Unlock Hidden Tax Savings with Cost Segregation | Real Estate Pros Show

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Show Summary

In this episode of the Investor Fuel Podcast, host Leo Wehdeking speaks with CPA Dawn Polin, who specializes in real estate incentives, particularly cost segregation. Dawn discusses her approach to helping small investors maximize their returns through innovative software solutions and emphasizes the importance of customer service and automation in her business. She shares insights on handling pressure during tax season, her future goals of leveraging technology, and the significance of building strong client relationships in the real estate industry. Check out Rental Property Refund (RPR) – an automated cost segregation study service for residential rental property owners. Use code INVESTOR150 for $150 off your first study.

Resources and Links from this show:

• • • Investor Fuel Real Estate Mastermind
    • Investor Machine Real Estate Lead Generation
    • Mike on Facebook
    • Mike on Instagram
    • Mike on LinkedIn
    • Rental Property Fund Website
    • use the code INVESTOR150 for $150 off your first study
    • Dawn Polin on Instagram

  Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode

  Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

  Dawn Polin, CPA (00:00)
  I am a CPA and I focus on real estate incentives, primarily cost segregation. If you’re not familiar with that, it is a way to break out your property depreciable bases on your tax return and accelerate some of your depreciation that normally you would have to wait three decades for. So it’s a time value of money concept. So what we are primarily focusing on is the residential rentals, either rental properties

  that are long term or short term and trying to help them because this has been an underserved space in this market. Traditionally, cost segregation studies were done by big companies. So by helping the small investor, it really helps them kind of fuel their investments and being able to make their money go further.

  Leo Wehdeking (02:24)
  Hey everyone, welcome to Investor Fuel Podcast. I’m your host, Leo Wehdeking, and today I’m joined by someone I’ve been looking forward to chatting with. She’s Dawn Polin, all right, who’s been making serious moves ⁓ in the real estate industry. ⁓ Dawn, glad to have you here.

  Dawn Polin, CPA (02:44)
  Thank you, Leo. Nice to be here.

  Leo Wehdeking (02:47)
  Hey, that’s great. I think our listeners are really going to take something away from you ⁓ the way that you’re approaching ⁓ your business. ⁓ so first of all, people who may not be familiar with your world, can you please give us a short version and what your main focus is these days?

  Dawn Polin, CPA (03:10)
  I am a CPA and I focus on real estate incentives, primarily cost segregation. If you’re not familiar with that, it is a way to break out your property depreciable bases on your tax return and accelerate some of your depreciation that normally you would have to wait three decades for. So it’s a time value of money concept. So what we are primarily focusing on is the residential rentals, either rental properties

  that are long term or short term and trying to help them because this has been an underserved space in this market. Traditionally, cost segregation studies were done by big companies. So by helping the small investor, it really helps them kind of fuel their investments and being able to make their money go further.

  Leo Wehdeking (04:03)
  Hey, I love that. And in what markets are you operating right now?

  Dawn Polin, CPA (04:10)
  We operate in any market that is filing a federal tax return. So anywhere in the US, including Hawaii and Alaska.

  Leo Wehdeking (04:19)
  Love it. Now what caught my attention about you was the way that you are ⁓ handling your business, okay, especially the rental properties. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

  Dawn Polin, CPA (04:33)
  Well, we’re trying to streamline it in order to get the costs to be where the ROI works for the investor. let’s say you have a house that you were able to purchase for only like $150,000. We would also like that investor to be able to utilize these strategies. So we have come up with a software program where you go in it, you input the data yourself about

  say, it’s a pictogram format, so it’s very easy. Do you have a driveway? How many cars?

  fit on it? Do you have, you know, a lamp post? Do you have cabinets in your laundry room? Easy questions. You just pick the pictograms that you have and then the software does all the work in the background to create your cost segregation study based on those items, the square footage of your home, etc.

  Leo Wehdeking (06:11)
  right. ⁓ Actually well that’s pretty cool you know because it’s not easy to do those kind of things these days all right. Now what’s been the key you know to keep your business running smoothly?

  Dawn Polin, CPA (06:18)
  Mm-hmm.

  The key to running any business smoothly, I think, is to make sure that all your clients are being served. believe that customer service is number one. So you want them to be able to, you want to make sure that no balls are dropped and that nobody is forgotten. And so that is always hard in business to make sure that as workload increases, and sometimes it does because we’re working around tax deadlines. So right before tax deadlines, you’re going to have a big surge to make sure everybody is still getting

  the same customer service and no balls are dropping is always the hardest. And you can always improve in that area, think, almost every business.

  Leo Wehdeking (07:09)
  right? And how do you do, you know, to provide that type of customer service to your clients, to your investors?

  Dawn Polin, CPA (07:18)
  A lot of it is through automation. So not necessarily automation in the contact with the customers, but once a customer contacts us or is to be able to make sure that they’re now on our list and somebody’s watching and making sure that if they need help or if they’re being followed up with or if they have questions that they’re being addressed and all those type of things, ⁓ it’s really about tracking is the biggest thing.

  Leo Wehdeking (07:46)
  Okay, perfect, perfect. Now, every operator I know has a moment where things got real. You know, maybe a deal that went sideways or a time they had to be fast. Do you mind sharing one of those moments?

  Dawn Polin, CPA (08:06)
  When things got real, ⁓ we do have to do things fast sometimes. There is a lot of rush. Like even today, there’s a rush. People are filing their returns, actually, for businesses in two weeks. And then they need something done very quickly. And we try our best to always accommodate that. As far as anything getting real, I will say,

  I, we don’t have any issues with the IRS because we really follow all the letters of the law. So as long as I’ve been practicing, which has been 30 years, I have not had any issues with the IRS or where anything gets real. I’m really, really, cognizant of what all the tax rules are and that everything is being followed correctly. So other than just your day to day fire fires with tax deadlines, that gets real every year and twice a year in April and then in September.

  October.

  Leo Wehdeking (09:03)
  Okay, well actually that’s the kind of stuff that people you know don’t want to share these days But hey, you know, that’s actually pretty cool and Let me ask you now one more thing ⁓ What’s the next goal for you?

  Dawn Polin, CPA (09:25)
  The next goal for me is to be able to increase, so I have focus on customer service, but I would like to double workload and keep the customer service exactly the same. ⁓

  but be able to decrease like any type of redundancy. I really want to lean into AI and automations to do this. And we’ve done that a lot as it is, but I really, I do really love that space. And as long as everything is working correctly and things don’t get

  I really want to see how far I can take it as far as, you know, just doubling. That’s the goal right now, doubling the amount of work that we’re doing.

  Leo Wehdeking (10:41)
  Well, that’s actually

  pretty big, you know, and when you talk about automating ⁓

  customer service with your clients, that’s actually where everything is going in the future, you know, and actually the near future, ⁓ everybody’s using AI and automated ⁓ solutions and softwares for the businesses. So I think that you’re actually on a good track, you know, ⁓ especially when you got the kind of experience that you’re talking about. All right. ⁓ Now the next move can either compound things or create chaos, depending on how you play it, right? ⁓

  So now that we got a lot of people listening, know, ⁓ they’re either in their journey or looking, you know, to build up something. And I think, you know, they will benefit a lot from, you know, from hearing this. Okay. Now when it comes about building those types of relationships, okay, and growing your network, what do you think was the biggest difference for you?

  Dawn Polin, CPA (11:47)
  growing the client relationships in my network, my client network? The biggest difference for me. Sorry, just making sure I have a quick question. Okay.

  Leo Wehdeking (11:54)
  Exactly.

  Dawn Polin, CPA (11:57)
  I think it’s what really it was time. mean for me I have worked with a lot of people over time in regular jobs where I went into the office and you know, they weren’t necessarily Online, know versus this is this is an online platform rental property refund But it’s a lot of those connections that I have made in person have really translated to being able then to take them online I do feel like

  These days, it’s very difficult to make a connection just through the computer, just through Facebook, those type of things. That’s, that has been the biggest kind of game changer for me is that I have already had, you know, a lot of those networks and connections and things like that because it is difficult. It’s totally done every single day to build a business just online, but it’s hard.

  Leo Wehdeking (12:54)
  Yeah, and I totally understand that. ⁓ But again, it’s something that you can fake, know, when you build relationships, you know, whether it fits online. ⁓ We used to be, you know…

  like involved into a more personal relationship, know, like face to face thing. But nowadays everything, you know, going like with the technology that we have. So I think that, you know, everything will land in place eventually.

  Dawn Polin, CPA (13:29)
  Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, it’s true. It will, it will. Everything will iron out. It always does.

  Leo Wehdeking (13:35)
  Yeah, well, actually, in this space, relations are everything. ⁓ that’s something that you need to look at, you know, and you need to feel comfortable with someone, whether if it’s online or if you them in person. But that’s what actually networking is, you know, try to to know people who are pretty much doing the same thing that you’re doing or at a higher level.

  you know, so that’s actually pretty cool. All right, done. Before we wrap up, if someone wanted to reach out to you, okay, and connect with you, maybe collaborate or learn about what you’re doing, what would be the best way to reach out to you?

  Dawn Polin, CPA (14:04)
  Mm-hmm. ⁓

  If they go to the rental property refund website, they’ll be able to connect with us there and then we have learnings and we have ⁓ different things and they can also reach out.

  Leo Wehdeking (15:14)
  Okay, perfect. Well, listen, Dawn, I really appreciate your time, your story and your perspective. And we need more people in this space, you know, the same as you, okay, doing it the right way, ⁓ step by step. Like, like you mentioned before, you know, there is a lot of people online that are actually offering services at low prices ⁓ with no experience at all, you know, and having a lot of investors

  losing their money and stuff like that. Alright. Now for those of you turning in, if you got a lot of value from this, make sure you’re subscribed. Okay. We got more conversations coming up with operators like Dawn. Okay. Who are out there building real businesses. We’ll see you on the next episode.