To minimize taxes, consider the following strategies:1031 Exchange Before Dissolution – The corporation could complete a like-kind exchange, allowing investors to roll their ownership into individual properties while deferring capital gains tax.

- The type of account(s) that hold your life savings is important in this decision (ie. savings, brokerage, pre-tax retirement, Roth retirement).

Selling a primary residence and then buying it back as part of a 1031 exchange could raise red flags with the IRS.Your parents have a valuable opportunity to defer a significant amount of taxes by utilizing the $500,000 exclusion on their primary residence.

My question is, what is the best way to describe this scenario for tax purposes.  

Be mindful that there are rules that the lenders want you to check off.Furthermore, there are other rules on the tax side where you want to normally be under to get the most tax benefits.The magic number in both instances is '14 days'Lenders want you to stay atleast 14 days to meet the secondary home requirement.The tax accountant normally wants you to stay less than 14 days or 10% of the days it was used as a rental to treat it as a rental and not as a personal residence.Best of luck!

I didn’t really matter as it helped me save/defer $60k in taxes. 

Buying at the mortgage balance (~$150K) positions is under the fair market value and can trigger gift tax rules.

Do you not have taxes?

It's very disingenuous to blame the overall poor performance on Covid and not even mention the property tax expense issue.

This is what the assessed tax value will reset to after you purchase.