`docs/la-recent-sales-sourcing-memo.md`

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# LA current-sales (2025/2026) sourcing memo — CRCP deal flow

**Question:** how to get current (2025/2026) LA County closed sales into CRCP, given the assessor annual roll lags 1–2 years. **Constraint (Steve):** public-record / address-level facts ONLY — no proprietary MLS/CoStar/CoreLogic/ATTOM/CREXi redistribution.

## The structural reality
No FREE public bulk source gives full-market LA sales (address + price + grantor + grantee + instrument) in near-real-time. CA privacy law (Gov. Code §6254.21) blocks online posting of the Registrar-Recorder grantor/grantee index; the PCOR that holds sale price is confidential by statute; the assessor roll lags by design. Proprietary vendors (NETR/ATTOM/CoreLogic) only have it via commercial licensing — excluded per Steve's rule.

## Two non-proprietary paths that WORK

### ★ Rank 1 — IMMEDIATE: LA City Measure ULA dataset (Socrata, free, live)
- **Endpoint:** `https://data.lacity.org/resource/jqan-regh.json` (dataset `jqan-regh`), SODA API, no auth, no cost.
- **Current through Aug 2026.** 1,709 rows.
- **Fields:** RR/CC instrument number (`id`), month, fiscal_year, ULA `revenue`, `transaction_value` bracket, `property_use` (Commercial / Multi-Family / SFR), `zip_code`, `council_district`.
- **Exact price derivation:** bracket `$5.3–10.6M` → price = revenue/0.04; `Over $10.6M` → revenue/0.055 (ULA is on full price, no lien ambiguity). Verified against sample rows.
- **Covers:** LA City sales **$5.3M+** — i.e., the high-value, newsworthy CRE deals. **Misses:** unincorporated county + other cities, sub-$5.3M; no street address or party names (ZIP + district only; enrich via instrument number).
- **Adapter effort: 2–4 hrs.** Poll by max index, derive price, tag source. Best built as a usre adapter (`ula`) feeding `recent_commercial_deals` → CRCP consumes the LA subset.

### Rank 3 — TENYRSALES multifamily benchmark (ArcGIS, free, static)
- `.../TENYRSALES50to300UNITSpt5A_2024/FeatureServer/0` — 50–300 unit multifamily, ALL LA County, confirmed SalePrice + DTT. Static through **Nov 2024** (annual). Historical benchmark, not a live feed. ~15-min adapter. Watch for a 2025 edition.

## Full-coverage paths (bigger, gated)
- **CPRA request** to RR/CC for a machine-readable grantor/grantee INDEX extract (instrument#, doc type, recording date, grantor, grantee, AIN). Free to file, 1–6 wk, MAY be denied (they treat real-estate records as "purchased"); price still needs DTT off each deed face. Medium effort + uncertain.
- **Assessor Data Sales program** (`datasales@assessor.lacounty.gov`) — paid bulk change-of-ownership file (full fields incl. price). ~$500–5,000, negotiable cadence. Cleanest full-coverage but $.

## Verified non-starters
Statewide CA deed DB (none); PCOR (confidential §480(b)); RR/CC online index (§6254.21); NETR/ATTOM/CoreLogic (proprietary, per-record paid); LA open-data portals (nothing beyond roll + ULA).

## Recommendation
1. **Now (free, ~2–4 hrs):** build the ULA adapter in usre → surfaces current 2025/2026 high-value LA City CRE deals with exact prices into `recent_commercial_deals`; wire CRCP to consume the LA subset (alongside the existing SEC EDGAR feed, now fixed to show 2025/2026).
2. **If full county coverage is wanted:** price the Assessor Data Sales change-of-ownership file (paid) — that's the only clean path to all-of-county, all-price-point current sales without proprietary licensing.

## DTT price-derivation reference
County base $1.10/$1,000 (net of encumbrances — exact for cash/debt-retired CRE). LA City adds $4.50/$1,000 base + ULA (4%/5.5%). Zero-DTT deeds (gifts, divorce, same-owner entity restructures, govt) → price not derivable.

_Scoped 2026-08-06 by la-research-agent (source-verified). Research only — no build without Steve's go._