08/31/2026
🏠Owning more real estate should change the way you think about taxes.
As a real estate portfolio grows, depreciation becomes more than a calculation done at tax time. It becomes something that should be planned across the entire portfolio.
One rental property might have an opportunity for cost segregation, accelerated depreciation, or properly classified improvements.
But what happens when you own five, eight, or ten properties?
Now you have different acquisition dates, depreciation schedules, improvements, passive losses, holding periods, and potential sale dates.
That creates opportunities—but only if they’re planned for.
The goal isn’t always to create the biggest deduction possible.
The goal is to create the right deductions in the right years.
A large depreciation deduction isn’t nearly as valuable if passive activity rules prevent you from currently using the loss. And accelerating depreciation today needs to be considered alongside your future income, additional property purchases, and eventual sale of the property.
For real estate investors, tax planning can include:
• Cost segregation and accelerated depreciation
• Passive activity loss planning
• Material participation
• Real Estate Professional Status
• Grouping elections
• Proper treatment of renovations and improvements
• Planning for future property sales and depreciation recapture
• Tracking suspended losses and tax basis
There’s a big difference between tax preparation and tax planning.
Tax preparation looks at what happened last year.
Tax planning asks:
What are we buying next? What income do we expect? What deductions can we actually use? And what should we be doing now to improve the tax result?
If you’ve built a real estate portfolio but your tax process still consists of sending everything to your CPA after December 31st, it may be time to take a more proactive approach.
At Northview Tax & Accounting, we can review how your real estate portfolio is currently being treated and identify opportunities to make your tax strategy work alongside your investment strategy.
