If not, can I do anything to avoid capital gains tax or depreciation recapture beside offset with losses (that I don't have)?

Dylan Vargas are you saying your dump price is selling at a loss equal to what you put in?

Although no leaks were spotted, he said that because my roof is at least 15 years old (not sure of the exact age), the asphalt shingles are rough (petrifying) and suffering heavy granular loss.

Especially if your contract specifies that seller won't sign new leases (but even if not, it might be worth a try), see if he'll agree to a loss to lease concession of 5k to cover your loss on the lease.

Hi there,We've got one investment property now (seller financing) and we're looking to expand, so exploring what we can qualify for with a conventional loan.For the existing property, we put quite a bit of money into it to fix it up 2 years ago, so on paper, we're still operating at a "loss" on our taxes as we continue to offset our earnings with our previous expenses.

Let's say you've depreciated 50% of the home (i.e. you've owned it about 13.5 years and you've taken the depreciation loss each year). 

Not even mentioning the financial loss after renovating and furnishing the property! 

The lease-up costs would include loss rent, rent commissions, and profit for leasing up the building. 

FHA max is 46.99% front ratio for just the property in question and they allow up to 56.99% on the backend which means your entire property expenses + your other expenses (car/cards/other net rental losses/etc) up to 56.99% of the income you have on file.the mention of 50-50.5% is for conventional financing if it even goes .01% above it'll go "ineligible," or fail.

I am with you my friend, the lower level rental marketplace is just not efficient, you get a golden goose here and there, but on a global level, you cannot scale effectively, too much baggage to deal with, resulting in very low returns and very high tenant turnover = loss