While demolition costs are nondeductible, a taxpayer may claim a loss deduction when the depreciable business property is retired from use in a trade or business or from use in the production of income.I would strongly advice talking with a real estate focused accountant here to help guide you.

Ultimately the borrower sold the property before sale so it was a non issue but had they not, and had we continued with default, if we did not restructure the foreclosure (difficult), we would have more than likely had to wait until sale, suffered a loss, then filed a title claim (Time...time...time...) to hopefully be made whole. 

I attempted to file a small claims case but the local property management address was unservable and I would have needed to travel all the way to arizona to attend court.

While that is a huge jump in deductible, my thinking is that we should avoid submitting any claims anyways since that would likely result in premiums being jacked up the following year or even droppage of coverage.

Claim paper losses from your business.#6.

Back then I really wanted to invest into real estate and I did value the knowledge of experts but the sales pitch made me think that my upfront 20k sacrifice would be repaid in a sequential frequency of wholesale deals based on claims of previous students with successful deals, thus reasoning it sequentially.

I plan on submitting claim forms for properties I've sold that fall within the "Settlement Class" as defined by the US District Courts as part of the class action suits against NAR.

Getting large quick doesn't mean you can stay large.Regarding their historical returns, everything they sold was before interest rates started rising, so their claim of "$0 investment lost" may be more a function of timing than skill.I'm mostly curious about their massive 544-unit which was bought at about the worst possible time. 

While that is a huge jump in deductible, my thinking is that we should avoid submitting any claims anyways since that would likely result in premiums being jacked up the following year or even droppage of coverage.Does this make sense?

DSTs (Delaware Statutory Trusts) are as close to passive real estate investing as you can get while still holding real estate and claiming the same tax benefits.