Is my thinking correct that homes in highly appreciated areas won't benefit as much from Cost Seg. 

And hopefullt you won't need a traffic light, which costs in excess of $100,000, though you will be required to do a traffic study. 

A cost segregation study was performed on this single family home in Iowa City, Iowa with a depreciable cost basis of $649,900.

Is this normal cost or high?

However, the depreciation claimed while the property was a rental must be accounted for upon the future sale of the personal residence, which could increase your capital gains tax liability.The adjusted basis of the property (original cost minus depreciation) will be used to calculate gains or losses at the time of sale.

I found Rehab Financial as one of the best hard money lenders in Philly, but I was wondering if any of you have worked with them in the past.

In a previous post, I discussed the difference in each of the most common cost segregation study approaches.

The costs are just ridiculous though. 

Will a Cost-Seg offset the LTCG on these index funds? 

Agree it is difficult to assess costs when they vary so much by location.Keep in mind that some turnovers are sickenly expensive, and that is just the nature of the business.