Timing decides your tax bill. We work ahead of the clock.
The rules governing your properties are timing rules — depreciation, suspended losses, exchange clocks. By the time a return is being prepared, most of them have already resolved themselves.
The questions our clients often ask
You’re a real estate investor, so you may relate to some of the questions our real-estate clients typically ask.
Keep, sell, or exchange?
Holding defers recapture indefinitely and keeps the annual depreciation sheltering rent. Selling triggers recapture and gain, and releases suspended losses in full. An exchange defers both into the next property. There is rarely a decision to force in any given year — but two numbers should always be current: the land share, and the running depreciation total.
recovered from a single suspended loss that never made it onto two returns
Illustrative · not a promiseWhy can't I deduct my rental loss?
We explain the passive loss rules in your own numbers, then check the mechanical question that usually matters more: whether the suspended loss actually made it onto each return since. It is one of the first things to fall out when preparers change.
Is a cost segregation study worth it?
We size the deduction against the fee and against the income available to absorb it. Often it is, sometimes it is not, and you get told which — before anyone commissions a study.
Is this a repair or an improvement?
We set the test before the work happens and get the invoice and documentation right at the time, because the difference is deducting it this year or over decades.
What happens to depreciation when I sell?
We quantify the recapture in advance so the number is in front of you while you are negotiating, not after. It also frames whether an exchange is worth the constraints it brings.
Am I a real estate professional?
We look honestly at hours, activities and grouping elections. The status changes what your losses can offset, which makes it worth testing properly rather than assuming either way.
Should the property be in an LLC?
We separate the liability question from the tax question. The entity rarely changes the tax and often changes the lending, so we tell you which problem you are actually solving.
Most planning quietly assumes children. Ours assumes nothing.
A great deal of standard advice is built around dependents, education funding, and leaving an estate to the next generation. If that is your life, those pieces belong in the plan. If it is not, the defaults are rarely what you would have chosen — beneficiary designations, powers of attorney, and who is actually named to act for you all need answering differently.
We ask, once, and then plan accordingly. It is not a separate service and it is not a separate conversation.
Start with a conversation
A chance for us to learn about you and what you are trying to accomplish, and for you to hear how we work and what the process actually entails. Then we decide together whether it is a fit and whether we can handle the work. We look forward to hearing your story.