Outpost Estates in 2026: What Eight Recent Sales Say About Hollywood's First Hillside Tract

What Do Homes Actually Sell for in Outpost Estates in 2026?

Eight houses closed in Outpost Estates between July 2 and September 9, 2026, and they ran from $1,625,000 to $4,280,000, with a median right around $3,022,000, according to Redfin's recorded sales for the Outpost neighborhood. That is a wide band for eight transactions inside a tract of roughly 450 homes, and the spread has almost nothing to do with which street a house sits on. It tracks condition.

By Paul Blair | September 19, 2026

Outpost Estates is the pocket of the Hollywood Hills that sits directly above Franklin Avenue, bounded by Mulholland Drive to the north, Runyon Canyon Park to the west, and Hollywood Heights and the Hollywood Bowl to the east. Buyers who know the Hollywood Hills usually know Outpost Drive by name and rarely know the tract has its own boundaries, its own architectural history, and its own pricing behavior. This year's sales are a good place to see all three.

The eight sales, and what separates them

Here is the closed set, in order of price, all drawn from the same Redfin record above:

Two things jump out. First, the price per square foot range, roughly $771 to $1,213, is nearly a 60 percent spread inside one tract in one quarter. Second, only one of the eight cleared its asking price. Five closed within a point or two of list, and two closed 15 and 18 percent under. Redfin's own summary for the neighborhood carries the same message from an earlier and thinner period, showing a 92.5 percent sale-to-list ratio and zero homes selling above asking.

For context, the wider Hollywood Hills posted a $1,849,107 median and $690 per square foot over the three months ending August 2026, on 77 sales, with a 99.3 percent sale-to-list ratio and 58 median days on market, per Redfin's Hollywood Hills market page. Outpost Estates trades well above that median and well above that per-foot figure, and it negotiates harder. A small tract of architecturally specific houses produces fewer directly comparable sales, which gives both sides more room to argue about value.

A 1920s tract with rules attached

The reason condition matters so much here is that most of the original housing stock is still standing. Charles E. Toberman, the developer behind the Egyptian, El Capitan, and Grauman's Chinese theatres, assembled the land through the 1920s, buying the Outpost acreage from producer Jesse Lasky and beginning serious development in 1926, according to PBS SoCal. The name came from The Outpost, an 1853 adobe built by Don Tomas Urquidez that later belonged to Los Angeles Times founder Harrison Gray Otis.

Toberman sold the tract on infrastructure as much as scenery. Lots came with concrete roads and sidewalks, ornamental street lighting, and underground utilities, which made it one of the first neighborhoods in the country to bury its wires, per the Outpost Neighborhood Association's own history. Deeds carried design requirements: Spanish, Mediterranean, or California modern, red kiln tile roofs rather than flat ones, and sign-off from an architectural committee, as Wikipedia's entry on the tract records. A 30 foot neon sign spelling OUTPOST once stood above the hill, dimmed during the Second World War and left to corrode until hikers found the remains near Runyon Canyon in 2002.

The homeowners association incorporated in 1967 and spent the next two decades pushing back on hillside development, work that ended with Runyon Canyon being bought and designated a city park in 1984. That history is why a buyer today is usually choosing between a 1920s or 1930s house that someone has already restored and a 1920s or 1930s house that nobody has touched since the 1970s. The 1836 Outpost Drive sale, the only one of the eight to clear its ask, did so at $1,213 per square foot. The 2627 Outpost Drive sale, 18 percent under ask at $959 per square foot on 1,694 square feet, is the other end of that trade. Neither number is a comment on the street. Both are a comment on what was done to the house.

If you own in Outpost Estates and want a read on where your own house falls in that spread rather than a blended neighborhood average, request a confidential valuation and we will work through the comps that actually apply to your parcel.

What Measure ULA does, and does not, do here

Outpost Estates addresses sit inside the City of Los Angeles, so Measure ULA applies in principle. In practice, none of these eight sales triggered it. The tax runs at 4 percent on consideration above $5,400,000 and 5.5 percent at $10,900,000 or more, per the Los Angeles Office of Finance, and the top sale of the group came in at $4,280,000, more than a million dollars short of the first tier.

What those sellers did pay is the ordinary stack: Los Angeles County's documentary transfer tax at $1.10 per $1,000, and the city's own base transfer tax at 0.45 percent. On the $4,280,000 Malaga Road sale that works out to about $4,708 to the county and $19,260 to the city, roughly $23,968 all in.

The reason this matters in Outpost Estates specifically is the shape of the threshold. Measure ULA is a cliff, not a bracket. It applies to the entire sale price once the price clears the tier, not just the portion above it. A house here that sells at $5,350,000 owes about $29,960 in combined transfer tax. The same house at $5,450,000 owes about $248,520, because the 4 percent tier attaches to the whole number. Given that Outpost Estates produces sales in the $3 million to $5 million range, that cliff sits directly in the path of its better renovations. It is worth modeling before a list price is set, not after an offer arrives. The nearby Bird Streets sit almost entirely above the threshold, which makes them a different pricing problem altogether.

Hillside diligence in a hillside tract

The same terrain that produced the views produces the inspection list. Expect grading, retaining wall, drainage, and access questions on most of these parcels, and expect the Natural Hazard Disclosure to carry weight rather than being a formality. Fire Hazard Severity Zone designations changed across the Santa Monica Mountains after the state updated its maps, and no source publishes a reliable tract-level tier for Outpost Estates as a whole, so confirm any specific address against the Los Angeles Fire Department's fire zone map and the state fire marshal's Fire Hazard Severity Zone maps rather than assuming from a neighbor's parcel. Insurance quotes should be pulled early here, because on a $3 million house the difference between a standard carrier and a surplus lines policy can move the monthly cost of ownership more than a quarter point on the loan.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where exactly is Outpost Estates?

Outpost Estates is a tract of roughly 450 homes in the Hollywood Hills, bounded by Mulholland Drive on the north, Franklin Avenue on the south, Runyon Canyon Park on the west, and Hollywood Heights and the Hollywood Bowl on the east. Outpost Drive is the spine, with El Cerrito Place, La Presa Drive, and Malaga Road among the streets that recorded sales this year.

What do homes sell for in Outpost Estates right now?

Eight recorded sales between July 2 and September 9, 2026 ran from $1,625,000 to $4,280,000, with a median of about $3,022,000 and a price per square foot range of roughly $771 to $1,213. Only one of the eight closed above its asking price.

Does Measure ULA apply to a sale in Outpost Estates?

It applies in principle, since the tract is inside the City of Los Angeles, but none of the eight 2026 sales reached the $5,400,000 first tier. Sellers below that threshold pay the county documentary transfer tax of $1.10 per $1,000 plus the city's 0.45 percent base transfer tax. Because Measure ULA attaches to the full sale price once the threshold is crossed, a price near $5,400,000 should be modeled carefully before listing.

Are Outpost Estates homes still subject to the original design restrictions?

The tract was developed with deed requirements for Spanish, Mediterranean, or California modern designs, kiln tile roofs, and architectural committee approval, and a homeowners association incorporated in 1967 to maintain those standards. What binds any individual parcel today depends on that parcel's recorded documents and current city hillside regulations, so review the preliminary title report and confirm permitting scope before planning a renovation.

How do I choose an agent for a sale in a small Hollywood Hills tract like this one?

What matters is transaction experience on hillside parcels, where grading, drainage, access, insurance, and disclosure questions show up far more often than they do on flat lots, plus enough familiarity with the tract to price a restored house and an original house differently. I have worked hillside and canyon transactions across Los Angeles for years alongside my Dallas practice, and I am happy to walk through what that means for a specific Outpost Estates address. Start a conversation whenever you are ready.

Outpost Estates was built as a marketing idea in 1926 and it has survived a century mostly intact, which is unusual for anything in Hollywood. The 2026 sales show a market that still pays a premium for the architecture and still discounts hard for deferred work, with very little middle ground. If you are weighing a purchase or a sale here, schedule a private consultation and we will go through the specific comps, or look through what is currently available across our Los Angeles listings.

I have spent enough time on hillside transactions in this part of Los Angeles to know that the gap between a restored 1920s house and an original one is usually the whole negotiation, and Outpost Estates is where that gap shows up most clearly.

About Paul Blair

Paul Blair is the founder and broker of Grey Square, a virtual real estate brokerage representing buyers and sellers across Dallas and Los Angeles. With 22 years in the business and more than $200 million in closed transactions, Paul works the full range of the market, from luxury homes in the Park Cities and Preston Hollow to estates in the Hollywood Hills and across the Westside. Connect with Paul and the Grey Square team at greysq.com. TX TREC #9011505, CA DRE #01792671.