To use this "tax loophole", you need to spend at least 100 hrs AND more than anybody else.  100 hrs is 8 hrs a month -- if you have 3 or 4 rentals per month, your cleaner will spend more than that. 

The key is having reliable cleaners and handymen and boots on the ground.

I don't know what the land market is like in Colorado, but in California, there is land that you need to put on the market because the buyer profile is someone who comes out of the woodwork and who you'd never find without putting it out there, so I use platforms like MLS, Crexi, AIR, Loopnet and Costar.

It's stable, safe, wealthier and generally cleaner.

Once you do build out a solid team with cleaners, virtual assistants, etc, and automate the check-ins and check-outs, it can be lucrative at scale.  

Easier, cleaner, cheaper to take the loss fast/write it down and move on than have employees continuously tracking the file.

They can create $ basically out of thin air and take that remaining $90k and turn it into $900k in lending. 

I’m active duty Air Force with four properties.

I'm also in the Air Force stationed in the area, and I've been here for about 5 years, so my wife and I are pretty familiar with the market by now.

I'll also guess 90% of the heat and air is a window unit or something not really tied into the main house.One thing I would also say is as best you can divorce the idea of an owner/occupied dream house from an investment property.