I've had a couple tenants use this loophole to either avoid pet rent/deposits, or to get a pet into a no pets building.

I enjoy helping new investors avoid common pitfalls and use loopholes to build their REI portfolio.

This may be challenging with both of you in full-time W2 jobs, but worth considering if one of you can transition to real estate part-time.Alternatively, the Short-Term Rental (STR) loophole offers another path.

On the tax side, I would encourage you to partner with a knowledgeable real estate CPA who can guide you through the transaction to ensure you can meet the qualifications of the STR loophole.

Assuming you don’t meet the 500 hour test, you will likely need to document the time of others spent working on your property.In addition, you need to have guests at your property as well.Until you are 100% sure you can utilize the short term rental loophole, I’d wait to do the cost segregation study.

The Short- Term Rental Loophole Explained (biggerpockets.com)

We even estimate your projected tax savings via the "short-term loophole" and provide branded property management reports and airbnb arbitrage analysis.Personally, I recommend looking at as many data sources as possible and once you're confident with that number plugging it into BNBCalc and sharing the reports with your colleagues / business partners to get their feedback on your investment analysis.

Ali,If you want to learn some of the tips and loopholes on the finance or banking side feel free to reach out or send me an email. 

It is typically your primary job.The 40 hr/week W-2 worker is going to have a hard time convincing an IRS agent they are meeting this threshold.STR loophole is a better path for my friends in this category.Once you finally cross the pro hurdle, you're not done!

If you expect a large tax balance this is why people rush to get it into services ASAPEdit: To also add if the taxpayer qualifies for the "STR loophole" as some call it, even if they don't have much rental income, they could use the losses produced by that STR to offset other income.