Travel expenses to look at potential investment properties are generally not tax-deductible unless you operate a real estate portfolio like a business. 2.

You can break out and deduct some parts of the rehab (appliances and carpets for example) but will have to slowly depreciate the rest of it.

.- trusts - deeding each property to a separate land trust each and then the land trusts in turn grant beneficiary to an operating LLC.

For the better part of two decades I've been involved in real estate in some capacity including but not limited to: mortgage & real estate broker, developer, project manager, STR owner/operator/manager, international investor and beyond. 

After operating the STR for the first year can we turn the STR into our primary residence for 2 years then sell and avoid capital gains tax and depreciation recapture instead of doing a 1031 exchange?

Then I would say that the main challenge for you will be finding trustworthy, experienced operators who are going to give you repeat business and who have a track record of successful project executions. 

I own, operate, and live in the state of my LLC but I have clients all over the country/world. 

High efficiency appliances were utilized including HVAC, light fixtures and water heater.The use of the accelerated depreciation strategy helps real estate investors to reduce the tax liability immediately which therefore increases their bottom line due to the offsetting of income.

After that, the tide usually reverses.STRs typically have large tax losses in the initial year of operation - but only in their initial year!

Since I list some of my (very few - I only have 3 residential units and my commercial ones are all managed by others) units every 2-3 years, I forget how to do it, and even standard operating procedures change a lot at that frequency, rendering them much less useful.