What's a Good DepreciMax Score? How Properties Rank

Every property listing on DepreciMax carries a single number between 1 and 99. That number — the deprecimax score — is the headline output of our scoring engine, and it is designed to compress a dense engineering analysis into something you can scan in two seconds while clicking through a market search. This article is the canonical reference for what the score means, how it is computed, and how to use it when you are sizing up an STR deal.

If you have spent any time on the platform you have already seen the four tier labels — Best, Good, Average, and Poor — color-coded across every property card. Those labels are not arbitrary marketing copy; they are tied to specific score breakpoints and specific dollar outcomes. By the end of this post you should be able to look at any score and translate it directly into a year 1 deduction range on a property of any price point. For the same idea rolled up to the market level, our 2026 STR Bonus Depreciation Market Study ranks 197 US STR markets by median bonus-eligible share of purchase price.

What the DepreciMax score actually measures

The DepreciMax score is a linear 1–99 mapping of the bonus-eligible percentage of purchase price. That is the entire definition. Every other dimension — finishes, land, amenities, age — feeds into that single percentage, and the score is just a normalized representation of where the property lands on that axis.

Concretely, the score is anchored at two endpoints. A property where only 5% of the purchase price would clear as 5-year personal property and 15-year land improvements — think a high-land-ratio urban lot with builder-grade finishes — maps to a score of 1. A property where 34% of the purchase price would clear — a top-decile cabin with pool, hot tub, custom kitchen, and conveyed FF&E — maps to a score of 99. Every property in between is placed linearly along that 29-percentage-point range.

Because the mapping is linear, the score is unitless and directly comparable across markets, price points, and property types. A 72 in Gatlinburg means the same depreciation outcome (as a percentage of purchase price) as a 72 in Joshua Tree or a 72 in Park City. The dollar amount differs because the purchase price differs, but the percentage of basis you can accelerate into year 1 is the same. For the underlying math of how that percentage converts to actual deductions, see our year 1 write-off math deep dive.

Score ranges and what they mean in dollars

Four tiers, four breakpoints, four sets of dollar outcomes. The table below is the master reference for translating any DepreciMax score into a concrete year 1 deduction range on a $600,000 STR — the median purchase price in our benchmark dataset.

The 5 factors that move your score up or down

Every property's score is built from five inputs. Move any one of them materially and the score swings. These are listed in roughly descending order of impact for typical STR inventory.

1. Land ratio. Land is not depreciable. A 15% land ratio means 85 cents of every dollar enters the depreciable basis; a 35% land ratio means only 65 cents do. This single input can move the score by 20 to 30 points on otherwise identical properties. See our deep dive on land value ratio for the full impact analysis.
2. Finish quality. High-end finishes — stone countertops, custom cabinetry, designer lighting, premium appliances — are 5-year personal property at 100% bonus. Builder-grade everything is mostly 39-year structural. Finish quality alone moves the score by 10–20 points.
3. Build year. Newer construction generally has higher-grade FF&E, more recessed lighting, more low-voltage wiring, and more dedicated circuits — all 5-year property. Older properties also carry more deferred maintenance baked into the price, which reduces the depreciable share.
4. Property type. Cabins, vacation homes, and resort condos consistently outscore urban condos and suburban single-families. The cabin vs condo vs luxury comparison walks through exactly why a $600k cabin typically scores 15–25 points higher than a $600k urban condo.
5. Square footage and amenity stack. Outdoor amenities — pools, hot tubs, fire pits, outdoor kitchens, pergolas, paved patios — are 15-year land improvements at 100% bonus. Each one adds 3–8 score points. Square footage matters because it determines the absolute dollar value of the 5-year and 39-year allocations against the purchase price.

How to calculate the score yourself

The math is intentionally simple — there is no black box. If you know the property's bonus-eligible percentage (the sum of its 5-year personal property allocation and 15-year land improvements allocation, divided by purchase price), you can compute the score directly.

A property with 22% bonus-eligible components scores 1 + (22 - 5) / 29 × 98 ≈ 58 — sitting solidly in the Good tier, well above the 55 Good breakpoint. A property with 28% scores 1 + (28 - 5) / 29 × 98 ≈ 79 — clearly inside the Best tier. A property with 34% scores 99 — the new upper anchor, reserved for premium new-construction STRs with low land ratios and full FF&E. A property with 10% scores 1 + (10 - 5) / 29 × 98 ≈ 18 — Poor.

Each integer score corresponds to roughly 0.30 percentage points of depreciable basis. That sensitivity is intentional: small finish or amenity differences should produce visible score movement, so investors can distinguish between properties that look similar in a listing but produce materially different tax outcomes. For the underlying §168(k) classification rules that determine which dollar goes into which bucket, see the STR investor guide.

How to use the score when evaluating deals

The score is a screening tool, not a decision. Use it to narrow your funnel — but the actual purchase decision still requires a property-specific report and a conversation with your CPA. Here are the three places it earns its keep.

1. As a deal floor

Most active STR investors set a personal floor — for example, "I won't run a report on anything below a 55." That filters out the bottom half of the market in two clicks and saves you from paying $99 on properties that were never going to deliver the tax outcome you needed. For investors using bonus depreciation to offset W-2 income aggressively, a 65+ floor is common. How DepreciMax works walks through the full filtering workflow.

2. As CPA prep material

When you forward a listing to your CPA with "this scores 78 — here's the line-item breakdown," the conversation shifts from "should we do cost seg" to "what is your projected ordinary income this year and how aggressively do we want to use this." A score plus a line-item report is what your CPA needs to model the year 1 deduction against your actual tax situation.

3. As negotiation leverage

A 78 with $130k+ in year 1 deductions justifies a higher offer than a 42 at the same asking price — the after-tax cost of capital is fundamentally different. Some investors price the year 1 deduction explicitly into their offer ceiling. A score also helps when you are walking away from a property: "the property's depreciation profile doesn't support our underwriting" is a clean, defensible reason.

Three real property examples with scores and drivers

Below are three properties pulled from recent reports — anonymized but otherwise unchanged — to make the score range concrete.

Example A is a textbook Best. Low land ratio, recent build, full outdoor amenity stack, conveyed furnishings — everything is pushing the score up. The 25.2% bonus-eligible figure maps directly to a score in the high 80s.

Example B is the median STR. Decent but not exceptional finishes, one outdoor amenity, mid-range land ratio. Most listings in major STR markets fall in this 55–70 range — the deduction is real, but the score reflects that nothing about the property is extraordinary on the depreciation axis.

Example C is instructive — it has a low land ratio (because condos book land at near-zero) but still scores in the Good range because the older finishes, missing private amenities, and lack of FF&E pull the bonus-eligible percentage down. Low land ratio alone is not enough; the property still needs the 5-year and 15-year components to score well.

"The score is a single number that compresses what used to be a 30-page cost seg study into something you can read off a property card in two seconds." — DepreciMax product principles

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