Whether you build to sell or buy to hold, real estate is taxed on what you do with a property — and the same building can mean ordinary income, a capital gain, or a tax loss depending on how you hold it. Because those paths are so different, we split the guidance the way the tax code does:
Long-term and short-term rentals — the passive-loss rules, the short-term-rental treatment, material participation, cost segregation, and per-property basis tracking.
Learn more →Spec homes, remodels, and development held for sale — dealer status, ordinary-income treatment, job costing by project, and the entity separation that keeps it clear of your hold portfolio.
Learn more →Whichever road you’re on, real estate is the rare business where a property can put cash in your pocket and a loss on your return in the same year. Depreciation is the engine; the passive-loss and dealer rules are the gatekeepers. Every real estate engagement we run tracks the cash number and the tax number separately, per property or per project — because the gap between them is where the strategy lives.
Both pages apply, and keeping the two activities in separate entities and ledgers is exactly the point — build-to-sell is dealer activity taxed as ordinary income, while holds are investment activity that can reach capital-gain treatment, and mixing them lets the dealer character contaminate your investment gains. Start on the page matching your larger activity; we’ll structure both correctly in the first conversation.
Untracked basis and suspended losses. Every property accumulates a history — improvements, depreciation, refinances, passive losses that suspended — and it all comes due at sale. Owners who never tracked it per property turn the sale-year return into an archaeology dig, often overpaying because favorable items got lost. We keep a live per-property ledger so sale day is arithmetic, not excavation.
Yes. We’re based in Montgomery County but virtual-first, and real estate is inherently multi-state — we handle the apportionment, multiple state filings, and per-property books for investors holding across state lines, all through the secure portal.
Every tax return prepared and signed by a licensed CPA or IRS Enrolled Agent. Everything runs through the secure portal and e-signature.
Fifteen minutes with Kevin Hemingway, CPA. We discuss your tax or accounting needs, determine whether our firm is a good fit, and you leave with an estimated fee range and next steps. This consultation is for engagement evaluation and does not include tax advice, tax planning, or detailed analysis of specific tax situations.
Book a Free ConsultA paid, flat-fee review of your prior return and current books, ending in a prioritized action list you keep either way.
Book a Strategy Consult