The longer that you rent the property more than 1 year the better your argument.On the surface the issue seems easy, less than 1 year, ordinary income, more than 1 year capital gains, but the reality it far from that easy, as I said there are those 8 criteria.Hopefully this is academic question for you and you never have to actually have to go to the mat to defend you're position, its not a pleasant experience.

@Ethan Atkinson, leaving was not our plan, but such are the vagaries of the academic job market.

I participate in other forums where academic discussions about the tax code are the norm.

Example: We may have a student sign a lease, late in the academic leasing season, for an apartment where there is a parking spot available BUT it's a block away (in an area where parking has always been a difficult issue).

I hope they don't take this wrong but those guys give me hope that academics don't get you there. 

Our unit is between 2 universities with large numbers of visiting professors so finding tenants who need fully furnished apartments for extended stays during the academic year is easy. 

I can hope for correction but that is not on any academic forecast either.

In addition, the high number of college-educated parents influences the academic success of the local schools.

I was recently having a conversation with a friend of mine and we were talking about the "curse of knowledge" especially the academic kind.

The "teaching" was a means-to-an-end that enabled them to do what they wanted to do in terms of academic research.