Ground-up builds · custom homes · build-to-rent · owner-developed commercial

You already have the cost breakdown. That is the study.

When you build, nothing has to be reconstructed from a purchase price. Your builder's schedule of values already says what each part of the building cost. We classify it line by line, allocate the soft costs across it, and hand your CPA a filing-ready schedule.

Documented costs  ·  Land from your lot closing  ·  No cost modeling  ·  No reconciliation scaling

Did you buy this building, or build it?

It changes where the numbers come from. A purchase has to be broken apart; a build was already broken apart, by whoever wrote the checks.

BUILT I had it constructed
Documented-cost study

Your construction ledger becomes the classification directly. Nothing is modeled from square footage and nothing is scaled to fit an estimate. Land comes from the lot closing. This is your study.

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BOUGHT I purchased a finished building
Standard cost segregation study

One purchase price has to be separated into land, building and components using engineering methods and cost data. Same order form, different path. Residential from $495.

Start a standard study →

Improved a property you already owned? That is a renovation study →

From schedule of values to depreciation schedule

A study on a purchased building starts with one number and works backwards. A study on a building you constructed starts with the numbers your builder already produced, and works forwards.

STEP 1
You send the breakdown

A schedule of values, a final draw request, or a job-cost export. Any format. You do not classify anything.

STEP 2
Hard costs are classified

Each direct line goes to its own recovery class. Appliances and carpet at 5 years, driveway and landscaping at 15, structure at 27.5 or 39.

STEP 3
Soft costs are allocated

General conditions, the builder fee and permits ride pro-rata onto the direct costs they made possible, and follow each one into its class.

STEP 4
It has to tie out

Every submitted dollar appears exactly once, reconciled to the cent against your declared construction cost. The study will not deliver otherwise.

Why the soft-cost step matters more than it sounds

A builder fee is not itself a five-year asset, so it cannot simply be classified. But it is not a 27.5-year asset either. Leaving indirect costs in the building shell quietly understates every accelerated class; pushing them into short-life classes accelerates a fee that nothing supports. Allocating them pro-rata is the defensible middle, and it is only possible when you have a real ledger to allocate across.

A worked example, start to finish

These are the actual figures from our published sample study — a real engine run over a fictional builder ledger for a custom single-family rental. Custom single-family rental, built 2025 (Winter Garden, FL).

Construction cost
$925,250
31 ledger lines submitted
Accelerated
$294,928
31.9% of depreciable basis
Year 1 deduction
$141,183
including regular structural depreciation
Land
$185,000
the lot closing, not an estimate
31 submitted lines became 28 classified components plus 3 indirect allocations, reconciled to the cent. $85,314 landed in 5-year property and $209,614 in 15-year land improvements — the driveway, pavers, landscaping, irrigation, fencing, lanai and pool, each carrying its share of the builder fee.

Illustrative sample. The property, entity and ledger are fictional; the classification and arithmetic are a genuine engine run. Your result depends on your own documented scope, property type and jurisdiction.

Two dates, and they are not the same date

On a purchase there is one date that matters and it is on the closing statement. On a building you constructed there are two, they are months or years apart, and they do different jobs.

Placed in service

When the building is ready and available for its intended use. For a rental that means when it could be rented, not when the last punch-list item closed. The certificate of occupancy is the usual anchor.

Decides: the first tax year you may depreciate at all.
Construction start

When work began. For self-constructed property this is the date §168(k) looks to, which is why our order form asks when construction began rather than when you closed on the lot.

Decides: which bonus depreciation rate your components qualify for.

Getting these backwards is one of the easiest ways to file a new-build study incorrectly, which is why we ask for both separately rather than inferring one from the other. Your CPA confirms the final treatment.

What makes a construction study sharper

You do not need all of these. In rough order of how much difference they make:

Schedule of values (AIA G702/G703)
The single most useful document. It is already a line-by-line breakdown of the build, which is exactly the shape a study needs.
Final draw request or cost-to-complete report
Same structure as the schedule of values, and usually the last version with real final numbers rather than budget.
Builder's final cost breakdown or job-cost export
A QuickBooks or job-cost export by cost code works just as well as a formal schedule. We classify the descriptions.
Subcontractor invoices
Useful where a ledger line bundles several assets, for example one plumbing figure covering rough-in and fixtures.
Lot closing statement
Turns land from an estimated share into a documented number. This is the only property type where that is possible.
Certificate of occupancy
Fixes the placed-in-service date, which decides the first year you may depreciate at all.

No breakdown at all? We can still build the study from industry-standard construction cost data, the same way we do for a purchased property. It is simply the weaker version, and if a ledger is coming we would rather wait for it. We have a cost schedule template (Excel) and a CSV version if your builder needs a format to fill in.

Pricing

New construction is priced exactly like any other study of the same property type and basis. There is no documented-cost surcharge, and there should not be: your ledger makes the study more accurate, not more expensive.

Single-family / STR / Condo / ADU
<$300K $495
$300K–$700K $895
$700K–$1M $995
$1M–$1.5M $1,295
$1.5M–$2M $1,595
$2M–$3M $1,995
Standard Commercial
<$1M $1,995
$1M–$3M $3,295
$3M–$5M $4,995
$5M–$7M $6,295
$7M–$10M $7,795
$10M–$25M $10,995

Basis for a build is your construction cost. The lot is separate and is not part of the depreciable basis. Full pricing for every property type is on the pricing page.

Common questions

Do I need my builder's cost breakdown for a new construction cost segregation study?
We ask for it, and if you tell us one is coming we hold the study until it arrives rather than build the weaker version. The reason is that your actual construction costs ARE the study: each line goes to its own asset class directly, with no modeling and no cost-estimate scaling. That is the strongest documentation a cost segregation study can have. If no breakdown exists, we can still run the study from industry-standard construction cost data and engineering-based allocation, the same way we do for a property you bought.
What happens to the builder's fee, general conditions and permits?
They are indirect costs, so they are allocated rather than classified. A supervision fee is not itself a 5-year asset, but it made every direct cost possible, so it rides pro-rata onto those costs and each one carries its share into its own recovery class. In the published sample, 31 submitted ledger lines became 28 classified components plus 3 indirect allocations. Skipping that step would either strand the soft costs in the 27.5-year shell or, worse, accelerate a fee that nothing supports.
When is a newly constructed building placed in service?
When it is ready and available for its intended use, which for a rental is when it can be rented rather than when the last punch-list item closes. In practice the certificate of occupancy is the anchor date. That date decides the first tax year you may depreciate, and it is a different date from the one that governs bonus depreciation on a self-constructed building, where §168(k) looks to when construction BEGAN.
How is land handled on a property I built?
As a receipt. You bought the lot separately, so its cost is documented and land is simply that number. Every other kind of study has to estimate the land share from assessor records or market statistics, which is the single largest source of uncertainty in an allocation. In the published sample, land is the $185,000 the lot actually cost.
Can I do a cost segregation study on a building I built years ago?
Yes. If the property was placed in service in a prior year you can catch up all the missed accelerated depreciation in the current year through a Form 3115 change in accounting method, without amending prior returns. The construction ledger still drives the classification; it is only the timing mechanism that differs.
How much does a cost segregation study cost for new construction?
The same as any other study of the same property type and basis, because new construction is not a separate product. Residential starts at $495 and standard commercial at $1,995. There is no surcharge for the documented-cost path, and there should not be: your ledger makes the study more accurate and less work, not less.

Your builder already did the hardest part

The cost breakdown that has been sitting in your closing file is the most defensible input a cost segregation study can have. Send it over and we will turn it into a depreciation schedule.

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