Westlake Lot Sells for $6.5M, Permit Seeks $14.7M Tower
The site's assessed value sat at $1.6 million as recently as 2019, before the lot was priced for redevelopment.
A 1905 triplex on a 6,226-square-foot lot in Westlake has traded for $6.5 million implied by the recorded transfer tax, and the parcel now carries a submitted LADBS permit declaring $14.7 million in construction value for an 8-story factory-built apartment building.
Why it matters
The jump in land value tells builders exactly where redevelopment math has moved in Westlake. The Assessor’s record shows the same lot, at 726 Hartford Ave., sold for $1.6 million as recently as December 2019; the current owner paid roughly four times that for a three-unit building whose improvements the Assessor still counts as worthless. That gap only closes if the buyer is pricing the dirt for a ground-up tower, not the existing structure, and the permit filed three months after the sale confirms that is exactly the plan. The project uses the state’s factory-built housing and SB 330 and Executive Directive 1 provisions, which compress city review timelines, a path more builders are testing on small, oddly shaped infill lots like this one.
The numbers
The deed recorded July 15, 2026, with a price implied by the Documentary Transfer Tax of $6.5 million; Los Angeles County assesses the transfer tax at $1.10 per $1,000 of value, and the city’s Measure ULA adds a further 4% on transfers above $5 million, which this one clears. The permit, filed Oct. 20, 2026 as a supplemental to an earlier submission, describes an 8-story, 93.5-foot building built using factory-built housing methods and declares $14.7 million in construction value. The existing structure on the site is a three-unit, 3,393-square-foot building the Assessor dates to 1905.
What’s next
The permit remains in submitted status, not yet issued. It is the latest in a run of Los Angeles parcels where a recent deed and a fresh permit landed on the same site within months, following a similar Koreatown deed-and-permit combination earlier this month. For Los Angeles builders tracking factory-built housing filings, the plan-check timeline on this one is the next marker of how fast the fast-track process actually moves.
On the record
Primary record
- Public recordThe Assessor's ownership history for parcel 5143009005 shows the prior sale recorded Dec. 19, 2019 at $1.6 million, versus the July 15, 2026 transfer at $6.5 million implied by the recorded transfer tax, a roughly fourfold jump on the same 6,226-square-foot lot in under seven years.View the record on portal.assessor.lacounty.gov
- Los Angeles Department of Building and SafetyPermit 25010-10001-04656: 8-story factory-built apartment building, 726 Hartford Ave