I was loosing around 1K monthly just holding the property, so I started to run open houses on my own for one hour or so, talked to people, got very detailed feedback, added some details here and there to stress the advantages and remove attention from disadvantages, got the offer and closed the deal. 

So, I keep hearing about it being great to be classified as a "real estate Professional" for tax purposes. It seems the only benifit is to be able to deduct passive rental losses from ordinary income.. Since I have no...

Add to that the tax disadvantages and other concerns and this starts to become a very risky strategy of dubious benefit to begin with. 

Out of area investors would be at a disadvantage.