No. The point of the inspection is to know what is there so you can decide what to address, what to disclose, and how to price. Some items are worth fixing. Many are better handled with disclosure and price.

How long does it take to sell a longtime home in Culver City?

It depends on condition and price, but Culver City has been moving quickly. Over the 12 months ending September 9, 2026, single-family homes sold in a median of about two weeks from list to accepted offer, and roughly 7 in 10 went into contract within 30 days (Source: TheMLS). The homes that sat, past 90 or 120 days, were almost always priced high at the start and had to come down. A longtime home priced right for its actual condition tends to move with the rest of the market, not slower.