Based on my understanding, all you can do is carry-forward the loss till you dispose off the property.

And once worn out, wildly toxic to dispose of.

I have been diligently reading, studying, and beginning to practice analyzing cash flows of properties within Chicago and some Chi suburban areas.While I try to use whatever tools I have at my disposal and also be conservative with my numbers while analyzing properties (vacancy percentage, expenses, etc) I believe that in some areas of my analyses, I may not be getting the most accurate information.For everyone out there, where do you get your rental estimates by location?

Being a family without a large disposable income, like we had before children, we had to make a very considered choice of where to invest our funds.

If you work so much, you should have some disposal income to use for marketing, no other choice.

You need to have a person to dispose the property for you, someone who has a connection to cash buyers and flippers. 

If your income is above $150,000 and you are not eligible to claim real estate professional status, your rental losses become suspended into a future year.The suspended losses can be utilized in one of a couple ways1) You dispose of the property2) You generate passive income from this property or another property

I wish I had BP at my disposal when I was 18!

Assuming a building footprint of up to 5000 sq ft, use could not support the need for a lot of parking (probably <20 spaces).Not interested in auto maintenance and other uses that require disposal (and potential runoff/dumping) of large volume of hazardous materials.Long term, I'd prefer something that contributes to the improvement of this area (e.g. a used car lot might be OK for a couple of years just to generate income, but I'd want to find something more beneficial after that).

For instance, if you've determined that your max down payment ranges from 3.5% to 4%, ask yourself: do you have the 4% for the down payment plus an additional 3-4% for closing costs (Yes, be prepared to pay the closing cost for the acquisition of your properties) on a $1.3M property, at your disposal?