Depreciation Diaries

One rental in one year of hosting: cleaner, guest spend, handyman, landscaping, chimney sweep, window washing, and carpet cleaners — $147,000 to $180,000 of local economic activity.

July 16, 2026

Cost Segregation Exists to Drive Economic Activity (It's Not a Loophole)

People treat cost segregation like something you got away with. It is the opposite. It is a lever Congress built on purpose, and I have watched it work from inside the house.

The Unlevered asset-mapping engine tracing one component from the photo, through the component library, to its asset class and year-one deduction.

July 14, 2026

Why Unlevered's Data Mapping Engine Unlocks 5–20% More Deductions

Why a deterministic engine beats a purchased Excel template. An estimator guesses the whole asset; we verify everything public first, then estimate only the small part that is left.

The wine country property at the center of the study: two cabins, a pool, and two detached prefab studio units on a wooded parcel.

July 10, 2026

What a top-down estimate missed: $120K+ in a gym and a sauna

A client paid $3,000 for a cost segregation study, then asked us to reverse engineer it. Two movable buildings the top-down estimate buried in the 39-year shell belonged in the 5-year class. Here is the $120,425 story.

A day-job hour at $296 compared against an hour on the cottage at $5,000 in deduction.

July 8, 2026

Managing My Real Estate Investment Made Me $5K/hr

Timing my second property to my exit, pricing my hours, and the simple math behind material participation. A $500,000 deduction earned across a hundred hours a year — the most valuable hour I had, so it went first.

The remodeled Sea Ranch great room — redwoods through the A-frame glass.

July 7, 2026

The ugliest house in Sea Ranch

How an IPO, a DJ, and a $550K+ tax bill led me to build a cost segregation platform. The founder origin story, with the tax returns to back it up.