You can find guidelines for determining material participation, the rules for determining who's a real estate professional and what's active participation, and the special rules that apply to the income and losses from a passive activity held through a publicly traded partnership (PTP) in Publication 925,"Basically, rental is generally passive unless you are a real estate professional, HOWEVER, refer to pub 925 for special rules.  

For the basics I'm looking at a half acre of land for 150k Duplex Manu 3/2 1900 sqft per side 230KConstruction is roughly 150kThe rent minimum i would expect is 2500 per side and could probably stretch it a little because of the amount of land they would have access to.

He wants us to install permanent heating in all the bedrooms which will cost alot of money that we don’t have.   

I do think something is off with what the realtor was doing if she asked for 30k in advance for staging which should be done by a different company, not her, but the post is basically just pure fear from not knowing what one is doing and then trying to out someone and take no responsibility.

If latter, it would end up more expensive because if B&O taxes as well.I am wondering if anyone else here has gone thru this journey and can help with some of these basic bootstrapping questions. 

After we paid him our nextinstallment of $45K, he basically disappeared in July and after reaching out tohim and his wife who also works with him, we've gotten minimal contactback/excuses/delays of when the final work is going to be done.

A 24x24 shell with no heat or insulation and 15 amp power can rent for $600 a month.

What I mean is if it's already a rental with most of the basics in place, it shouldn't matter if you spend 3k or 25k, if it cash flows sufficiently.

Basically, I agree with most of the responses, Bottomline, it's best if the repairs were done with all required permits, inspections, plans and engineering, etc.

@Jay Hinrichsabove SEEMS basic, BUT from the posts I’ve read A LOT of would be investors don’t understand that.