This freshly approved City of Los Angeles ordinance will impose a one-time 4% tax on property sale transactions above $5 million that would rise to 5.5% on transactions above $10 million. A $5-million sale would generate a $200,000 tax bill.
This will negatively impact the sellers of all property types including residential and commercial such as retail, office, apartments, and industrial.
In the WSJ article, The U.S. Is Running Out of Land, a professor of finance who studies land values cites that “Land now accounts for 47% of U.S. home values…That is up from 38% in 2012 and less than 20% in the early 1960s.”
So that intrigued me and I pulled a sample of 1,315 industrial zoned parcels from Downtown Los Angeles to the City of Vernon. See below graphic. Dividing the Los Angeles County Assessor Land Value amount by the Total Assessment results in 71% of these industrial properties’ value is the land component. The Total Assessment includes improvements such as warehouse and manufacturing buildings constructed on the land.
That is a strikingly high percentage for land value but should not be surprising given the rapid increase in prices per square foot for land sales in the last decade. In the top section of the graphic, which is the DTLA Arts District, land values have ranged from $300-450/SF in recent years. In the bottom section, City of Vernon land was not long ago $50-100/SF and is now approaching $200/SF.
The Central Los Angeles Industrial Market has been an Infill Market for many years which has resulted in rapid increases in land values. If you own land in this area feel free to contact us.
This property is listed by a separate firm.
In the past few years the Southern California industrial market has been very tight in available cold storage warehouses and food production facilities. Here is a current list of buildings that have some of the following food improvements: freezer, cooler, floor drains, clarifier, refrigerated staging areas, and food grade production rooms. Locations include Los Angeles, Orange, and San Bernardino (Inland Empire) counties. Available for lease or sale / purchase by a variety of firms.
Average Asking Lease Rates have climbed dramatically in the last several years with the largest increases in 2021 and 2022. See below chart showing the steep rise for warehouse asking rental rates in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura and the Inland Empire per AIRCRE MLS data. These are the major industrial property markets in Southern California. Individual markets and submarkets vary along with building class quality.
