Acquiring a Primary residence through a 1031

[Josh Clinard]

Just a little back story.

My wife and I have our first rental property ready to rent. We planned on renting until August of 2019 as then we will have had the house for 2 years. We plan to sell due to the local market favoring sellers. I am a Mercedes Benz technician, and my wife just graduated nursing school. We are currently living with family off of my income, planning to pocket hers 100%. 

A home just hit the market that we would like to acquire personally, but also believe we could get it at a price that would give us alot of initial equity. Problem is that we are on my income alone as my wife has not started working yet. And I do not believe we can get approved on my income alone, especially with the property we already have. So that got me thinking, and brings me to my question.

I understand roughly how 1031 exchanges work. Must be like properties with business/investment intent. The whole purpose here is to not pay any capital gains taxes. Could we sell our current property as a rental, aquire the new house as a rental but actually live there? I understand rental homes and primary homes have different tax laws/forms. But is there anything stopping me from acquiring it as a rental, and just turning around and saying we decided we need to live in it?

[Dave Foster]

@Josh Clinard, sorry, everything about your intent says that it is to purchase your primary residence.  That is not allowed.  Your intent must be to hold it for productive use in investment. If you're going to ask the question in a public forum you're opening yourself up to all kinds of nastiness from the IRS.  You're in essence asking folks for permission to lie.  That does not have integrity and you should  not attempt it.

If you purchased that property and used it for a year as a rental and then changed your intent that's a different story.  But 30 days???? As the NFL commentators say - Cmon Man!