As we flipped this ourselves from the roof to the flooring, we gained much respect to labor workers and realized even the tidiest things such as changing the outlet covers and installing new plumbing will take up a lot of time!

This allows you to take the first $250k ($500k if married) of the gain tax free.

What better way to gain insights than go straight to the source on sentiment instead of trying to work backwards with data and reports.

The only difference is that there might be an explainable rationale for holding on to a property, such as a well-founded belief that equity gains are coming (such as owning a house in a rapidly growing area or property where the next commercial boom is headed), whereas with gambling your odds never change regardless of your losses.

My business is Egg Yolk Capital which also grabbed (wanted and unwanted) attention 

Two questions: Do you think the scenario sounds right, or is there anything else to pay attention to?

For the purpose of, say, minimizing capital gain in the same year. 

It’s always nice to see economic stability when you’re investing out of state.Another cool thing is that some neighborhoods are getting a lot of attention and revitalization.

At the early stages, the more control you have over your real estate, the better returns thus I recommend investing locally to make your dollar go that much farther and gain a good familarity with real estate before exploring out of state investing.

That way we could either claim expenses as deductions or through depreciation, rather than just as an increase in basis for capital gains if it was our primary residence?