Plan the property, not just the return.
Real Estate CPA for Roaring Fork Valley Investors
If you own property in the valley, the decisions that move your tax bill happen at purchase, at conversion, at refinance, and at sale. By the time the return is prepared, most of them are already locked in.
Three kinds of owners
Who we help
We work with buy-and-hold owners, real estate professionals, and investors carrying multi-state or K-1 income.
Buy-and-hold owners
One property or a dozen. Depreciation set up correctly, losses classified correctly, and a plan for what happens at sale.
Real estate agents and professionals
You work in real estate and own some yourself. Whether your hours count toward real estate professional status is a question to answer before you file, not after.
Investors with multi-state or K-1 income
Property in more than one state, or ownership through partnerships and syndications, where the K-1s arrive late and rarely explain themselves.
Beyond general practice
What a real estate CPA actually does
A real estate CPA handles the parts of your return that general practice misses: how rental losses are classified, how the property is depreciated, what your basis actually is after improvements and refinancing, and how a sale will be taxed before you agree to one.
Rental losses, passive and active
Most rental losses are passive, which means they offset passive income rather than your wages or business income. That surprises people who bought a property expecting a deduction against everything. There are exceptions, they're specific, and whether you qualify is a question to ask in advance rather than discover in April.
Depreciation and cost basis
Depreciation is the largest deduction most rental owners get, and it's also the one most often calculated on the wrong basis. Improvements, closing costs, the land-to-building split, and property converted from personal use all change the number. Getting the basis right once saves years of compounding error.
Why timing beats filing
The tax outcome of a property is set by a sequence of decisions across years. Filing records the result. Planning changes it.
It comes down to hours
Real estate professional status
Real estate professional status changes how your rental losses are treated. Qualify, and losses that were passive can offset other income. That's the whole appeal, and it's why the qualification tests are strict and heavily scrutinized.
Qualifying turns on hours: how much of your working time goes into real property trades or businesses, and whether you materially participate in the rental activity itself. Recordkeeping isn't a formality here. It's the evidence.
The most common misconception we correct is that owning several rentals makes someone a real estate professional. It doesn't, on its own. The status is about how you spend your time, not how much property you hold.
After the exchange closes
1031 exchanges: the tax reporting side
A 1031 exchange lets an investor defer capital gains by reinvesting the proceeds of an investment property into another like-kind property. Deferred, not erased. The tax follows the new property forward.
Your qualified intermediary and your attorney run the exchange itself. Our part starts once it closes. The exchange is reported on Form 8824 with your return for the year you sold the property, the basis from the old property carries into the new one, and any cash or other property you received along the way, called boot, is picked up as taxable gain.
Depreciation also has to be set up correctly on the new property. The basis you carried over keeps depreciating, and any new money you added starts its own schedule. Getting that split right is what keeps the next several years of returns correct.
We handle that reporting and coordinate with your intermediary. We don't broker exchanges or advise on which exchange structure to use.
How pricing works
We bill hourly for tax compliance work instead of selling fixed packages or tiers. What a return costs depends on how complex it is, and you get an estimate before we start.
Rentals and 1031s
Common questions
Can I deduct my rental loss against my salary?
Usually not directly. Rental losses are generally passive, which means they offset passive income rather than wages. There are exceptions tied to income level and to real estate professional status. Check whether you fall into one before you count on the deduction.
Do you handle 1031 exchanges?
We handle the tax reporting side. Once your exchange closes, we report it correctly, carry your basis forward, and pick up the effect on depreciation going forward, and we coordinate with your qualified intermediary. We don't broker exchanges or recommend which exchange structure to use.
What do you need from me after a 1031 exchange closes?
The closing statements for both properties, the exchange agreement and final accounting from your qualified intermediary, and the depreciation records for the property you sold. With those we can report the exchange and set up depreciation on the new property correctly.
When should I bring you in on a property sale?
Before it's under contract, if possible. Once a sale closes, most of the tax outcome is fixed. Beforehand there are still choices about timing and structure, and there's time to get your basis and depreciation position straight before it matters.
I have rentals in two states. Is that a problem?
It's common and it's manageable. It means more than one state return and attention to how income is sourced and credited. It's one of the more frequent reasons someone with an otherwise simple return outgrows a general practice.
Do I need a separate entity for each property?
That question has a legal answer and a tax answer, and they aren't always the same. We can tell you what a given structure does to your return. The liability side belongs with your attorney and we'll say so.
Own property in the valley? Let's talk before the next decision, not after.
Send us a message, or call (970) 315-2991.