A five-bedroom 1927 Tudor on Waldo Avenue listed for $3,295,000 this past spring and sold the following week for $3,850,000. By the time that file reached closing, the seller had already budgeted for Piedmont's city transfer tax the way most longtime residents do here: as a number they'd heard described, more than once, as the highest flat rate in the state. What actually landed on the settlement statement was $50,050. Had that same house traded in Berkeley at the same price, the city's share alone would have come to $96,250. In Oakland, it would have been $67,375.
That gap is the whole story. Piedmont's transfer tax carries a reputation it earned during a contentious 2020 ballot fight, and the reputation has outlived the math that would actually matter to a seller writing a check.
The reputation Piedmont walked into escrow with
In 2020, Piedmont voters considered Measure TT, a measure that raised the city's flat transfer tax rate by 35 percent. The Piedmont Civic Association's coverage of the campaign captured both sides of the argument, and the opposition's framing has stuck around ever since. Opponents argued Piedmont would end up with
"the highest 'flat' Transfer Tax rate in California"
and that argument wasn't wrong on its own terms. At $13.00 per $1,000 of sale price, or 1.3 percent, the City of Piedmont's own tax page confirms the flat rate opponents were describing back in 2020 is still the rate in effect today. Proponents at the time countered that comparing a flat rate to a graduated one was comparing apples to oranges, since cities like Oakland and Berkeley only apply their top rates to a slice of transactions.
Six years later, that second argument is the one that holds up when you actually run a sale through it.
What flat versus tiered means once the number gets real
Berkeley and Oakland don't charge a single rate. They charge brackets, and both cities apply the applicable bracket rate to the entire sale price rather than just the portion above each threshold. That detail changes everything about how the tax behaves as prices rise.
As of 2026, Berkeley's transfer tax sits at 1.5 percent for sales up to roughly $1.7 million and 2.5 percent for anything above that line, with the full sale price taxed at whichever rate applies. Starting January 1, 2027, Measure W adds two more tiers on top of that, moving to 3.0 percent above roughly $1.9 million and 3.5 percent above roughly $3.0 million, with those thresholds adjusting annually. Oakland's system, established by Measure X and administered through the city's real estate transfer tax program, runs on a similar bracket structure: 1.0 percent up to $300,000, 1.5 percent from $300,001 to $2 million, 1.75 percent from $2,000,001 to $5 million, and 2.5 percent above that, again applied to the whole transaction once a threshold is crossed.
Piedmont's flat rate never moves. It's 1.3 percent whether the sale is $1.5 million or $11 million.
Here's what that looks like at prices Piedmont actually sees. Piedmont's own reported market data puts the median Piedmont sale at $2.8 million as of October 2025, up 22.6 percent year over year:
| Sale price | Piedmont (flat 1.3%) | Berkeley (2026 rate) | Oakland (Measure X) |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1,080,000 | $14,040 | $16,200 | $16,200 |
| $2,800,000 | $36,400 | $70,000 | $49,000 |
| $3,850,000 | $50,050 | $96,250 | $67,375 |
The $1.08 million line represents the lowest recorded Piedmont sale price through the first months of 2026. Even at that price, well below where Piedmont's tax reputation would suggest a penalty, the flat rate still comes out ahead of both tiered neighbors. The $3.85 million line is the Waldo Avenue sale itself. At every point along that range, the city with the "worst" rate on paper produces the smallest bill in practice.
Why the crossover almost never happens here
The reason this holds isn't a coincidence tied to one comp. It's structural. Berkeley's base rate is 1.5 percent, which is higher than Piedmont's 1.3 percent flat rate at every price point, including sales that never cross Berkeley's upper threshold at all. There's no price where Berkeley's rate drops below Piedmont's, because Berkeley doesn't have a tier below 1.5 percent.
Oakland does have a lower entry tier, 1.0 percent on sales up to $300,000, which would beat Piedmont's flat rate if a Piedmont home ever sold in that range. None do. The recorded range of Piedmont sales through early 2026 ran from that $1.08 million low to $11.75 million at the top. Above $300,000, every one of Oakland's brackets, 1.5 percent, 1.75 percent, and 2.5 percent, sits above Piedmont's 1.3 percent. The crossover point where Oakland would actually be cheaper exists mathematically, but it sits well below any price a Piedmont property has traded at in recent memory.
So the flat rate that sounded like a liability during the Measure TT campaign functions, in practice, as a ceiling that the surrounding cities' own bracket structures keep bumping into and exceeding.
What this means before you set a list price
The takeaway for a Piedmont seller isn't that transfer tax is small money. On a $2.8 million sale it's still $36,400, a real line item that belongs on a net sheet from the first pricing conversation, not a surprise read off the closing statement. The takeaway is that the number is more predictable here than in either neighboring city, because there's no threshold to plan around and no bracket to land on the wrong side of by pricing a home $50,000 higher than expected after a bidding war.
Who actually pays the tax, buyer, seller, or some split, isn't fixed by the city. It's a term in the purchase contract, and in many Alameda County transactions it gets negotiated alongside price and contingencies rather than assumed. That's worth raising early with whoever is representing you, especially in a market where homes are selling well above list.
It's also worth watching what happens across the border. Berkeley's move to a third and fourth tier in January 2027 widens the gap further for any Berkeley sale above roughly $1.9 million. Piedmont's rate isn't scheduled to change. The comparison that already favors Piedmont sellers on the closing statement is set to favor them by a wider margin next year.
A few questions we hear about this
Does the county charge its own transfer tax on top of the city's? Yes. Alameda County adds its own transfer tax of $1.10 per $1,000 of sale price, roughly 0.11 percent, and this applies identically in Piedmont, Berkeley, and Oakland. It doesn't change the comparison between the three cities since it's the same rate everywhere. It's customarily a seller-paid cost, though like the city tax, that's negotiable.
Could Piedmont ever raise its transfer tax rate again? Any change would require another ballot measure, the same mechanism that produced Measure TT in 2020. There's no pending measure to raise the flat rate as of this writing.
Does the flat rate ever work against a Piedmont seller? Only in theory, at price points well below anything Piedmont has recorded. For any sale in the range this market actually produces, the flat structure has stayed the cheaper option relative to both Berkeley's and Oakland's tiered systems.
Numbers like these are exactly why a net sheet should get built early, not after an accepted offer. If you're weighing a sale in Piedmont, or comparing what a move to Berkeley or Oakland would actually cost at closing, Anian Tunney and Adrienne Krumins can walk through the specific math for your address before you set a price.