You need to establish a relationship with an active agent closing deals month to month.

@Joyce A DebrahDoYou want to be passive or active?

It is possible that you could take the deduction for your rental as a separate investment activity. 

That said, if you can gain some basic knowledge and take away a few good nuggets from a course as a newbie, then it could be a good starting point (of course the best starting point is doing what you are doing here, engaging the BP community).

Based on what I have heard/read thus far, it seems like I don't need a formal legal structure such as LLC for running this is as an active business (but I may set up an LLC for asset protection, which is allowed by my mortgage lender).

In the process, I would either lose this potential tenant and yet would have gone thru the process esp. when I wanted to avoid getting engaged with the city Like someone's comment elsewhere - the tenants who come thru this program are not well earning, so what is the probability they will 1) stay longer& not have to be evicted and or 2) the payments in time/ partial 3) will they trash the place

I used to be active on here (BiggerPockets) around 2009, and wow, how it has grown!

We’re actively participating in auctions, but unfortunately, we missed out on our last bid by one bid higher.

W-2 income, but it’s subject to passive activity loss limitations.

Sorry again.As i said before, and I truly meant, start by checking into the regulations and laws for your market of activity.