A brand-new 13,077-square-foot spec mansion in Brentwood Park has sold for $26 million, a price that comes with a hidden asterisk: the seller now owes Los Angeles roughly $1.43 million under the city's mansion tax, on top of standard closing costs. The property at 12846 Highwood Street, developed by Westside Estate Agency co-founder Kurt Rappaport, closed on September 1 after first hitting the market three years earlier.
Rappaport represented himself in the sale, according to The Real Deal, while Compass agent Josh Flagg brought the buyer, described by Rappaport as a local business executive. Flagg, who stars in Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles, declined to comment on his client, per the same report. The half-acre gated property, built in a warm-contemporary style and completed in 2023, spans five bedrooms and nine bathrooms and includes a Dolby Atmos movie theater, a wine tasting cellar, and a wellness center with a gym, sauna, and massage room, according to Carolwood Estates.
The final sale works out to $1,988 per square foot — a steep discount from the home's original 2023 asking price of $39.9 million, or $3,049 per square foot. It had most recently been listed at $34.5 million, or $2,638 per square foot, before finding a buyer this month.
A Mansion Tax Bill Bigger Than Most Homes
Because the deal closed within Los Angeles city limits, it triggers Measure ULA's 5.5% transfer surcharge on the full $26 million sale price — a bill of roughly $1.43 million owed by the seller, according to the Los Angeles Office of Finance. The tax, in effect since April 2023, applies to sales at or above $10.9 million after annual inflation adjustments, on top of standard municipal and county transfer fees.
Research from UCLA and the Cato Institute has found that Measure ULA cut eligible high-value property transactions in Los Angeles by 38 to 50 percent, generating around $290 million a year — well short of the city's original $600 million to $1.1 billion revenue projections, per the Cato Institute. High-end sellers frequently delay listings or hold assets longer to sidestep the tax hit, the institute's research notes. Nearby Westside submarkets like Beverly Hills and unincorporated Marina del Rey are exempt from the surcharge altogether, giving properties just outside city lines a real pricing edge, according to Bonnie Hyde, as Hoodline reported in its coverage of a record Marina del Rey apartment sale.
That tax landscape could shift dramatically. California voters will decide the Local Taxpayer Protection Act this November, a Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association-backed measure that would cap municipal transfer taxes statewide at 0.05%, according to CalMatters. If it passes, the tax on a $26 million sale like this one would fall from $1.43 million to just $13,000.
Rappaport's Busy Year on the Westside
Rappaport told The Real Deal the deal signals acceleration at the top of the Los Angeles market, and said he was pleased with the outcome. He said his own local buying and selling activity shows conviction in the high-end market. Rappaport currently ranks fifth in The Real Deal's latest ranking of Los Angeles brokers by deal volume, and has handled seven of California's ten most expensive home sales in history, including Oakley founder Jim Jannard's $210 million Malibu deal in 2024 and Jay-Z and Beyoncé's $200 million Malibu purchase in 2023, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal.
Rappaport co-founded Westside Estate Agency in 1999 with Stephen Shapiro, growing the independent brokerage into offices in Beverly Hills, Malibu, and Miami with annual sales volume between $3 billion and $4 billion. He began his real estate career at 19 at Merrill Lynch Realty before forming WEA to serve high-net-worth clients exclusively, per Westside Estate Agency's own account. He also owns 24,000 square feet of commercial space in Beverly Hills' Golden Triangle and owns Funke restaurant in Beverly Hills, though he said he is not currently considering new restaurant ventures in the near term.
The Highwood Street sale is one of several recent moves for Rappaport around the Westside. In March, he sold 12928 Evanston Street in Brentwood, a property sitting on over half an acre, for $29 million in an off-market deal — a figure that works out to $2,560 per square foot. In April, he acquired 642 Siena Way in Bel Air for $22.5 million; that 2.4-acre property had originally been offered for $45 million in 2024. He also told The Real Deal he is watching a couple of other properties.
A Bigger Westside Play in Malibu
In July, a joint venture of Rappaport, Jack Harris and Michael Fahimian of the Beverly Hills Estates, and architect Scott Mitchell paid $55 million for a 2.3-acre lot at 27832 Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, previously owned by former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Peter O'Malley. The group plans to redevelop the mansion on the site.
The Highwood Street sale also lands amid other high-profile per-square-foot benchmarks on the Westside. Diane Keaton's Sullivan Canyon home at 13215 Riviera Ranch Road, for which Flagg served as listing agent, sold in August for $18 million, or $1,955 per square foot — nearly matching the Highwood Street property's rate. Rappaport also served as listing agent this year on a 13,189-square-foot Holmby Hills mansion at 111 North Mapleton Drive near Kylie Jenner, listed for $25.5 million, or roughly $1,933 per square foot, as Hoodline reported in April.
Brentwood Park's Enduring Appeal
Brentwood Park itself has long carried a certain cachet. Subdivided in 1906 by the Western Pacific Development Company on former Mexican land grant acreage, the enclave south of Sunset Boulevard was laid out with curved streets, mature canopy trees, deep setbacks, and strict single-family covenants, according to the Brentwood Park Property Owners Association. It remains one of the city's most preserved estate districts.
Against that backdrop, the broader Brentwood single-family market looks far more modest. The neighborhood's median sold price sits around $4 million in 2026, with listings averaging 40 to 51 days on market and roughly six months of housing inventory, according to Zillow data cited by real estate site Grey Sq. New spec builds within Brentwood Park, however, consistently command premiums near $2,000 per square foot — right in line with where the Highwood Street deal ultimately landed.
