If you brought your spouse and 2 kids with you, and you could argue all of your argue of your time on the trip was looking at real estate, and your personal business and activity circumstance defends being able to immediately deduct it and not treat it as a start up cost... likely 75% of much of the travel costs (airfare, food, etc) would be non-deductible. 

If there is a claim on your property, be ready to demonstrate and defend your care in minding and managing risks. 

I know people that had to defend fair housing complaints and it was not an easy go...deserved or not.

We try to warn our buyers about this and to use one of our trusted resources that is normally local, in the business for years, super knowledgeable and has a local reputation to defend and maintain. 

My wife is a champion.  

Not just STRs.That's why if you've been through the trenches of defending yourself you wouldn't just mock the liability angles of protecting your investments beyond umbrella insurance, you'd know how to form entities and keep things separated appropriately.

I'd spend $5K on my own attorney to defend me before I spent $2K to settle.

Don't know you or the defendant but would like to know your underlying purpose.  

Give Detroit a chance to defend itself for once...

A lot of this is just assumption, assuming a Real Estate Agent is ONLY arguing to defend there profit generation.