Renovation cost segregation: depreciate what you built, faster.

Did you buy a property — or improve one you already own?

They're different studies. A purchase needs land and building allocation; a renovation only needs your documented costs classified.

Lease the space and paid for the build-out yourself? That's a tenant-improvement study →

The easiest cost segregation engagement there is

A renovation study removes every hard part of a traditional study — because the evidence already exists. You have invoices; we classify them.

	Traditional study	Renovation study
Purchase required	Yes	No
Land allocation	Yes	None
Building valuation / modeling	Yes	None
Site visit	Often	Never
Works from your invoices	Sometimes	Always
Every dollar cites its document	Rarely	Yes

One invoice from our sample:

INV-5512 · In-ground gunite pool — $78,000
↓ classified
15-Year Land Improvement · 100% assumed bonus
↓ scheduled
Fixed-asset entry: 15-yr · 150DB · HY · PIS 2026-06-20

Your invoices / cost schedule → Line-by-line classification → Evidence reconciliation → Depreciation schedules → CPA files the return

Have invoices? Upload them — we do the rest. No forms full of building facts: the documents are the intake.

Every classified dollar traces to an invoice page

A renovation study has a superpower a purchase study can't match: the evidence already exists. You paid real invoices to real contractors — so instead of modeling components from square footage, we classify your actual documented costs and cite the document and page behind every line. The study's Evidence Manifest reads like an audit binder: Invoice 5512, page 1, $78,000 — in-ground gunite pool construction — 15-year land improvement.

See it yourself: our published sample is a fictional $300K renovation with its complete (fictional) invoice set published alongside it — open the report next to the invoices and follow any dollar from source document to depreciation schedule.

What accelerates in a renovation — and what honestly doesn't

A renovation study has no land and no purchase-price shell to dilute the result — every dollar analyzed is an improvement dollar. Outdoor-heavy residential projects and QIP-qualifying commercial interiors routinely see 50–80% of the documented cost land in accelerated classes.

Shares are of TOTAL DOCUMENTED IMPROVEMENT COST for a typical project of that shape; your study derives every figure from your actual cost lines.

Qualified Improvement Property: the commercial renovation engine

For nonresidential renovations, Qualified Improvement Property (§168(e)(6)) is usually the single biggest lever: interior improvements to a building already in service recover over 15 years straight-line instead of 39 — and they're bonus-eligible under §168(k) (100% for property placed in service after January 19, 2025). An interior refresh that would sit at 39-year for four decades can, when the gates are met, deduct almost entirely in year one.

The statute has hard edges — QIP excludes enlargements, elevators and escalators, internal structural framework, and any building not yet in service — so we apply it behind a documented, fail-closed gate: the study asks the statutory questions in plain English, requires your certification, and prints the gate answers, dollar tallies, and excluded lines in a dedicated QIP exhibit. If a condition isn't affirmed, the costs stay at 39-year. Your CPA never has to wonder why QIP was applied.

QIP never applies to residential rental property — residential renovations accelerate through 15-year land improvements and 5-year personal property instead.

Worked example: the $300K renovation in our sample report

These figures are transcribed from our published sample study — a fictional renovation run through the real engine, invoices and all. Results vary with your documented scope; year-1 figures depend on §168(k) eligibility, §469 status, entity structure, and your CPA's position.

The sample also shows what doesn't accelerate: residential cabinetry is deliberately held at 27.5-year under our documented policy, explained inside the study. Honest residuals are what make the accelerated classes defensible.

Pricing

Priced on your total improvement cost — the basis being analyzed. No purchase price, no appraisal, no proposal round: every size gets an instant price.

CPA firms order at flat wholesale in the partner portal. Form 3115 §481(a) lookback workpapers available where a prior-year renovation is being caught up.

What makes a renovation study sharp

The study is only as good as the paper trail — fortunately, renovations leave a great one. A cost schedule or spreadsheet is the fastest intake; invoices upgrade every line's evidence tier:

We classify every line — you never assign recovery periods. Lines too general to classify stay conservatively at the building life, flagged with exactly what documentation would sharpen them.

Frequently asked

You already spent the money. Classify it correctly.

Send your invoices or cost schedule and we'll classify every documented dollar — with a fixed-asset schedule your CPA can enter directly, and an evidence manifest behind every line.

Bought the property instead? You want a standard cost segregation study.