Deductions for non-REPS

[Bobby Andrews]

Hey everyone - first post here but have done a lot of research and reading. Hoping I can get some guidance with my question!

I own a 3 unit commercial building that generates about $50K/year in net revenue. I'm self employed making about $1.2M/year in net revenue to me. Thankfully I have bought businesses so have massive deductions, book depreciations, and write offs. Even so, you can imagine my taxes are pretty outrageous so I'm considering buying some properties with 100% financing to offset my commercial building and reduce my taxes. I don't see me ever qualifying for REPS due to my other businesses and I'm not really concerned at all about cash flow so if I bought a few of these properties in an up and coming area it's for the appreciation long game...so here's my question. If my net revenue is say, negative $10K/year per property, I could theoretically buy 5 of these which would fully offset the $50K I'm making on my cash flowing property, thus resulting in a zero tax liability for my real estate portfolio, right?

Secondly, if you aren't a real estate professional and you had a negative cash flow property, do you still get to deduct the interest, property taxes, property management, and depreciation or would that only be deductible from my passive real estate income?

The idea is to expand my portfolio with some appreciation properties without much skin in the game so I can preserve my capital to add cash flowing properties as I see fit. $10K/year feels like a small price to pay for the long game. Plus even if I can't deduct it this year, it'll carry forward. Hope that makes sense. Thanks in advance! 

[Jeff Nash]

Passive losses offset passive income. It sounds like you would be effectively able to manage the real estate income as you described.  Overall though I am wondering about other planning opportunities.