With Permanent Bonus Depreciation, One Firm Sees New Opportunities for Property Owners

When the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was signed into law in July 2025, Nathan Resnick was reading the fine print.

Buried in the bill was a change that, for real estate investors, quietly reset a decade of tax planning: 100% bonus depreciation was back and this time, permanently. “For years we’d been telling clients to move fast, because the window was closing,” says Resnick, co-owner of Cost Segregation Guys. “Bonus depreciation was phasing down — 60% in 2024, headed to 40%, then gone. Then overnight it wasn’t closing anymore. It was open, and it was staying open.”

That single shift is why Resnick’s firm has spent the months since fielding a rising stream of inbound calls from investors, CPAs and syndicators trying to understand what they can now do — and why, according to Resnick, his team has identified significant depreciation opportunities for the property owners it serves.

What cost segregation actually does

To understand why the law change matters, it helps to understand what Resnick’s firm sells — which most property owners have never heard of.

When someone buys a building, the IRS assumes it wears out slowly. Residential rental property depreciates over 27.5 years; commercial property over 39. That means a typical investor writes off a small slice of their building’s value each year, for decades.

A cost segregation study takes that building apart on paper. Engineers identify the components inside it — flooring, cabinetry, specialty electrical, fixtures, parking lots, landscaping — that don’t actually have a 27.5- or 39-year life. Many of those items qualify for 5-, 7- or 15-year schedules instead. “We’re not creating deductions out of thin air,” Resnick says. “Those deductions were always there. They were just buried in the wrong timeline. Our job is to engineer them out and put them where they belong.”

Reclassifying those components accelerates the depreciation, and accelerated depreciation is exactly what bonus depreciation supercharges.

Why the OBBBA changed the calculation

Here’s how Resnick says the new law could make the strategy more useful for some property owners.

Bonus depreciation lets investors write off the full cost of qualifying short-life property — generally anything with a recovery period of 20 years or less — in the very first year, instead of spreading it out. Cost segregation is what identifies that qualifying property inside a building.

Under the old phase-down schedule, that first-year write-off was shrinking every year. Now it’s locked at 100% for property acquired and placed in service after January 19, 2025, with no expiration date.

“Before, a cost seg study was a now-or-never play,” Resnick says. “Now it’s a permanent part of the playbook. You can build it into your underwriting from day one. That’s a completely different conversation.”

Cost Segregation Guys says its studies have identified substantial depreciation opportunities across a range of properties.

Resnick is careful about what that number is — and isn’t. “We’ve identified significant depreciation opportunities for the property owners we serve,” Resnick says. “The actual tax impact depends on each investor’s bracket and situation. But for an individual owner, accelerating six or seven figures of depreciation into year one can mean a dramatically lower tax bill and a lot more cash to reinvest. Multiply that across thousands of clients, and it adds up fast.”

Who this actually works for

This is the part Resnick emphasizes, because he’s watched too many investors get the wrong impression from social media.

Accelerated depreciation may allow eligible property owners to claim certain deductions earlier, potentially resulting in paper losses for tax purposes. But for most people, those passive losses can only offset passive income — not the salary from their day job. “There’s a myth online that anyone with a W-2 can buy a rental and wipe out their income taxes,” Resnick says. “That’s not how it works, and I’d rather tell people the truth up front than sell them a fantasy.”

The investors who can use those losses against other income generally fall into two camps: those who qualify as real estate professionals under the IRS’s material participation rules, and those who use short-term rentals, where average guest stays of seven days or less can change how the income is classified. “When someone fits one of those buckets, the numbers can be life-changing,” he says. “When they don’t, we tell them. That honesty is part of why CPAs keep sending us referrals.”

Building an engineering-based firm in a field full of estimates

Resnick, an active real estate investor who has also built and sold companies before, says what drew him to cost segregation was how unserious parts of the industry were.

“There are firms out there running a calculator and a rule of thumb and calling it a study,” he says. “That works fine — until the client gets audited. Then a guess doesn’t hold up.”

Cost Segregation Guys says it has built its approach around experienced engineers and detailed studies, and providing lifetime audit support, which Resnick frames as the whole point rather than a feature.

“If we put a number on a return, we stand behind it for the life of that return,” he says. “A study may provide stronger documentation while helping identify eligible depreciation opportunities.” 

What investors get wrong

Ask Resnick where investors leave money on the table, and timing tops the list.

The most common mistake, he says, is assuming it’s too late. Investors who bought properties in prior years often don’t realize they can still claim missed depreciation through a catch-up adjustment, without amending old returns. “People think the deduction is gone because they didn’t do a study the year they bought,” he says. “It isn’t. We can often go back and capture all of it in the current year. That’s one of the best phone calls I get to make.”

The second mistake is the opposite problem — moving too fast on a property that doesn’t pencil. Chasing depreciation should not remove an investor’s underwriting principles. “I always tell investors,” Resnick says. “Make sure you’d buy the deal even if there wasn’t any bonus depreciation benefit. That’s the cherry on top.”

The bigger opportunity

With the benefit now permanent, Resnick believes cost segregation is shifting from a niche tactic to standard practice for serious real estate investors — the way 1031 exchanges did a generation ago.

“For ten years this was something sophisticated investors did quietly,” he says. “The law just made it durable. There’s no countdown clock anymore. So the only real question left for an investor is whether they’re going to keep writing off their building one slow slice at a time — or, depending on the property and the owner’s circumstances, the strategy may allow certain deductions to be claimed earlier and funds to be used elsewhere.”

According to the company, many of its clients have decided that the potential benefits make the strategy worth considering.

This article is for general information and is not tax advice. Investors should consult a qualified tax professional about their specific situation.

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