Due to the constant upkeep, when you're ready to sell, your property will have much less wear and tear as you would normally expect from traditional long-term tenants.

If I use the HELOC to remodel my house I can deduct the interest like a normal mortgage? 

Hi Ceryn,The question really is this:  Are you looking for lifestyle living for yourself, or, are you looking to build wealth with investment real estate.  

As the more you experience, grow, and learn, you'll have a better understanding of how things work and what ventures may be best suited for your personality and lifestyle preferences.For me, I ultimately want to own large multi-unit buildings where I am mostly hands off.

You want all the normal conditions.

It normally does not matter if the property is FHA or not. 

As the more you experience, grow, and learn, you'll have a better understanding of how things work and what ventures may be best suited for your personality and lifestyle preferences.

@Kerry BairdMy understanding is that is ends up being living in the house 2 years out of the last 15.Normally you have to do 2 out of the last 5 like you posted, but with the exemption you can move the start date of the "last five years", back 10 years if that makes sense.Here is a good military one source article on it. https://www.militaryonesource....The IRS publication also has examples that spell this out.I'm actually in the middle of this right now and waiting for my CPA to give me the final answer.I bought my place in 2013.

As I work through some of the IRS worksheets, I am wondering whether it is normal that there is a difference in the fraction of depreciation one takes on a rental property that was only rented for part of the year, and for deductible expenses incurred during that same year, if the property was idle for a period of time.For example, if I rented out an apartment for the first eight months, then the apartment was vacant for the remainder of the year (needed some work that I did not have time for), would I be able to claim 100% of the depreciation, but only 2/3 of the deductible expenses for that year ?

I am not working with anybody yet as I normally do all of the hard work myself, but would love to hear from somebody who works and lives in the approximate area.