Now if you spent 5 figures on 5 years stuff, after three years you;re ready to stimulate the economy again by buying more widgets.So depreciate away and save some money.

there are areas that tax's are very low on rural properties... but I do believe unless your a non profit pretty much every property has tax's  then you have big corps that create special tax breaks.city of Portlandia to stimulate growth in certain areas will waive tax's for 10 years... of course the price to purchase is generally 500k or more. but hat saves you 100k over the 10 years.Also in Oregon we have Ag and timber defferals which can make tax's very very low.I owned a 720 acre tree farm and I think my tax's were less than 2k a year... now how they pick up revenue is when we go to log we have to pay Harvest and severance tax's Also if we take land that is in AG deferral and change the use to say a subdivision ( my favorite activity) then we have to pay a deferral tax to get it out of AG and into the new use.. this can be substantial.. depending on the property.. not a deal killer but one needs to be aware of it.

People becoming wealthier and stimulating the economy?! 

I work for the sake of working, the challenges, something to satisfy the needs of a workaholic,  the money is simply a by product.I spent 35 years in a career that was far from stimulating but understood that money makes the world go round.

Once you have them on the phone, you can ask them to describe their house to stimulate conversation.

Hi @Jeffery Neal, I'm a new investor myself so my reply here is not to provide an "answer" but to stimulate the right questions so you can decide what's best for your personal goals.

Because of the lower inventory that's stimulating this raise in home values, rents in Sacramento are surging to higher and higher prices. 

Becca, I am very pleased you found the discussion stimulating.

This does not directly answer your question about shielding rental income from taxes, but might stimulate some other ideas.

I know that they are building a ton out there and they are trying to stimulate economy there and capitalize on tourism based on the below article.