Vacation Rental: Tax WriteOffs When Visiting [Co-Owned]

[Kris Barney]

Hi BP Members. I'm new to BP (but really enjoying it!), and was hoping to see if anyone had any experience with this scenario, and if so, had any suggestions: I'm considering co-owning/purchasing a small vacation home with a couple of friends, which we will each utilize a little bit, and rent out otherwise. I'm really intrigued by tax planning for this property -- specifically if/how I could plan my visits to this property and write-off those trip costs.   

1) I'd be a partial owner (and passive, largely); curious if that would impair my ability to write off trip costs in any way?

2) I'm aware that I need to pre-plan my trip with business activities ahead of time, and I need the majority of my trip to be business related. If I'm a more passive RE investor (at least as of now I would be; I'm catching the RE investing bug and will likely become more active in the future), could I count things like "evaluating the neighborhood" as a business activity (given that is a component of RE investing)?  What about inspecting the property?  I'm more than happy to dedicate the time necessary to meet the required 50% rule per the IRS, but really curious what options people have used to meet this criteria if they are passive, partial-owners?

3) Is there a limit on the number of times per year I could make such a trip to the property to do this?

4) If I partially owned multiple properties in the same area, would it change anything?

Thanks in advance for all the help/thoughts/advice!