What Sale Price Triggers Albany's Top Transfer Tax Rate? Nobody Can Tell You Yet

What sale price triggers Albany's top transfer tax rate instead of its bottom rate? Ask that question this month and the honest answer is that no one, not your agent, not the city, not anyone writing about it right now, can give you a fixed number. That's not a gap in reporting. It's how the measure headed to Albany's November ballot was built to work.

On July 20, 2026, the Albany City Council voted to send a measure to the November 3 ballot that would replace the city's flat real property transfer tax with a five-tier structure. Under the current rule, every seller in Albany pays the same $15.00 per $1,000 of sale price to the city, plus the standard $1.10 per $1,000 Alameda County charges on every transfer, for a combined $16.10 per $1,000 no matter what the home sells for. The measure on this fall's ballot would change that math, but not the way sellers in neighboring cities have gotten used to.

What The Measure Actually Does

City staff described the new structure to the council in percentile terms rather than dollar terms. The bottom 25 percent of Albany property transfers, ranked by sale price, would pay a 1 percent city rate, roughly $10.00 per $1,000. The top 10 percent would pay 3 percent, roughly $30.00 per $1,000. Three tiers sit between those two ends, though the specific breakpoints for the middle bands weren't included in the public reporting on the vote. The council also directed staff to soften the ballot language from "increase" to "adjust," since the structure actually lowers the rate on lower-priced sales while raising it at the top rather than raising it across the board.

This transfer tax change is one of six measures Albany voters will decide in November, alongside updates to zoning rules for single-family lots, a street paving and storm drain parcel tax, an emergency medical services and fire protection parcel tax, a business license tax formula change, and a new street trees and streetlighting parcel tax. Whatever happens with the transfer tax specifically, it's arriving as part of a broader push to shore up city revenue as pandemic-era federal funding runs out.

Why This Isn't Berkeley's Or Emeryville's Tax

Two other cities in the same county already run tiered transfer taxes, and both work the way most people picture a bracket system working, with a fixed dollar line you can see in advance. Emeryville's tiered rate, set by Measure O in 2014, charges 1.2 percent under $1 million, 1.5 percent from $1 million to $2 million, and 2.5 percent above that, applied to the entire sale price once a transaction crosses the line, not just the portion over it. Berkeley runs something similar, charging a lower rate below roughly $1.5 million and a higher rate above it, with a further increase on the highest-value transfers scheduled to take effect January 1, 2027 under a measure voters approved in 2024. In both cities, a seller and their agent can look at recent comparables, see exactly where the line sits, and price a listing with that line in view.

Albany's proposal doesn't give you that line. Because the tiers are set as percentiles of actual transfers rather than fixed dollar amounts, and because city staff told the council the breakpoints would be recalculated every year using a rolling 12-month window, the price that lands a sale in the top 10 percent this year is a figure that only exists after the fact. The first window under discussion runs from September 2025 through August 2026. A seller closing in the spring of 2027 would be measured against a different 12-month window than a seller closing this fall, and neither one would know exactly where their tier's edge falls until the city runs the numbers on what actually sold.

A Volatile Number By Design

City finance staff didn't soften what this means for the city's own budgeting, and the same words apply to anyone trying to plan around the tax as a seller. Presenting the proposal, staff called transfer tax revenue "a very volatile source" and explained that using a one-year rolling average, rather than the three-year average the council also considered, would produce larger swings from one year to the next while keeping the tiers closer to whatever the market is actually doing in the moment.

That tradeoff cuts both ways for a seller. A market that cools between one 12-month window and the next could pull the top-tier cutoff down, meaning a sale that would have landed in a middle tier last year lands in the top tier this year at the same price. A market that heats up does the opposite. Either way, the number moves without anyone changing the ordinance itself.

Public comment at the same July 20 meeting focused heavily on the potential sale of Golden Gate Fields, the city's well known horse racing track site that's been the subject of redevelopment speculation for years. It's the kind of property that would land squarely in the top tier under almost any version of this structure, and it's a useful anchor for understanding what the measure is actually built to capture: a small number of very large transactions, not the typical single-family sale that makes up most of Albany's market.

What This Means If You're Selling In Albany

None of this changes anything for a sale that closes before the measure passes, if it passes. The current flat $16.10 per $1,000 combined rate stays in effect until voters decide otherwise on November 3 and any new structure takes effect on its own timeline. When Albany voters last changed this rate, approving Measure CC in November 2020 to raise the city's flat rate from $11.50 to $15.00 per $1,000, the new rate took effect on January 1 of the following year. If this measure passes and follows a similar pattern, sellers closing in the first weeks of 2027 could be among the first affected, though the certified ballot language will ultimately set the actual date.

For a seller weighing timing this year against next, the practical takeaway isn't to try to price around a specific dollar figure the way a seller in Emeryville might structure a sale around the $1 million line. It's to understand that if this passes, the city rate on your sale depends on how your price ranks against every other Albany transfer in a 12-month window you won't be able to see in full until after your own sale has already closed. That's a different planning problem than a fixed threshold, and it makes a direct conversation with your agent about recent comparable sales in Albany worth having before you set a listing price or lock in a closing date this fall or next year.

A Few Questions Worth Settling Before You List

• Have the middle three tier breakpoints been published yet, and if not, when are they expected?
• What does the trailing 12-month sales data for Albany actually show for homes near your expected price point?
• If the measure passes, will your planned closing date fall before or after the new structure takes effect?

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the current flat rate still apply if I sell before November? Yes. The flat $15.00 per $1,000 city rate, combined with the county's $1.10 per $1,000, applies to any sale closing under the existing ordinance. Nothing changes unless voters approve the measure on November 3, 2026.

Who pays the transfer tax in Albany, the buyer or the seller? California law doesn't assign the tax to either party by default. It's negotiable and typically spelled out in the purchase contract, which is one more reason to raise it with your agent early rather than assume a standard split.

Is this the first time Albany has changed its transfer tax by ballot? No. Voters approved Measure CC in November 2020, raising the city's flat rate from $11.50 to $15.00 per $1,000. This November's measure would be the second time in six years that Albany voters have been asked to change how this tax works.

If you're weighing a sale in Albany this year or next and want to talk through how this measure, or any of the other five items on November's ballot, might affect your timeline, Diana Sweet Homes can walk through what the current numbers look like for your specific property and price point.