Personal use also includes time spent at your place by another party under a reciprocal sharing arrangement (“I use your place in exchange for you using my place”) whether the other party pays market rent or not.Days devoted principally to repairs and maintenance are considered days of vacancy and are disregarded, even if family members are present while you work away.The tax drillVacation homes in this category are treated as personal residences for federal income tax purposes.

The market itself is highly competitive and I'm not sure you'll have the time to devote to finding and managing the property.

Be devoted like no other.

So the criterisa then is based on how much time you devote to being a real estate investor?

My goal is to reach a point where I can devote my time to family and friends than to a job and have my investments pay for my lifestyle.

My wife and i have mobile home management, maintenance, and sales in our backgrounds, but are unsure how to locate and advertise ourselves as interesting for someone to devote time to as mentorees... perhaps its just about going to networking events till you find someone more successful than you, has something you want, and you click with??

I run other businesses too, so I can't always devote as much time as I'd like to my investment growth.   

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.Theodore Roosevelt

Before jumping into the properties prices and all, you need to decide how much time can you devote to RE as a business?

If there is someone out there that you really want to learn from you have to be a devoted fan.