Capital gains on primary residence question

[Matt Johnson]

Hello all,

Reading through the forums and am learning a lot.  Seeing if anybody has any out of the box advice

Bought my first house 12 years ago for $398k, fixed it up and sold it last year for 1.225 mil.  It was my primary residence.  Bought a new house last year for 950k and had planned on buying a condo or something with the extra money as a rental property.  
had 150k in improvements and the 500k exemption so was still on the hook for roughly 175k for capital gains.  I make 85k-100k a year and just happen to live in an expensive area, any loopholes or creative ways around the capital gains?  
I already paid and my 22 taxes and everything, it’s just taken away from my hopes of buying a little rental property.  
thx for any advice, hope to keep learning here. Cheers!