BiggerPockets Money Podcast · Friday, August 7, 2026
Scott Trench advised that cost segregation strategies for real estate should be timed with years of high income to maximize tax benefits. He suggested utilizing these benefits in years with significant capital gains or when in higher tax brackets, rather than lower ones.
“Before we get to that, we have to talk about the income, right? So just as a framing here, if we go into real estate career, one of the temptations is by a bunch of real estate, cost segregate properties, claim losses and do that fairly aggressively to keep our taxes low.”
“But I think a better framework is to time those cost segregations or those purchases around years where your income is very high, right?”
“We don't want to use that cost seg in a year where you're in the 12% federal tax bracket. In my opinion, right, we want to use that if we have that year that with a big gain, you know, and the 32% bracket.”