using realestate as tax reduction strategy

[Valentine Sviatocha]

Hi everyone, 

Thank you in advance for the replies. I have been learning and listening about realestate investing for some time now and have questions about how real-estate can be used to reduce taxable income. Lets say that one has high income from primary occupation (its a non real-estate 1099 income). Is there a way to use investment real-estate to reduce taxable income from your primary job, without getting a real-estate professional status. I understood that depreciation from rental property can only offset income from that property and can't be used against non passive income source (plz correctly if I am wrong), especially if your active income is above 150k/year? Or did I get this info wrong? It seems that everywhere I look in the media the "experts" say that a purpose of a business is to use the income to buy real-estate and then use the depreciation to offset taxable income from that business. Does that apply to the scenario above or does it only apply to business associated with buying/flipping/managing real-estate? 

Thanks in advance for any input. 

Val