Imagine you bought a property for $2M.The land (excluding any structures) is valued at $400K.Since land is not depreciable in the eyes of the IRS, we subtract the land value from your purchase price to get your depreciable basis.Your depreciable basis is simply where a cost seg engineer starts from when allocating your eligible assets into either 5, 7, or 15 year property.In the scenario above, your starting basis would be $1.6M since your basis = your purchase price - the land value.Having an accurate land value is essential to getting your depreciation/bonus depreciation calculations right.This is the starting point for any cost seg study that you do.

An uptick may be due to the decrease in bonus depreciation by 20% in the new year.

. - Bonus Depreciation Recapture form the cost seg you did can be taxed at the marginal rate but this can be minimized the the asset is held for more than 4/5 years. - Capital Gains: Gains from appreciation remain taxed at the capital gains rate, not as ordinary income.

So for example, a 761 credit score will be in the 760-779 credit category, then going down to 740-759 and so on.2.

If so, what would be the best category and cities to start in for real estate? 

Use some for buy and hold (I personally would prefer apartments rather than buying a few single family homes) and some for lending/trust deed investing.In either category, you must know what you are doing, know how to vet the investment, how to vet the sponsor (if investing in a larger fund of some sort), the laws and regulations on the lending side, how to investigate which areas to invest in buy and hold and notes/trust deeds for that matter.So as you have already said several times, lots to think about . . . 

A good real estate accountant can save you thousands of dollars by leveraging entity selection and formation, tax deductions, cost segregations, bonus depreciation and tax planning.I recommend finding an accountant who specializes in real estate taxation and tax planning.You may want to consider working with your accountant remotely to expand your options.I would also recommend looking for a accountant willing to work with you throughout the year.

The seller converted one of the garages into a bonus room and it added 300sqft under AC.

I pay them a very nice bonus at the end of the year, so realistically it's probably more like $35/hr, so my labor cost for the job would be around $7,000.   

TIAGlad to see you’re taking advantage of bonus depreciation.