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How I Turned My Office Renovation Into a Smart Investment: Part 1 - Why Smart Entrepreneurs Buy the Building and Rent It to Themselves

If you're an entrepreneur looking to build wealth, save on taxes, and gain more control over your business expenses, there's one strategy that’s often overlooked but incredibly powerful: buying your own building and renting it back to your business.


It might sound circular, but this move—called a self-rental—can unlock multiple financial and tax advantages that are hard to match with other real estate or business investments.


Keys on a house-shaped keychain over financial charts with colorful graphs and pie charts showing percentages in a blurred office setting.


What Is a Self-Rental?


A self-rental occurs when you (or an entity you control) purchase a building and lease it to your own operating business. From a tax standpoint, this creates two distinct roles—you as the landlord and you as the tenant—offering more flexibility and strategic advantages than if you rented from a third party.


Why This Strategy Works So Well


Hands counting US dollars over a brown leather sofa with a laptop nearby.
1. Turn Business Rent into Personal Wealth

Instead of paying a landlord and helping them build equity, your rent payments go toward paying off a mortgage on an asset you own—building wealth on your terms.


2. Double-Dip on Tax Deductions

Your business deducts rent as a business expense. Meanwhile, the rental income on your personal or holding company side isn’t subject to self-employment tax. You can also deduct:

  • Mortgage interest

  • Property taxes

  • Insurance and repairs

  • Depreciation, especially if you use cost segregation


3. Maximize Tenant Improvement Deductions

Your business can pay for improvements and deduct them as business expenses, even though those improvements increase the value of your property. That’s a win-win.



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4. Leverage Cost Segregation for Big Depreciation

With a cost segregation study, you can accelerate depreciation and take large first-year deductions—often tens of thousands of dollars—dramatically reducing your tax burden.


5. Offset Passive Losses with Passive Income

If you're not a real estate professional and earn more than $150,000 annually, you can’t normally deduct passive real estate losses. But rental income from your self-rental is passive income—so it can be used to offset passive losses from other real estate investments.


6. Banks Like Self-Rentals

Lenders view self-rentals as low risk because the tenant—you—is already generating consistent income. That can translate into better loan terms.


Final Thoughts


Self-rental can be a powerful part of your overall tax and investment strategy—turning business overhead into a long-term asset while giving you more control over your space and your future.


Lease document with a black pen and an American flag keychain on a dark surface, suggesting a formal signing.

Coming Up Next…


In our next post, I’ll share my real-life experience buying, renovating, and renting a property to my own firm—mistakes, wins, tax strategy, and the numbers behind the scenes.

Stay tuned!



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