(The smart guys above are covering that topic nicely!

Your brokers going to need to have a good financial incentive to hang your license with them.

It is a nice family neighborhood and i do not want to offer month to month rental. 

It's a nice 3BR1BA house which needs no major repairs and could use cosmetic upgrades such as paint, flooring, landscaping, appliance and cabinet upgrades possibly (which I will all be doing myself while living there).

My IRA has funded rental projects and is getting a nice split in return.

If you look at my posts, I have a nice sized rental portfolio so I am very familiar with all the ins and outs as I share on here a lot of my experience in the area. 

Depreciation is a deduction against passive income (Sch E), and it is never "written off against ordinary gains" (which is not a correct expression either way).Here is the IRS Publication 527 link.Dealing with HOA is not my area of expertise, but I suggest to approach them nicely.

There are lots of nice resort-style condo communities that welcome renters in that range, though.

We spent around $30-40k just in the last year and a half alone as my wife and I were planning on making this our long term house (we didnt anticipate buying a business and moving out of town) and also making this a show piece with upgrades, nice carpentry etc to show people the work Im capable of in the RE world. 

I'm now a licensed real estate agent with Exit Realty Metro (MN) and Homestead Realty (WI)) I am by no means rolling in cash (and proudly enjoy Sports Clips haircuts and obsessing about airline miles for my vacations) but real estate has helped me catch up on my retirement savings and provides a nice second source of income, which helps me stress less about taking on as many clients in my day job (or charging those clients a ton of money).My day job: I’m a political consultant that has managed campaigns, led field programs, designed trainings, or consulted on over 50 campaigns in 18 US states and 8 countries.