New STR owner

[Maxie Massengale]

My wife and I bought our first small single family dwelling Dec 22 2025. We put it on AIRBNB and did a cost seg. The depreciation taken returned all the taxes we paid in 2025. We want to do it again in 2026 but don't know how to be in the growth phase.

[Ashish Acharya]

Hey Maxie, that's awesome that the cost seg wiped out your 2025 tax bill, that's exactly how it's supposed to work and it sounds like you executed it really well for your first year and I will just tag along to what the others above have said. 

The growth phase question is a great one. The honest answer is that the big first-year depreciation benefit from bonus depreciation is a one time thing unless there are any remaining improvements or additions to the current property that happened after the original cost seg was done.

So to keep that tax efficiency going in 2026 and beyond, the main lever most investors pull is acquiring another property and running the same playbook again; buy, put on Airbnb, cost seg, capture the accelerated depreciation in year one.

The bigger picture question as you scale is making sure your material participation is documented properly each year so the STR losses continue to offset your other income the way they did in 2025. That's not something you want to assume is automatic, it needs to be tracked and supported. Definitely worth sitting down with your CPA before the end of 2026 to map out the growth plan and make sure the tax strategy keeps working as you add properties. Happy to connect!