I am surprised that anyone that invests is not clear on tax credit versus tax deduction.  

Once you move out and convert the whole property into a short-term rental, you can depreciate the full structure (except land) and use a cost seg study to accelerate deductions through bonus depreciation.

One counter thought would be if you don't itemize your Federal taxes, the 2025 standard deduction is $15,000 for individual and $30,000 for married filing jointly. 

You will take the higher of the standard deduction or itemized deductions.

However, the deductible can be considered an expense for the rental (since you actually came out of pocket for this).

Check your deductible and consider how you plan to use insurance.

Someone posted a really good explanation that you are taking tax deductions today at the expense of tax deductions down the road.

Costs are reasonable and tax deductible as well.

The damage deduction exceeded the deposit (the deposit was almost $3k, but there was a lot of damage).  

Essentially you are plugging in all of your data and they are using market price studied to generate your deductions.