How to be considered a Real Estate Professional

[Tasha Sich]

I'm currently in the process of purchasing my first multi family property. As I wait for the deal to go through, I'm spending a lot of time listening to pod casts and reading real estate books. Can this learning process be counted towards my 750 hours that I need to log for the year to be considered an REPro? If I were to take an online real estate course, would that be a tax write-off?