{"id":195341,"date":"2026-02-26T20:41:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T20:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/195341\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T20:41:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T20:41:13","slug":"san-francisco-transfer-tax-poised-to-be-slashed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/195341\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco Transfer Tax Poised to Be Slashed"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Francisco leaders are taking aim at one of the city\u2019s priciest deal taxes.<\/p>\n

Mayor Daniel Lurie and Supervisor Bilal Mahmood introduced legislation to cut the city\u2019s transfer tax in half on large real estate transactions, the San Francisco Chronicle reported<\/a>. Lurie and Mahmood\u2019s efforts are a bid to unstick tens of thousands of entitled but stalled housing units.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The proposed legislation, known as the Balanced Update to Incentivize Local Development (BUILD) Act would roll rates back to pre-2020 levels, lowering the tax from 5.75 percent to 2.75 percent on deals of at least $10 million and from 6 percent to 3 percent on transactions over $25 million.<\/p>\n

Lurie and Mahmood\u2019s proposal would effectively unwind former Supervisor Dean Preston<\/a>\u2019s Proposition I, a 2020 ballot measure that doubled transfer taxes on high-dollar sales and passed with 57 percent of the vote. Between 2021 and 2024, the tax generated $324 million<\/a>. Lurie and Mahmood are able to bypass another ballot fight thanks to a 2024 proposition allowing transfer taxes to be lowered legislatively.<\/p>\n

To make up for lost revenue, Lurie, Mahmood and Assessor Joaquin Torres plan to introduce a companion ballot measure eliminating a longstanding tax exemption<\/a> for foreclosures and deed-in-lieu foreclosures<\/a> where owners surrender distressed properties to lenders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lurie and Mahmood said the changes will encourage housing construction, according to the Chronicle. Lurie\u2019s administration estimates the 50 percent cut could save developers roughly $32,000 per unit on multifamily projects that are sold after construction and leasing, as developers often do. The San Francisco Building & Construction Trades Council and the Chamber of Commerce are in support of the effort. Rudy Gonzalez, secretary-treasurer for the San Francisco Building & Construction Trades Council, said the hope is that the transfer tax reduction would help restart the stalled 34,000 housing units in San Francisco\u2019s pipeline that are part of large multi-phased projects.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since 2020, San Francisco has had some of the country\u2019s highest transfer tax rates, along with Los Angeles and that city\u2019s controversial Measure ULA transfer tax<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2014 Chris Malone M\u00e9ndez<\/p>\n

\tRead more
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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"San\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

San Francisco\u2019s transfer tax revenue plunges to 12-year low<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Mayor\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tResidential\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

This week: Lurie bets on tax incentives for office conversions\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Progressive Preston concedes to moderate Mahmood in SF\u2019s District 5<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Francisco leaders are taking aim at one of the city\u2019s priciest deal taxes. Mayor Daniel Lurie and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,91220,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-195341","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-san-francisco","9":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","10":"tag-san-francisco-news","11":"tag-san-francisco-transfer-tax","12":"tag-sf","13":"tag-sf-headlines","14":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}