A cost segregation study finds the parts of your property you can write off faster, helping you reduce your tax bill and keep more cash in your business.
A few details are all we need to get started.
Apartments, retail, office, industrial, mixed-use. New construction, recent purchases, renovations and leasehold improvements, or properties you've held for years. If your building or renovation cost roughly $500,000 or more, it's usually worth a look. Studies are performed nationwide.
We also handle higher-complexity assets like studios, sports venues, and manufacturing facilities, where the depreciation detail genuinely diverges.
Say you buy a $1,000,000 apartment building. Normally the IRS makes you write it off slowly, a little each year for nearly 30 years.
A cost segregation study finds the parts of the building that are allowed to be written off much faster, such as flooring, fixtures, appliances, and site work.
On a building like this, that's typically 20–30% of the building's cost, often $200,000 to $300,000, moved into the early years instead of spread across decades. Depending on your tax situation, that can mean roughly $70,000–$100,000 in tax savings the first year, money you'd otherwise wait years to see.
Illustrative only. Outcomes vary with property type, depreciable basis, placed-in-service date, and your tax circumstances. A study tells you your real number.
Property type, purchase price, and when you bought it. That's enough to estimate your savings.
Working from construction plans and cost records where they exist, we classify every component that qualifies for faster depreciation, documented to hold up under IRS review.
We confirm in the field what the documents say, in person or by guided virtual walkthrough, so every classification is grounded in the real asset.
A clear report your CPA can apply directly to your return, usually within a few weeks.
Every study uses an engineering-based methodology and is documented to withstand IRS scrutiny. The person you talk to is the person who studies your building and writes the report. No handoffs, no layers.
Every study is a fixed fee, quoted with your estimate, and typically a small fraction of the first-year savings. If a study won't pay for itself, we'll say so.
If your study is ever questioned, we support you and your CPA through the response. Our documentation is built for that day, even though it rarely comes.
You get a clear, well-documented report your CPA can apply directly to your return, and we're happy to walk them through the detail.
Chris began his career in Deloitte's Engineering & Capital Projects group, performing cost segregation studies and learning to read a building the way the tax code does. His studies ranged from small multifamily properties and multi-location restaurant buildouts to manufacturing facilities, resort casinos, and a 675,000-square-foot sports arena with more than $500 million in capital costs. One engagement alone spanned more than 50 fitness clubs across the U.S. and Canada.
Chris has also managed facilities and assets at Disney, analyzed construction damages and delays at Secretariat International on projects from tens of millions to billions of dollars, and shaped finance and strategy for studio operations at NBCUniversal.
Whether the property is a duplex or an arena, the work is the same: understanding how it's actually built and used, and turning that into deductions that hold up under IRS review.
Professional affiliationChristopher Lee is an Associate Member of the American Society of Cost Segregation Professionals (#A027-26). ASCSP is a professional organization committed to establishing the technical and ethical standards for the cost segregation industry through education, testing, and certification. For more information, visit www.ascsp.org.
The form takes about a minute, or email chris@valent.tax directly. No obligation either way.
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