Real Estate Professional Tax Status ?'s
Hi all, I appreciate your help in advance on this extremely complicated topic.
My wife and I are trying to find out what exact details will count towards the 750 hours of "materially participating" in real estate tasks.
Here is our situation: I have a full time job and my wife is a stay at home mom/manages our rental portfolio. We currently have 3 rental properties (2 bought in 2013, planning on buying 3+ per year). We also have a property manager that manages the properties.
My questions are regarding what activities count towards the 750 hours:
-Does looking for new properties count? (Scouring Zillow for example)
-Does reading books on real estate count?
-Does going to REI club meetings count?
-would listening to real estate podcasts count?
-How about scheduling and working with a contractor to rehab the property prior to it being rented?
-Drive time to and from the rentals (25 minutes away)
-What about preparing our books in Quickbooks?
-Time spent at closings/working on prepping loan paperwork, etc?
-Any other things that I missed that would be good to count towards our hours?
Sorry for all the questions, but I have scoured the web and can't find a thing and the IRS guidelines are about as vague as possible.
Thanks for your help!