All Forum Posts by: Chris Taylor

Hello. We own a house we are currently renting. It’s a lovely, older waterfront home in WA. We want to move into it after renting for 2 years as our retirement ‘forever’ home. Know that ‘forever’ is unrealistic, how does depreciation recapture for the rental years work after living in the home as a primary residence for 15 or more years? Is is it realistic to think we can just sell it at that point as a regular primary residence without any rental home tax implications?  Much thanks in advance.

It’s in WA and is somewhat of a necessity (rural area). Not sure if that helps it qualify for an immediate deduction or not. We would not have done this if it was in the city. Thanks Will!

We have a rental home with a fireplace that was deemed ‘not functional’ because the firebox was rusted through. We put in a wood burning insert and it was pretty expensive. Is this tax-deductible?  Much thanks!

Thanks. I did and apparently it’s not as big of a deal as I thought. They said if we’re not using rental income to qualify for the mortgage, not a problem. My worry about leaving it vacant is mostly from a security/maintenance perspective. Thanks.

We are wanting to buy a retirement home as a second home and plan to turn it into our primary residence. We are concerned about leaving it vacant for a year. I recently read that we could rent it (through a property mgmt co. in this case) for up to six months without having to mortgage it as a rental property. We would be putting about 40% down, so I don't think we would have trouble getting the second mortgage. Any advice would be appreciated!

Thanks all. Dave, we may actually make the full 2 years. Our intent at the outset will be clearly to rent the home out (and hire a property mgmt company). I’m just concerned that circumstances may dictate that we cut the 2 years a bit short. We will be buying land in the area to build on and will only need to live in the house for a year (or less) ourselves - then we will put it back in the local rental pool, likely managing it ourselves at that point.

Hello. I'll try to keep this simple. We will be selling a rental this spring and wish to do a 1031 transfers into another property, as it has appreciated quite well and we would like to defer the tax. We plan to rent this new property for at least a year and then retire and use it our new primary residence (after selling our current PR). I understand that the safe harbor time period is 2 years, but this seems to be a bit of a gray area based on my reading. Is one full year of renting the property enough time to then recharacterize it as a PR, or will we be penalized and lose the tax benefits we thought we had?  Thank you! I have another question, but will keep it there for now!