Get Rich Education 537: How to Increase Your Real Estate ROI with a Cost Segregation
Cost segregation studies can significantly reduce taxable income by accelerating depreciation on rental properties. They reclassify certain property components, such as flooring and lighting, to shorter depreciation schedules (5, 7, or 15 years) instead of the standard 27.5 years for residential or 39 years for commercial properties.
This method can result in substantial tax savings. For example, a $510,000 duplex study yielded $131,000 in accelerated depreciation, potentially saving $40,000 in taxes at a 30% rate.
Although the percentage has been stepping down, it may be reinstated to 100% under the Trump administration.
Initiate a cost segregation study estimate here to determine the potential tax savings.
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Complete episode transcript:
Automatically Transcribed With Otter.ai
Keith Weinhold 0:01
Welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, when you reduce your taxable income, that's a zero risk return on your investment. You'll learn how to do that today with any rental real estate that you own through what's known as a cost segregation study, even those without a giant portfolio can save 10s or hundreds of 1000s of dollars. An expert guests and I break it down with real life examples, see just how it can help you today. On get rich education
Speaker 1 0:34
since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors, and delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show, guess who? Top Selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki, get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast, or visit get rich education.com
Corey Coates 1:19
You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.
Keith Weinhold 1:35
Welcome to GRE from Berlin, Pennsylvania to Berlin, Germany and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold. You're listening to get rich education. And one way that I like to be positioned in real estate is the sense that I own it directly, yet I use a property manager so that I'm shielded from the day to day responsibility. I care, but I can still live my life now you might favor direct ownership like I do, yet choose to self manage your property instead. That's a viable way to do it. Self management is how I started out, but however you handle the management when you own directly, you can alter your effective post tax rate of return on your investment, and that's what we're talking about doing today with a cost segregation what this effectively does is increase your tax depreciation benefit. Though depreciation sounds bad as a word in the real estate world, even without spending any of your own money, it's still classified by the tax code as an expense that you can deduct from your taxable income. You don't want to reduce your income, only the taxable income reducing the portion that the IRS can get a piece of. Now, unless it's a condo, your rental property probably includes both a structure called the improvement and also the land. Now your improvement has components that wear out, and even the IRS knows that the land does not wear out yet. There are items on the land that you can get this accelerated depreciation on through a cost segregation, like fencing and lighting and carports. A lot of people don't know that, so there is therefore a land improvement segregation often on a 15 year schedule, but it's even more lucrative to get cost segregations applied to things inside your building or home that wear out faster, like countertops or flooring, as we'll see today, on shorter schedules, like five or seven years. Said another way what you're doing is that you are shielding more of your taxable income. And I'm going to ask today's Cost Segregation expert guest for an example near the start of our conversation, so he'll give us some numbers. And you want to listen to that part closely, and you might find yourself skipping back to re listen to some parts today as we give real life examples on how a cost seg works. Now, today is a Presidential Inauguration Day, so it's appropriate that we cover this today, because Trump is widely expected to reset 100% bonus depreciation, which, as you'll see, factors into our discussion today. And frequent GRE guest Tom wheelwright thinks that this is going to happen too this 100% bonus depreciation. What that means that, for example, all those land improvements that I mentioned on a 15 year depreciation schedule, where you could front load it and get it all in year one of your ownership and those components indoors. On shorter depreciation schedules, like five to seven years, you can get all those write offs in year one without waiting five to seven years. So that's. The sweetener that 100% bonus depreciation is, if Trump indeed brings that back, and you might say, wait a second, this sounds a little too good to be true. I mean, getting these amounts, you'll see they can be over 100k in tax savings, even for a small investor, that you can reduce your taxable income by Well, you know, it is just a little too good to be true, because when you sell the property down the road, you have to pay back 25% of what you wrote off this way in what's known as a depreciation recapture tax. So it's still worth doing. In a lot of cases, you would keep 75% of your benefit then, unless you do a tax deferred exchange on your sale, and then you could defer that 25% depreciation recapture tax. So yes, today's episode is deeper than most. And you know, being a Presidential Inauguration Day, and knowing that I like to drop a little levity here before we delve into deep topics, what does the outgoing presidential administration have to say about cost? Segregations get hot.
Speaker 2 6:13
I got Lana. I got hairy legs that turn that turnblonde in the sun, and the kids used to come up and reach in the pool and rub my leg down so it was trained, and then watch the hair come back up again.
Keith Weinhold 6:32
I don't know what just happened there. Let me just give him another chance to clear things up. I mean, you really can do a cost segregation,
Speaker 2 6:41
we have this notion that somehow, if you're poor, you cannot do it. Poor kids are just as bright and just as tall as white kids.
Keith Weinhold 6:51
Gosh, oh dear, I don't I don't know where to go with that. And hey, if you're a new listener, you know, over time, we poke a little fun at every president. We do with Trump as well. We do with Jerome Powell. No one is immune around here. Some people, hey, they might find it funny that a former real estate investor President like Trump wants to expand America's real estate portfolio by taking Canada and Greenland in the Panama Canal back too. Politics matter, but this is not a politically partisan platform in any way. What's politically partisan? It's saying that the economy is like absolutely awful, but then as soon as your guy gets sworn in, one hour later, you're willing to call that same economy. Now suddenly, a great economy. No, a national economy does not change in one hour. So free thinking and thinking for yourself beats polarizing political partisanship. That's a way it's been around here from day one. Yeah, a little levity, a good knee slapper now and then knee slapper coming up in future weeks on the show here, the real estate guys radio show host and a friend, Robert Helms, will be here to update us on what's happening in the short term rental market, mid term rental market and more. We'll also announce a big collaboration that he and I are going to do together this year, and you'll be invited to join us today, let's discuss cost segregation.
You can take your tax burden and put a huge dent in it by accelerating your real estate depreciation deduction with a cost segregation This could save you 1000s of dollars every year or more depending on the size of your real estate portfolio. We're talking about how to specifically do this with a cost seg expert. He's been a real estate investor for over 20 years. He builds new rentals to hold, and he and his son do that together. In fact, you're currently building a 24 unit complex now. But the reason he's here is because he started a specific cost segregation company in 2012 and he completes over 100 cost seg studies every year. So he's really the guy to talk to. Steve, welcome on to the show. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. It's great to have an expert like you here and Steve, I think a lot of real estate investors, they're familiar with tax depreciation. That's where for rental property, with residential, there's a 27 and a half year schedule. And commercial has a 39 year schedule. We take the reciprocal of those numbers, and that means that, for example, in residential, you can write off about 3.6% of the improved property value every year. That's pretty nice on a 500k property that right there is 18k that can be sheltered from taxes annually. But most investors stop right there. So in a lot of cases, they aren't maximizing their tax benefit. You can write off substantially more than that, potentially. With a cost segregation. So tell us about it.
Steve Trussell 10:04
Cost Segregation. As you just mentioned, you have your regular depreciation, which most do take. Believe it or not, I've come across a few people that own property for a few years, and they're not taking it at all, which is, I don't understand that maybe they're doing on accounting, but we get them on track with that. But as you said, 27 and a half and 39 year depreciation, whether it's residential, 27 a half commercial, 39 that's all well and good, but there's a lot of money left on the table, because when you look at the the piece of real estate, there's a probably 22 to 32% of the asset itself, the depreciable asset that's shorter life, for example, cabinets, flooring, light fixtures, uh, outside the landscaping, retaining walls, things like that that are shorter life. So what we do in a cost segregation study, we go in and we rebuild the property through an engineered study, we pull out the five and the 15 year property and reclassified. And so usually you're going to wind up with about 70, 75% of it will stay on the schedule. It was on whether it be 27 and a half or 39 but then that 20 to 30% that we're going to bring forward is a huge number. So for example, I just recently did one. It was a duplex, $510,000 was the purchase 433, was the basis, after land, the depreciable basis. It was kicking out about 16,000 a year in regular depreciation. For the investor, which covered, you know, their cash flow and so forth, so forth. Most people know how that works. We were able to go back and accelerate it and get 131,000 or about 31% of it in 515, year property. So they had $131,000 depreciation amount sitting there. Then they still were able to write off the 302, that was left at 11,000 a year. So they're still getting their normal depreciation, a smaller number, but that 131,000 if they can use it with bonus depreciation, is $131,000 of money sitting there. They could offset $131,000 of income. That's a huge number. If they're not doing that now, they're leaving money on the table.
Keith Weinhold 12:01
Gosh, $131,000 of potential tax sheltering, which is, yeah, a huge number on a 500k duplex, like you described.
Steve Trussell 12:11
It's a substantial number. And if you're not doing cost segregation, then you're leaving a lot of money on the table, like I said. So then it comes down to it. It's a, I guess, cost versus benefits. So the first thing we do is, I get the data from your purchase of your piece of real estate or server, whatever it is, we put together an estimate of benefit to give you an idea of what that would look like for you, like in this example, that's what we produced. Was what we thought we could bring forward for this investor. And then at that point, once we determine that you look at 131,000 the cost of our study is $1,830 so 131 versus 1830 is a pretty good bargain. I believe. I mean, I know I'm selling my product, but that's a pretty good bargain. Yeah. And then the third part of it is, so we've established that it's probably makes sense. But then can you use it? If you're a real estate professional, if you're familiar with what that means, you can write that off against your active and passive income. If you're not, you're a w2 and you're not quite there. Yet it may be that you don't do it now. You do it in a couple of years, but either way, the process is there when you can use it. Probably 80% of my investors are able to use it the year we do it. And if you don't use all of it, you carry it forward. So it's makes sense, typically, to do a cost segregation study, but that's what we help you establish by one, the estimate, and two, discussing with you or with your CPA, does this fit you? Is this something you can use as from a tax standpoint?
Keith Weinhold 13:37
Yes, it was just a few episodes ago. I describe more about what real estate professional status is. The main thing is, typically, real estate needs to be you, the investor's principal activity. So it's not very likely that you're going to be a real estate professional if you still have a full time day job.
Steve Trussell 13:56
There are doctors and lawyers and people like that that have a full time job, and they just could not justify spending the amount of time and being a real estate professional. But sometimes their wife would be the candidate to be that. So their wife becomes or this, or the husband. If the wife is there's the breadwinner, becomes the real estate professional, and then they can take that and write it off against their active income. And I don't want to jump into the CPA side of this. That's more of a CPA question, but that's how I understand it works. And I've seen that happen before, where someone who has a full time job is able to bring their spouse in as their real estate professional, and they're able to use utilize it that way.
Keith Weinhold 14:34
Well, to talk more about this benefit of $131,000 on the duplex example that you gave, if all that is able to be deducted at a 30% income tax rate, that is 40k of savings. 40k is about 30% of this $131,000 number. So that's the money the increase in net income in your pocket.
Steve Trussell 15:00
yeah, which is substantial, and that's where you look at your individual tax break. I'm gonna save 40,000 in taxes, and I'm gonna spend $1,800 for the study. Makes sense to me to do that. It's pretty good return on your money, but it comes down to being able to use it. And so that's the things that we explore when I'm talking to a client.
Keith Weinhold 15:19
Now, Steve, I know in the past, I have talked to cost segregation engineers and their firms on the phone, where they've looked at some properties that I had, and I don't remember whether they charged me for this or not, but what I learned is it wouldn't be worth going ahead with a cost segregation study on and I'm thinking that they didn't charge me anything to tell me that, but really what I'm getting at is, can you tell us more about when it makes sense to do a cost seg on properties, and when it does not?
Steve Trussell 15:46
Well, there's okay if you're going to sell it the next few years, it does because you're going to recapture so you don't want to spend money for a study only to get the benefit for a year and then sell it and have to recapture it. Now, in my personal situation, I have done that because I bought more property and I was able to use the cost segregation to offset my gains versus a 1031 So by and large, it doesn't make sense. If you're going to sell it, that's number one. You may have owned it for eight or nine years, 10 years, maybe you've used a lot of your depreciation already. So that delta between the accelerated depreciation and which you've already taken may not be enough to make sense. It may be a property that's, you know, $80,000 probably doesn't make a lot of sense to spend the money. The mass just doesn't typically work there. I've done some as low as that because they wanted the tax benefit, and I'll do whatever the client wants me to do. But those are the three things that I would say probably would determine whether it makes sense or not. But that's where the estimate comes in. I mean, you bring me a property, and if it's $40,000 I'll tell you before I do anything, probably not worth messing with it. It's you're not gonna get much benefit. But if you bring me a property and it's $125,000 asset, we'll take a look at it. I'll do a quick estimate for you, no charge, and it'll either apply and make sense for you, or it won't. And I'll be the first to tell you, if it doesn't you know your individual tax situation, I'm just talking about the dollars that we create for you versus the cost. If it doesn't make sense, I'll tell you. I don't want you to waste your money doing a cost segregation study if you don't need it or can't use it.
Keith Weinhold 17:14
Okay, So there are a number of factors here, which could include how long the investors own the property, how soon they plan to sell the property. It sounds like there's generally a correlation here, with the larger the property, the more likely it is that it makes sense to do the study as well.
Steve Trussell 17:29
It does. I have a client that I'm working on right now. He has six properties, and I think they were 2021, acquisition. So that was it four years ago, and they're not on a depreciation schedule, he hasn't taken anything. So in this case, it's, you certainly would want to do a cost segregation study, and that you need to have your properties on a depreciation schedule anyway, for whatever reason they weren't there. So in this case, if you came across a client that had a property for 10 years or for some reason it was never on a depreciation schedule, which that's, I don't know how that would happen, but let's assume it did. In that case, you would make sense to do because you're going to catch up all that depreciation from back, from 10 years ago all the way through today, which would even be a larger number. So that happens occasionally, rarely it happens, but it does happen where someone has never depreciated a property.
Keith Weinhold 18:17
We're talking with a man that can greatly reduce your tax burden. I think for one thing, first, he's gonna check to make sure that you're taking the basic tax depreciation. But beyond that, as you can see here, there's a potential to do a lot more with a cost segregation. You're listening to get rich education more when we come back on cost seg studies, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold.
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Robert Helms 20:17
Hey everybody. It's Robert helms with the real estate guys radio program. So glad you found Keith whitehold and get rich education. Don't quit your Daydream.
Keith Weinhold 20:32
Welcome back to get rich education. I love talking about tax savings vehicles, because it's like a no risk instant ROI to you, that's what we're doing today, when we're talking about accelerating your depreciation and reducing your tax burden through a cost segregation. And Steve, in my experience, I know that you can't just ask anyone to go do this study, like your Slack John, uncle with a tape measure and sending him out there. It takes a person with a certain credential in a Cost Segregation engineering analysis. So can you tell us more about what physically needs to take place to have a cost seg done?
Steve Trussell 21:09
Yeah, you're right. People. You could try to do this yourself, but it probably wouldn't pass muster with the IRS if you were to, if they were to question the study. One thing that we do, and most firms like mine would do also, we do back up the study, and we do guarantee that we will defend the study on your behalf. If there's a question, very rarely does it come up, but if there's a question from the IRS, we step in in your place and defend the study and justify how we arrived at these and that's only through a call to an engineered study. So if you have your your uncle, as you mentioned, doing it, it doesn't follow the audit technique guide. Doesn't follow the guides that are required for cost segregation study. You're probably going to find it getting kicked out and wind up owing taxes and penalties. So you want to make sure you're someone who's qualified and they do an engineer study, same thing as a CPA. CPAs aren't qualified to do a cost segregation study because it is an engineered study. We're breaking down the entire property and rebuilding it with our software on commercial buildings. You'd mentioned. What do we do? Commercial building? We do a physical site visit. We actually go to the property. Those are more expensive because we're there at the property and travel time and so forth. That to do that with engineers on residential we have a unique program. We do a virtual site visit where I can do this or my desktop, and that's why I'm able to keep the cost down. But we still do a site visit, because there's so many tools available today to be able to do a virtual site visit, I mean, for anywhere in the United States. So we can do this anywhere in the United States, and I take the tools that we have, the data I get from the client, we can do a virtual site visit and create the study from that
Keith Weinhold 22:43
really what the IRS is doing, whether this probably isn't reality, but you're saying your property wears out completely in 27 and a half years. That means that you can take some portion of that and depreciate it each year, but with some of these components that you mentioned, like the flooring and like the bushes. I think even the landscaping is one of the components that you can do a cost seg on. Basically they're saying that wears out faster.
Steve Trussell 23:11
Correct. Pretty much everything outside the building is 15 year life, sometimes even shorter than that. But that's how it classes 15 year life. Like your driveway, your like I said earlier, your retaining walls, grass, landscaping, fences, things like that, outdoor lighting, stuff like that. The inside the building is the five year property, which is your countertops, your flooring, fixtures. Think of things. I mean, floor is going to wear out before 27 half years, you're going to be replaced. You do it in your own home. Typically, you know? Well, I would never keep it for 27 and a half years. I would I wouldn't thank him in my house, but because they do wear out sooner. Tile is a little different animal. There's some debate about that, but for the most part, it's components like that that we're able to reclass in a five year classification.
Keith Weinhold 23:54
That's pretty generous. Grass wears out in 15 years.
Steve Trussell 23:58
Well, it's a 15 year. Yeah, it dies. You know, things change landscape, things like that. So yeah, you do. Those can be classed at 15 years.
Keith Weinhold 24:08
All right, we've talked about the cost in terms of dollars a bit for what a cost segregation study might cost. How much time does it take from the time one is initiated?
Steve Trussell 24:16
It depends. We could typically work with your schedule. I get a lot of last minute folks that get with me in September and they need their October 15, or even this September 15 depends on what kind of entry Do you have it in. And so we can turn these as quickly as you need it, typically, if I have all the data and all the information, especially if it's a residential where I'm not having to travel, but by and large, I can turn these in less than 30 days back to you, and if you need it sooner, we'll burn the midnight oil and get it done for you. That's during crutch time for between January 1 and April 15. If you file early or on time, if you file in October and you extend your taxes and the automatic extension in April, you've got to have the study done before you file. Your taxes. So if you wanted it for 2024 you need to have a study completed by April 15 of 2025 if you're going to file it April 15, if you're gonna file in October, the automatic extension, you need to have it completed by then. So our busy season is January through April 15, and then probably starting July, August time frame through October 15. That's our busy season. So the point of it, if you're going to do a study and use it for your current tax year, it must be completed no matter when you purchased it, but it must be completed prior to you filing your taxes, so you can use it on that tax return.
Keith Weinhold 25:35
All right, so we're just getting into Steve's busy season. So if you think this can benefit you. You want to initiate that sooner rather than later. But Steve, when we talk more about the benefits, we've had a change in presidential administration. So tell us more about the bonus depreciation benefit.
Steve Trussell 25:53
Your bonus appreciation came out in the previous administration before this last one, Trump's first administration that came out of that. So the anything where you reclass is five, seven and 15, your property, but it's 100% bonus. In other words, if you go back to the 131,000 I mentioned on the duplex, all of that in between September 2017 through December 31 to 2022 you get 100% of that. It's starting in January of 2023 through the end of december 23 it went to 80% and the next year, 60, and in 2025 it's going to be 40. But there's been an extension that was passed last in 2024 in the house to go back to the 100% installed in the Senate. And we think with the new administration, we'll probably in the new tax cuts, we'll probably see this reinstated and go back to the 100% which is substantial. If you're getting, you know, 60% of the 131, what is that? 78,000 bucks, roughly, something like that. And if you're getting 100% that's a big difference. So we're hopeful that we'll see that sometime in the first quarter. And so even if you file your taxes in April and it hasn't passed yet and you've only gotten four, you only get 40% bonus depreciation. You'll get that extra 60 the next year. What's happening now, though, before it, if it without being stated, you're still getting a bigger benefit. Because, as I mentioned before, the 131 comes forward, and you get the percentage of that the 302 is left over. In that example I used earlier, you've got your regular 27 net fear depreciation, but that 131 is still five and 15 year property, so you're depreciating that much faster than you would on a 27 after your schedule. So you're still getting a benefit, just not as good as when you get 100% bonus depreciation.
Keith Weinhold 27:34
Okay. And again, when you're talking about five, seven and 15 year property, you're talking about those component lifespans, correct, where we reclass that bonus depreciation benefit started out at 100% a few years ago. It's been stepping down 20% each year, and that is set to most likely refresh here sometime this year, back to the full 100% bonus depreciation. And if that does indeed happening you the listener. You're going to be hearing about that from your real estate investor friends and your social media feed and everything else, and you're going to maybe be feeling left out of that unless you get on top of it and take part of this. That's exactly what we're talking about doing right now. Steve, why don't you talk to us about some of those other components that are included or excluded from a cost segregation study, whether that's lighting fixtures or parking lot asphalt, tell us more.
Steve Trussell 28:27
Exterior is the 15 year life we talked about, the parking lots, the big residential the driveways, the landscaping, the fencing, retaining walls, bushes, the things that are gonna be outside. Okay, everything outside is 15 years pretty much, yes. And then when you go inside, look at the things that you would typically change out. You're not gonna change your plumbing. It's in your foundation and your walls, unless it breaks. You're not gonna change your roof. Is also, even though you change it out, it's also a permanent part of the structure. The roof is but the inside the house you have your or even outside, you've got your brick on the outside of your siding, that's 27 half for your property inside the cabinets, your countertops, flooring, your decorative light fixtures, the your plumbing fixtures, things like that, glass mirrors, things like that, that are going to be naturally shorter life. And it's pretty easy to look at a piece of property and see what's permanent again, like I use the example, the foundation, the studs in the wall, the brick, the she rock on the wall, those things are permanent fixtures. It's the things that are movable parts, typically, that you could look at, and that makes up 22 to 32% I've had to go higher, but 22 to 32 is a good range of the asset from five year and 15 year.
Keith Weinhold 29:42
All right, so really, the dividing line for Cost Segregation is stated as what is a permanent fixture and what is not permanent.
Steve Trussell 29:50
Yeah, probably in the general sense, yeah, I would say that. Well, are there any
Keith Weinhold 29:53
other things that one should know about a cost segregation study, whether that's myths or misunderstandings that need. To be cleared up, or just anything else at all. One needs to know about a cost segregation study. A couple
Speaker 3 30:05
things. One, the myth is that a lot of people think that it triggers audits that you're changing your accounting or you're getting this big bonus depreciation that's in the tax law, and so you're just taking advantage of the same zero to depreciation. Putting depreciation on your schedule, on your tax return, doesn't trigger audits. I mean, that's just buying property and you're putting it on the return. Accelerated depreciation doesn't either, because you do an engineered study. So part of the myth people think that they're going to call it, it's going to trigger an audit. It doesn't. It's a standard practice that accepted by the IRS and the study. The only thing that might, that might trigger isn't the agent. If they're doing an audit of your taxes, they might look at the study and say, Why did you classify this as this but this amount? Well, we go back through our data and our study through our software, and we could prove out how we came up with that value, and that's what they would ask. Is something like that, but it doesn't trigger an audit necessarily, just because you do a study. Second thing I've said this, I'll save all my clients. I said a couple times here, it's important that you can use it, that you can use the benefit. It does not do any good to go spend money for a study and get $131,000 appreciation, like I mentioned earlier, and it just sits there your w2 income, and you can't use it towards that that's far exceeds what you're making on your property. There's still a point in doing that until you can use it. There are other companies out there. They won't discuss that with you. They'll just tell you, you know, let's do a cost segregation study, because you get all these great benefits, but it doesn't do any good if you can't use it. Like I said that 131 be sitting on your depreciation schedule. That's bonus depreciation, but you're not able to do anything with it. If you're a high earner and you're not a real estate professional, you can't use it. So just be aware of that. If anybody brings a cost segregation study to you, and they don't discuss with you how it benefits you, I just be aware of that it's got to benefit you. What's the point if it doesn't
Keith Weinhold 31:57
that's a really great reminder you want to have this done the right way with someone that knows it can benefit you and more than offset the cost of the study. Maybe I should just bring up one example here of maybe a common turnkey property that a listener might buy that's not very high cost. Say that someone buys a fully rehabilitated, just $180,000 rental single family home built in the 1970s two bed, one bath. I'm sure there are some. It depends factors, but in general, would that be a candidate for a Cost Segregation if that were a new purchase for an investor?
Steve Trussell 32:35
I do it all the time, because it doesn't matter how old the property is. What matters is when you purchases. That's when your start date hits and or when you sell it to start date for the next person as well. So yeah, in that case, you're going to take roughly 15% for land. We go to the county website and see what they're using for land, and if they're using 6% that's what we'll use. But 15% is acceptable by the IRS. So in that case, 15% is what $27,000 so your 147 I think, would be your depreciable amount in it, 25% of that is 25 and almost $40,000 of depreciation versus an $1,800 study. And so if you're in a third step bracket, you're gonna save 12,000 in taxes and spend 1800 to save it. I mean, I would swap 1800 for 12,000 Gosh, any time. So, yeah, it would work. But then that comes down to, you know, you individually. What do you do for a living? What's your income? Like it would what level of income you're at. But can you use the 40,000 and celebrate depreciation? And that can be determined between a conversation with me, you and probably your CPA, so they know your tax situation the best, and then I really like the CPA to be involved. It's up to the client, but I'd prefer them to be involved so they know exactly what we're doing. Some CPAs aren't that familiar with it, so we can help them with getting this on the tax schedule. If they need us to on depreciation schedule, they really want the CPA to be involved if the client is comfortable with it because they know your tax situation the best. I can create the benefit for you. They can help you determine if you can use it.
Keith Weinhold 34:08
That's a good point. I would imagine that there are some tax preparers that have never seen this on one of their clients returns before, so that's a great help. And that was an awesome breakdown of just how things might actually look for someone. It just kind of has that most basic, low cost, 180k turnkey property. Steve, before I ask you if you have any last thoughts or anything else that the listeners should know if you want to connect with Steve, do that in the same way that you learn about our properties and our providers at GRE marketplace.com, click in the coaching area, your investment coach is going to help connect you with Steve all of his resources and adjacent resources that are helpful with you. Steve, is there any last thing that someone ought to know?
Speaker 3 34:50
I just think if you own property at all, it makes sense to get an estimate for cost segregation. It doesn't cost you anything. And then we could decide to. Together Again, like I said, along with your CPA, here's my benefit. Can I use it? And they cost you nothing to do that. Your CPA may charge you some time, I'm not sure, but working with me to get through the estimate phase up to the benefit, what's gonna look like for you that we do that for free, and so if you own any property, it makes sense to take a look at it or just have a phone conversation, because if you call me, you tell me, I make $300,000 a year. I'm a engineer, doctor, whatever it happens to be, and I work full time. My wife works full time. I'm probably gonna tell you, you know, you're probably not a candidate right now, because, like, we'd be a great benefit, but you can't use this great benefit right now. Let's revisit it when maybe you can. So it's just worth a phone conversation and you get me the data that I need, which is pretty simple stuff. I could put together an estimate before you turn it around and you decide, what if it makes sense for you?
Keith Weinhold 35:48
Yeah, if you have that conversation with Steve and worst case scenario, you can't use it, you better believe you're going to come off being pretty well informed in knowing the next time that you can use it, perhaps on your next purchase. Well, this has been supremely helpful, Steve. A lot of people are going to benefit from it. It's been great having you here on the show to talk about cost segregation.
Steve Trussell 36:09
I appreciate you having me. Thank you very much.
Keith Weinhold 36:17
Like Steve said, it's about 22 to 32% of the depreciable assets value, which is that house or building, not the land, can be deducted at an accelerated depreciation rate, faster than the 27 and a half year residential or 39 year Commercial depreciation rate. And Steve told me that before some investors even buy property, they will ask him how it would look with a cost segregation and hold on the numbers, and that way you can use it for your pro forma ROI calculation. Yeah, before you've even purchased a property, like I said, you can't have your Slack John uncle do a cost seg study. Plus your uncle is in slack jawed. Anyway. In fact, I'm the only slack jaw you've ever known. Now, I personally plan to send Steve a copy of my depreciation schedule so he can tell me how things would look for my properties. He can do this for you just the same. There is no charge. It's best to submit everything by mid March at the latest, if you file your taxes in mid April. So we are now in their busy season at GRE marketplace, that's where you do more than connect with our investment coaches and properties. There are also service providers, including Steve. Our coaches are there to help you optimize your ROI. This is a type of thing where if you think it's a good idea, you know you're probably not going to pick this up later if you don't move at the speed of instruction now. So if you think that it can benefit you from GRE marketplace.com, click in the coaching area. Get that set up, and we'll connect you to Steve and help you with anything else that you might need in your real estate portfolio. Until next week, I'm your host, Keith Weinhold, don't quit your Daydream.
Speaker 4 38:13
Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively.
Keith Weinhold 38:41
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