Quote from @Mike Hansen: When out of state investing, how does one go about appealing their tax assessment?

How should I go about assessing homes in this list?  

I recently seperated from active duty went guard and my partner who is active duty and I are trying to combine our VA entitlements as we did previously and co-signed on our previous loan.

Hey @Scott Trench unfortunately real estate losses (active or passive) will not offset portfolio income from stock sale gains. 

If an investor has the time, knowledge, capital and experience to be an active property investor then there are a number of strategies , that, depending on the economic market can be used to accelerate wealth building.  

Contact potential sellers who are not actively seeking to sell their real estate holdings.  

See if they will give you an estimate of the assessment for the property.

At $400/month/cabin, our total annual assessment income is $48,000. 

I retired in 2008 with 21 years in the Air Force.13 sales in your first year is pretty impressive, particularly for someone on active duty.

Now if it was me, I would have gone over myself to initially survey the problem and at the least meet the plumber over there to assess the damage.