Short term rental, starting out, when is it a rental and tax breaks

[Bill Burkhead]

Hi everyone,

I just purchased a 2nd home/rental condo a few weeks back and am in the process of fixing it up and bringing in furniture, etc. It will take at least a month to have it ready to potentially list as short term rental. Just curious about 2 things:

1. What constitutes a rental vs. a 2nd home for tax purposes?

2. All the money I am spending on maintenance (paint, wall repairs) and new items (washer/dryer, furniture) before I rent it out - is this deductible on my taxes?

Bottom line, we want to be able to use it as a short term rental when it is ready, but want to know if we can stay there sometimes too and when does it become officially a rental so we can benefit from tax write offs/losses and depreciation, etc.

thanks for any help you can provide?