The Kenwood Twin Cabins
The furniture is itemized from the photos, not the receipts
A fire took the original home; the owner rebuilt two cabins from the ground up and placed them in service in January 2026 as a short-term rental. The build itself is fully receipt-documented ($1.5M across 147 line items). For the furnishings, the photographed Inventory, not the expense sheet, is what the study prices. Receipts prove payment; they make a poor catalog of what is actually there.
$2.29M in, split into land, building, and remodel
The property was bought for $810,000 and remodeled for $1,481,525, $2,291,525 in all. Land never depreciates, so it's carved out first; everything else becomes depreciable basis the study then accelerates.
Where the $2.29M went
What the engine found
The deterministic engine separated the $1,481,525 depreciable basis into IRS recovery classes, then the engineered review confirmed every component against the source documents.
Component allocation
Year one, in dollars
| Accelerated depreciation | $509,449 |
| Total year-one deduction | $509,449 |
| Straight-line without a study | ~$37,988/yr |
Depreciation by year
| Year 1 | $509,449 |
| Year 2 | $25,553 |
| Year 3 | $25,553 |
| Year 4 | $25,553 |
| Year 5 | $25,553 |
| Year 6 | $25,553 |
| Year 7 | $25,553 |
| Year 8 | $25,553 |
| Year 9 | $25,553 |
| Year 10 | $25,553 |
| Year 11 | $25,553 |
| Year 12 | $25,553 |
| Year 13 | $25,553 |
| Year 14 | $25,553 |
| Year 15 | $25,553 |
| Year 16 | $25,553 |
| Year 17 | $25,553 |
| Year 18 | $25,553 |
| Year 19 | $25,553 |
| Year 20 | $25,553 |
| Year 21 | $25,553 |
| Year 22 | $25,553 |
| Year 23 | $25,553 |
| Year 24 | $25,553 |
| Year 25 | $25,553 |
| Year 26 | $25,553 |
| Year 27 | $25,553 |
| Year 28 | $25,553 |
| Year 29 | $25,553 |
| Year 30 | $25,553 |
| Year 31 | $25,553 |
| Year 32 | $25,553 |
| Year 33 | $25,553 |
| Year 34 | $25,553 |
| Year 35 | $25,553 |
| Year 36 | $25,553 |
| Year 37 | $25,553 |
| Year 38 | $25,553 |
| Year 39 | $25,553 |
| Year 40 | $1,062 |
What each state does with this deduction
Each state this study touches, classified by how it treats the federal year-one deduction.
Lifetime difference: $0. Timing only, recovered in later years.
CA defers up to $426,559 of the deduction, then returns it over the following years, reaching $0 by year 16. The lifetime deduction is the same; only the timing differs.
You still get the federal deduction now. California taxable income is $426,559 higher than federal in year one, but that amount is deducted in later years.
Use the federal schedule for the federal return and a California recomputation schedule for the CA return.
Schedule: CA FTB 3885A
Common questions about this study
- What does a real cost segregation study look like?
- This is a complete, engineer-reviewed cost segregation study on a short-term rental property. Every figure is computed by a deterministic engine from source documents, cited to the underlying tax authority, and reproducible — including a 12-room component reclassification and a full depreciation schedule. Addresses and client identities are changed for privacy; the facts and dollars are true engine output.
- How much does this study accelerate into the first year?
- On a $810,000 property with $453,681 (56%) allocated to non-depreciable land, the study establishes $1,481,525 of depreciable basis and produces a $509,449 first-year deduction at 1% bonus depreciation.
- Is a cost segregation study like this defensible?
- It is built to the standards in the IRS Cost Segregation Audit Techniques Guide: each component is classified with a citation, the basis derivation is engineered rather than estimated, and every calculation is reproducible. Unlevered prepares and signs the engineering study; the property owner's CPA remains the sole tax return preparer.
- What makes these studies transparent?
- Every number traces to a source. The study shows the room-by-room allocation, the reasoning behind each component's classification, and a calculation that can be reproduced from the same inputs — not a black-box estimate.