Cost segregation by property type

Conservative landlords care about CPA approval.

Material participation + furnished interiors = the most powerful Year-1 setup in real estate.

Condos have less land-improvement weight (no driveway, smaller exterior footprint), so the math is tighter than SFR.

ADUs are small but expensive per square foot — modern finishes, full kitchen, full bath, often premium MEP.

House-hackers: only the rental side gets cost-segregated.

The triplex is the duplex's better-yielding cousin — three sets of kitchens, bathrooms, HVAC, water heaters compress into a tighter footprint and a denser 5-yr bucket.

Three-to-four kitchens, three-to-four full bath sets, three-to-four HVAC systems — the 5-yr personal-property weight is dense.

Each additional unit multiplies the kitchen + bath + HVAC count, and those are the densest 5-yr personal-property categories.

5-30 unit properties hit the sweet spot: dense per-unit fixtures, but small enough that an automated engineered study still beats sending an engineer onsite.

Office basis is mostly 39-yr structure, but tenant build-outs, specialty MEP, and parking lots produce significant 5/15-yr reclassification.

Storefront finishes, signage, parking lots, and specialty fixtures push retail reclassification higher than office.

Ground-floor retail + upstairs residential each have different cost-seg rules.

Warehouse basis is heavy on the 39-yr shell, but yard improvements, dock equipment, and racking systems produce a respectable accelerated bucket.

Specialty MEP — exam-room plumbing, gas lines, lead-lined imaging walls, sterile water — pushes medical office reclassification well above general office.

Walk-in coolers, hood systems, grease traps, point-of-sale wiring, decorative finishes.

UPS systems, precision cooling (CRAH/CRAC), server racks, PDUs, electrical distribution, fire suppression, security infrastructure — data centers have the densest personal-property classification of any commercial property type.