How long did you rent it out? Did you rent out the entire house? Or did you just rent out part of it? Or was it a back-and-forth property that alternated between personal use and rental use?
Just to give you an idea of amounts, let's use an example. Let's say the house only cost $42,500, and $15,000 of that is land. So the depreciable basis of the house would probably be $27,500. Let's also assume you sold the property for more than you paid for it.
That would be $1,000 per full-year of depreciation that you missed out on. If you are in the 15% Federal tax bracket and 5% State tax bracket, that would means you have been paying $200 too much, per full year because of the missed depreciation
In that example, if you missed more than two full years, it would probably be worth the cost of a tax professional to fix things.
If your depreciable Basis of the house (usually purchase price minus cost of land) is more than $27,500, the savings would also be proportionately larger.
