legal ??? buy real estate from family member and sell at loss

[Michael B.]

Not sure if this is legal.  I don't want to do anything illegal.  I am just proposing a hypothetical and am wondering what people think.

My parents own a house in Ohio that they paid 230k for.  They moved to Florida a couple of years ago and bought a new house.  The Ohio house is now rented out.  What if I bought the house for 300k.  My parents held the note as interest only.  When they die (God forbid, but it will happen one day), they leave the house to me as inheritance.  If I then sold the house, but it only sold for $250k, could I claim a $50k loss?  Change the numbers around for different outcomes.  Again, just an interesting, hypothetical question.