Thank you in advance.Tim and KristinaIf you decide to go the STR route to take advantage of the tax loophole, I highly recommend reaching out to John Bianchi and Taylor Jones with STR Search - they are experts in the space and have helped hundreds in your position.

We removed 4 walks (including load baring), installed 2 walls, added half bath, replaced all plumbing and electrical, added new eye brow porch, painted full exterior (changed color), replaced all flooring, new bathroom and kitchen layout with everything replaced (shower, cabinets/vanity, counter, appliances, etc), stocked with new furniture, added mini split, removed gas/wood fireplace and added a new electrical fireplace, and placed initial STR tenant in 2 months and 1 week.  

originally had a few hundred monthly wash pass members and we upped that into the thousands. routinely washed anywhere from 50-250 cars.

My attorney refers to that as a filing cabinet entity.

That's when there's less than $50-75 in actual supplies (drywall, tape, mud, paint) needed for the job.I had an amateur suggest that he could do it for a few hundred.

This is my opinion as a CPA who has prepared hundreds of income tax returns for both individuals and businesses with rental properties.To answer your question directly, you report the rental income you ACTUALLY received.It does not matter what you advertise as your rental listing price.

I'd like to be able to use my phone to measure the space digitally and then work on my laptop to create a design, especially for things like a kitchen with different options for cabinet placement, etc. 

I personally don't believe there are investors with hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend that couldn't think of doing the same, going to MLS and finding a wholesale deal.

My mortgage payments are barely a few hundred dollars below rents and when you factor in 300+K minimum in each house, vacancy, repairs, etc. it's barely good for appreciation, or at least it was.

Hi Brynn, there are 1031 exchange intermediary companies that can source deals for you but likely charge a commission and may not be aligned with your interest in getting best quality investmentyou can join the 506investorgroup.com, which has hundreds of active CRE-passive investors who are always posting new deals, and reviewing them and have long threads on each investment going back years tracking how they have done. you can google syndicators around the country and start contacting them and looking at their deals now and get a feel for which ones are good operators, so you will have a dozen or so lined up for when you need to investyou can start networking locally with RIAs or lenders and find out who are good/active CRE syndicatorsgood luck :)