Incurring losses every year will mean that the losses will be suspended and carried forward and will offset future passive income.

It seems there’s a common misconception largely influenced by social media, online courses, and influencers who oversimplify the process that real estate is an easy, passive way to generate income with minimal effort.

This is hard work and by no means passive and I don't like it everyday.

Being a real estate professional allows you to treat the income as non-passive, allowing higher high income tax payers to pay less in taxes.

Real estate is not my of my knowledge base at all but I want to start working on building passive income now (I’m 44). 

If you have a significant amount of passive income (from passive investments maybe from K-1s or other rental properties), then you could use the apartment rental loss to offset that passive income only.

I use apartments.com, so the money didn't end up in my account until 1/6/25.Is this considered income for 2024 or 2025? 

Are your real estate investments active or passive?

If you can’t do a 1031 to a non-income tax state, figure out a year when you will have lower income and tax rates ar as low as possible.

Investing this amount in passive deals might not provide immediate income, and you could end up waiting years to see returns (similar case in most investments.)