All Forum Posts by: Tyler Melso

Thanks for the response Ashish! That was very helpful information

This is my first year filing taxes as a home owner since my wife and I bought our first duplex in 2018. We owner occupy one of the units and rent out the other. I've been reading a lot about how to deduct all of our expenses but I have something concerning the purchase of new appliances I was hoping someone could clarify for me. 

Shortly after purchasing the duplex we bought 2 new refrigerators, one for the unit we live and and one for the rental unit, as well as a washer/dryer which we have put in the shared basement. I'm currently using Turbo-tax and I'm entering in these new appliances as assets. It is saying I cannot enter the full price of the asset since we only rent out a "portion of the property". So it tells me to find the rental percentage using the rental unit's sq ft vs sq ft of the entire property. In this case it is just under half of the total sq footage, so am I correct to enter in roughly half of the purchase price of these appliances as the total cost of the asset? Also, am I correct that even though one of the refrigerators we bought was for our own usage in the unit we live in we can still claim it as an asset towards the rental property?

One last thing, I'm given the option to deduct the full amount of these assets on this year's taxes or take them as a depreciation over the next few years. These appliances were not overly expensive, the most we spent on any single item was about $500 so it seems better to just take the full deduction rather than depreciating something that isn't very expensive in the first place. Does anyone think it is better to take the depreciation?

Thanks in advance!

Hello! 

My name is Tyler and I've been browsing the BiggerPockets forums and listening to the podcasts for some time now and finally ready to start investing! Been living in and near Milwaukee for the better part of 9 years, and I work in the Madison area as a geospatial analyst. My wife and I have a goal to purchase our first house by the end of this year, ideally a multi family home that we can house hack. If anyone in the Milwaukee or Madison area knows a good realtor that is knowledgeable about multi family homes we are open to any recommendations!