Donations from a Foreclosure

[Jeffrey H.]

Hi All,

In 2016 I bought a mobile home on land for $2,500 that was condemned by the county and was going to be foreclosed.  It had sat for about 5 years unoccupied.  The contents inside the home were eerily untouched - food in the fridge (gross), clothes in the dressers, furniture, end tables, tools in the workshop, toys, shoes, etc.

It took me and another guy a week to catalog everything and donate it all in the hopes I could perhaps write it off.  By the end of 2016 my basis in the property is about 30K getting it ready for sale.

I have not plugged in a value for the donated items, but suspect using one of these donation calculators in TurboTax or equivalent it would likely be around $5,000 to $7,500 - more than the purchase price.

Should I write this off from my end of year basis or would the IRS say I could only write off a small % of the $2,500 as that reflects the market value of the home and contents - even though the county obviously had no idea what was inside...or maybe the IRS would say once I found the contents to valuable I would have to recognize a gain.  I don't know.  What do you think?

Thoughts appreciated.