The $1500 operating expenses are things like taxes, insurance, management (even if you do it yourself), maintenance, advertising, office expenses, utilities (even if only during vacancies), legal fees, evictions, damage done by tenants in excess of the security deposit, etc, etc, etc.

Vinyl windows are no maintenance too (except for caulk).

Back when interest rates were around 6.5% I talked to some Mortgage Bankers / Brokers and estimated that if we bought a $150,000 house with a 3% down payment we would be paying the same as we are now after PITI minus tax advantages plus the increased utility bill we would be paying if we had a yard and extra square footage plus maintenance expenses.

Rental properties get deductions for any actual expenses, like taxes, insurance, maintenance, property management, legal fees, tenant damage over the security deposits, etc., etc.

I'd assume your brother would continue doing any maintenance, and that you wouldn't have vacancy or unpaid rent issues.

Taxes are ~$38,500 annually.

Maintenance is only a piece of the 50%, and the part caused by the property itself is only a portion of the maintenance.

In practice, the IRS does not really care whether you claim these things as supplies on your Schedule E or just lump them into your maintenance/cleaning expense on Schedule E.When you depreciate the rental unit, you need to determine its depreciation basis.

I'm just assuming 50% of the rent will go to expenses (taxes, insurance, maintenance, vacancy, property management, tenant damage, legal fees, etc., etc., etc.).

Its due for repairs and maintenance but rent rates make it tough to spend the money at this time.