Getting married with 2 homes of less than 18 months of ownership

[Luke Corigliano]

Hey all! I've been a biggerpockets podcast listener for the last 6 months or so and my new wife and I are very interested in getting into the real estate investing game. A little background information that is relevant to my questions are my wife and I each bought homes in the spring of 2017 (myself in Spokane, WA March 2017 and her in Coeur D' Alene, ID in April 2017). Then we met in July 2017 and as the story goes fell in love and literally just tied the knot this past weekend. We each took conventional 30 year loans for our homes when we purchased them and they just happened to be the exact same price at $225k each. (the only difference is I put 20% down on mine whereas she put less than 3% on hers-so no PMI for me but still paying PMI on hers and her payment is about $300 more a month than mine because of that).

From about February 2018 we decided things were getting serious and I spent enough time at her house that I might as well put my home on Airbnb to make a little extra income since we spend enough time at each others homes (currently we have made about $10k off of my home on Airbnb).  After discussing with my accountant she was under the impression that we could sell one of the homes before the 2 year/24 months of ownership and no pay capital gains (and could use marriage as an exemption). However, after researching it and having her actually do her homework it came to light that divorce, separation, health issues, moving for a job, and a few other extenuating circumstances were the only exemptions for no paying capital gains before 2 years of having it as a primary residence. 

We stand to make a gain of $80k or more on her home if we sell it now (after purchasing it she knocked out a wall, got all new flooring, new paint, updated kitchen and bathrooms, etc.) (and the house next door which is 150 sq. ft. larger but the same with 3 beds and 2 baths and has not been updated since 2000 just sold for $315k). The down side is the payment on her home would be about what we would make from a long term renter (maybe $100 more than the mortgage a month). We would really like to purchase an owner occupied multi fam unit (2-5 doors) in Spokane or Coeur D' Alene and live in while continuing to airbnb or long term rent mine in Spokane. But I have some questions for bigggerpockets nation-many of them being tax questions.

1. Should we sell my wifes house and make $80k-100K now(it would close after April 2019 to avoid capital gains) to reinvest later? Or is it better to rent even though we would only be making $100 a month after paying the mortgage?

2a. As a married couple can we file taxes separately and each have our own primary residence? We want to keep my house long term as either a short term airbnb rental or long term rental. But have to keep ownership of her home until at least April 2019 in order to not pay capital gains tax on it when we sell. 

2b. Her home is in Idaho and mine is in Washington state (in towns about a 45 min drive apart). However Idaho has a 5% state income tax while Washington does not. We both work in WA so that is part of why i would like to keep my primary residence as WA so I do not have to pay Idaho state Income Tax.  She needs to keep her Idaho home as her primary residence but if I kept mine in WA then I would avoid Idahos Income Tax. But is that even possible for a married couple to do?

3. What would the benefit be to file separate or together? (The exemption for capital gains is after 2 years of having that property as your primary residence and up to $250k as a single or $500k as a couple which wouldn't have an impact on us since the gain would be well under $250k. 

4. She has not started the process of changing her last name to mine yet. Is there any reason for her to wait on that or is she ok to change it? 

Mainly tax questions and as I said earlier I am very displeased with the accountant I have been working with-So if anyone in this area of the world has an accountant they know/trust please get me in contact with them! Thank you all!